The Delta variant is not driving a hospitalization surge in England, health data shows.

By BY EMILY ANTHES from NYT Health https://ift.tt/3xebPqJ

New top story from Time: When Your Body Counts But Your Vote Does Not: How Prison Gerrymandering Distorts Political Representation

When Floyd Wilson first learned of the term “prison gerrymandering,” he’d already been incarcerated for more than 35 years. He was taking a college seminar in a prison in Graterford, Pennsylvania—the fourth of five correctional facilities he’s lived in over the decades.

Wilson grew up in Southwest Philadelphia and was sentenced to life in prison in 1976 as a juvenile for first degree murder. In every U.S. census that’s taken place since his conviction, he learned that day in class, he’s been counted not as a Philadelphian but as a resident of the county where he was then imprisoned, nearly all of which have been in rural areas hours away from his family. The practice, known as prison gerrymandering, boosts the population of regions hosting large prisons and impacts the drawing of states’ district lines. That in turn distorts political representation by redirecting power from more diverse, urban areas towards whiter, rural ones.
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The impact can be drastic. Currently, Wilson is incarcerated in SCI-Phoenix in Pennsylvania’s District 150, which also includes Montgomery County’s jail. If incarcerated people were not counted as part of District 150’s population, it would lose more than roughly 5,000 people and likely be too small to meet the federal minimum requirements for a state representative, a 2019 study by Villanova University sociologists Brianna Remster and Rory Kramer found. (Democratic State Rep. Joe Webster, who represents District 150 and supports banning prison gerrymandering, tells TIME in an email that “mass incarceration is already bad policy—it shouldn’t be used to undermine the fairness of elections, too.”)

Three other districts would also be too small, Remster and Kramer’s research found; if all the prisoners in the state originally from Philadelphia—roughly a quarter of the state’s prison population as of 2019—were counted as residents of that city, it would likely gain an additional one or two majority-minority state house districts.

Wilson was incarcerated at 17; in the decades he’s spent in prison, he’s never been able to vote. His body is being counted towards a constituency he cannot actually participate in. “My reaction was, this is more of the same… the system being just crooked,” Wilson, now 64, tells TIME. “People capitalizing off of other people’s mistakes or errors.”

Lauren A. Little—Reading Eagle/Getty ImagesInside block D at the State Correctional Institution in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania on June 1, 2018.

Floyd’s 61-year-old sister, Roxanne Wilson, has long wanted to take action. “These inmates are being counted as part of a population that is not true. Period,” she says. “They lived in Philadelphia. They got sentenced in Philadelphia. And then they get shipped to a coal town, and are counted as part of [its] population… We feel this is disproportionate representation.” Wilson has spent the past 40 years advocating for criminal justice reform in Pennsylvania, raising awareness of prison gerrymandering in her community and in the state legislature.

Voting districts are drawn every ten years by state legislators or other appointed commissions based on the results of the U.S. census. As the 2020 redistricting process approaches—deadline varies per state, but some begin this summer—advocates have called for legislators across the U.S. to change how they count prisoners this cycle, arguing that if they don’t take action now, they’ll have to wait another ten years to address the long-running injustice. “Barring unusual circumstances, the districts that are drawn now will determine representation for the next decade,” says Ginger Jackson-Gleich, policy counsel with the Prison Policy Institute (PPI). “It’s absolutely imperative that we take advantage of this moment.”

Because it’s the result of a federal policy, prison gerrymandering is the default. In a 2020 report, PPI pointed out that the 2010 census counted more than 2 million people in the wrong place as a result of the practice. But in the absence of a policy change from the Census Bureau, it falls largely to states to to change their processes. Only 11 have done so, including Connecticut just last month. Those states now require redistricting officials to count incarcerated people where they lived before their conviction; Connecticut’s change that goes into effect this redistricting cycle. (A 2014 report from PPI found that after 2011 redistricting, nine Connecticut state house districts only met the federal minimum population numbers by counting prison populations.)

One common misconception about prison gerrymandering is that it impacts districts’ funding; this largely isn’t true. Most federal funding is allocated to states via block grants—and so, for these purposes, it does not make a significant difference which district an incarcerated person is counted in. Other funding programs largely “ignore prison populations,” per PPI. However, advocates still argue it unfairly shifts political power balances.

Pennsylvania’s State House Democratic Leader Joanna McClinton, who has for years been pushing the state to abolish prison gerrymandering, has put a resolution proposing to end the practice before the state’s Legislative Reapportionment Commission, which creates districts. McClinton, who is a part of the five-member commission, says she is “cautiously optimistic” that this year’s attempt will be successful, given the commission only meets once a decade and wields significant power.

Read more: Whether or Not You’re Able to Vote in Jail May Come Down to Where You’re Incarcerated

Prison gerrymandering particularly distorts political representation along racial lines, and compounds the political disenfranchisement minority communities already face due to partisan gerrymandering and census undercounts. Not only do rural communities gain power as a result, but urban majority Black and brown communities lose it. Entire communities are impacted if they are in areas with a high incarceration rate, because they’re underrepresented.

Remster and Kramer’s research found that about 264,000 people in Pennsylvania—and more than 100,000 Black Philadelphia residents alone—are now underrepresented because they live in districts from where a large number of people are incarcerated in state or county prison and jail facilities. Such warping of political power is often built upon the disproportionate number of Black and brown people housed in America’s prisons, who have to navigate a system infamous for its racism, neglect and abuse—all without the ability to elect a representative. (Only Maine and Vermont allow all prisoners to cast a ballot.)

Joaquin Gonzalez, voting rights attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, which published a prison gerrymandering report in April, describes its impact as “taking these individuals that cannot vote in most states and [amplifying] other people’s political power on their backs.”

Miscounting prisoners

Prison gerrymandering grew into an issue in the U.S. with the onset of mass incarceration starting in the 1970s, driven in part by the war on drugs and mandatory minimum sentencing. Between 1980 and 2013 the incarceration rate more than quadrupled, exacerbating the political distortion of power.

In Pennsylvania, in the over four decades Floyd Wilson has been in prison, the state’s prison population—like those across the country—has ballooned. In 1980, the state had under 10,000 state prisoners. Today, there are around 45,000.

Dozens of state legislative districts nationwide similarly possess inflated political power because of prison gerrymandering.

For example, In two different North Carolina districts—located in Granville and Lumberton Counties—more than 40% of the population is made up of incarcerated people. In Illinois, nearly half of the state’s prisoners come from the Chicago area but close to 90% are counted as residents of downstate prisons, according to PPI. (Illinois banned prison gerrymandering in a bill approved by the governor earlier this year but the legislation will not have an effect until the next census in 2030.)

And in rural East Texas, if House District 8 did not count its prison population, it would lose more than 21,000 residents—which indicates that the total remaining population would fall well below the proportion legally required for a state district, per the Texas Civil Rights Project report. Both Harris County (home to Houston) and Dallas County would also likely have at least one extra state House seat if they counted incarcerated people at home, says Gonzalez, who authored the report—seats that’d be more likely to lean Democratic given their voting trends in recent elections.

The fight to abolish prison gerrymandering

In the last decade, lawmakers have started to take notice of the direct impact the practice can have on political power and take action.

In the long term, advocates say the most effective way to address the issue is at the federal level, and for the U.S. Census Bureau to count incarcerated people as living at their last known residence before incarceration. The current version of the For The People Act, the sweeping voting rights bill stalled in Congress, would do just that for the next redistricting cycle. (The Census Bureau has already been made aware of widespread criticism, accepting 77,000 comments in support of a more equal redistribution of counting prisoners in 2020.) But even if the census does change its process, it would be too late to impact the 2020 redistricting process on a national level.

So the issue falls to the states, where advocates are racing to ensure prisoners are counted according to their last residence as redistricting begins. In some states it’s too late to change this redistricting cycle through the legislative process. Jackson-Gleich of PPI argues that one of the only remaining solutions is to ensure redistricting officials “don’t dump all the prisons in one district.” Until prisoners are counted at their last known residence, she says, the best thing that city, county and other local authorities can do is remove prisoners from tallies that are determining legislative districts. These entities could remove correctional populations from the redistricting data before drawing up their districts.

“[That] sounds a little scary to people,” says Jackson-Gleich. “But because those people in those prisons have no constituent relationship with those elected officials, the best thing for them to do is just to take the prison population out and redistrict among the people who really are constituents.”

Critics point out that even if incarcerated people lack the right to vote, that does not mean they and their communities deserve lesser representation. “Representation is about having someone in government to whom you can address your problems, your concerns, and your hopes for the future. You don’t give those away when you are incarcerated,” says Rory Kramer, the Villanova University sociologist.

Roxanne Wilson tells TIME that she thinks another solution could be allowing incarcerated people to vote, including for the representatives of the district where they’re currently being counted. “If you’re going to elect representatives based on the population of inmates, then they should be allowed to have a say,” she argues.

Floyd Wilson also supports the idea, but is doubtful incarcerated people will ever get access to the ballot. He says a more feasible fix could be to have state representatives visit and listen to the incarcerated people in their district. He sits on the Board of Lifers, a collection of five men who aim to represent the roughly 5,000 prisoners currently serving life sentences in Pennsylvania. He’s been on the board for years, and says that while he’s repeatedly tried to have their state representatives come and speak, he’s had little success. “If we’re going to be your constituents, come in and talk to us,” he says.

In addition, he thinks it must fall to people outside of prison to learn about the issue and take action. “People have to be aware of this kind of thing, he says. “And like anything else, vote on it.”

New top story from Time: Supreme Court Upholds Arizona Voting Restrictions in Another Blow to Voting Rights Act

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that two controversial Arizona voting laws do not violate the Voting Rights Act (VRA), in a decision that weakens the landmark voting rights legislation amid a nationwide debate over Americans’ access to the ballot. The justices split 6-3, with Justice Samuel Alito writing for the conservative majority and the Court’s three liberal members dissenting.

The case, Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, was brought by the Democratic National Committee in 2016 against two Arizona voting laws that ban ballot collection and require officials to throw out ballots cast in the wrong precincts. Voting advocates say both laws discriminate against minority voters, particularly Native Americans, and are in violation of Section 2 of the Act that prohibits racially discriminatory voting laws. A federal appeals court had ruled in the DNC’s favor in 2020, and the Supreme Court overturned that ruling on Thursday.
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The ruling comes as the partisan battle over voting access has escalated in states across the nation this year. Democrats and voting rights advocates say the new ruling will make it harder to fight a raft of GOP-backed voting restrictions introduced since former President Donald Trump ignited widespread and unsubstantiated fears of voter fraud after the 2020 election. As of June 21, 17 states have enacted 28 restrictive voting laws, many of which experts say disproportionately impact voters of color.

Thursday was “a dark day for democracy,” says Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University, in an email. “The Supreme Court took what is one of our country’s bedrock laws, the Voting Rights Act, and gutted it for the second time in eight years, making it much harder to bring claims against state election laws that have a disparate impact on minority voters.”

Republicans welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling that will help protect other new laws that the party says are designed to target voter fraud. The GOP National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel called it a “resounding victory for election integrity.”

Many legal experts agree the ruling will make it harder to use the Voting Rights Act to challenge racially discriminatory voting laws, though to what extent is not yet clear. The Arizona case hinged on how the Court should read Section 2 of the 1965 Act, the only section of the law left with teeth after the Court significantly weakened it in 2013. That year, in its ruling on Shelby County v. Holder, the Court gutted Section 5 of the law, which required jurisdictions with histories of racial discrimination to submit changes to voting laws to the Justice Department or district courts for review. The Court argued the requirement relied on decades-old data. It left Section 2, which prohibits laws that discriminate on the basis of race, as the only tool to challenge restrictive policies.

While the Court ruled on Thursday that Arizona’s policies did not violate Section 2, it declined to announce an official test for all future cases, instead identifying “guideposts” for courts to use going forward. Those included weighing the size of the discriminatory impact of a given law, as well as what other options voters have to cast a ballot, both standards Brnovich and the Arizona GOP had argued for. Justice Alito also stressed in his opinion that the state’s interest in running fair elections must be given a large amount of weight.

Justice Elena Kagan dissented, along with Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, the two other liberal justices on the bench. “Section 2 was meant to disrupt the status quo, not to preserve it—to eradicate then-current discriminatory practices, not to set them in amber,” Kagan wrote in her opinion. She specifically highlighted Georgia’s recently passed election law as problematic for minority voters and referenced the many GOP-backed voting restrictions that have emerged this year, noting how they add barriers to voting by mail and shorten the windows to apply for and return mail ballots.

The ruling will make it much more difficult for people to challenge laws that appear to be “race-neutral”—meaning they in letter apply all voters equally—even if they result in a disparate impact on voters of color, writes Paul Smith, vice president of litigation and strategy at the Campaign Legal Center, which filed an amicus brief in opposition to Brnovich.

Thursday’s ruling is the first time the court weighed in on how Section 2 should evaluate laws that affect how ballots are cast and counted, and could impact rules involving absentee voting, early voting, voter ID laws, and more, says Richard Briffault, a professor of law at Columbia Law School. In order to win a case under Section 2, plaintiffs now must show the “political process in the state is not generally open to minority voters,” that the law in question creates a large burden rather than an “inconvenience” for voters, and specifically has a large impact on minorities compared to white voters, he explains.

The court also made clear that the argument of “preventing fraud is a good argument, even when there is no evidence of fraud,” Briffault says.

But the ruling doesn’t entirely undercut the VRA, as some feared it would. “The Court’s decision today is not the worst-case scenario and will not entirely shut the courthouse doors under Section 2 of the VRA,” says Davin Rosborough, a senior staff attorney with American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, which also filed a brief arguing against Brnovich’s reading of Section 2. But, he adds, it does adopt “a narrow view at odds with the [law’s] history that will in practice undermine the VRA’s intent and make it more likely that only the most blatant and extreme laws may fall under this section.”

To many voting rights’ advocates disappointment, the Biden Administration sent a letter in February to the justices saying it did not believe the Arizona laws violated Section 2, despite the Administration’s stated concern over the expansion of voting rights restrictions across the country. Last week, the Department of Justice sued Georgia over the restrictions in its new expansive voting law, marking the Administration’s formal entry into the voting rights battle. The DOJ mentioned that it will also be evaluating legal action in response to similar laws nationwide, and called on Congress to restore the VRA’s muscle.

In a statement on Thursday, Biden said he is “deeply disappointed” in the Court’s decision and said the ruling “makes it all the more imperative to continue the fight” to pass the voting rights legislation now before Congress, which Democratic state lawmakers and voting rights activists have repeatedly called for. The prospects for doing so look slim. Earlier this month, Senate Republicans blocked the measure, citing states’ rights to run elections and arguing it was designed to benefit Democrats.

Others echoed Biden’s point. “Today’s decision acknowledged the inequitable burden created by Arizona’s laws, including specifically upon Native voters, but indicated that it was not inequitable enough to matter,” said Native American Rights Fund (NARF) staff attorney Jacqueline De León, in a statement calling upon Congress to protect voting rights.

Aderson Francois, a law professor and director of the Voting Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, says in an email that fostering democracy requires making it as easy as possible for Americans to become voters, cast a vote and have their vote counted. “Arizona’s laws, along with the other slew of voting rights restrictions that were passed after November 2020, make it clear that many states are not necessarily interested in democratic self-rule,” Francois says. “Today’s decision effectively sends a signal to these states that it’s ok if they’re not.”

Prioritizing People to Build Back the Economy

By BY RASHIDA TLAIB AND EDUARDO SUPLICY from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2SCkq7A

Weisselberg, ‘Soldier’ for Trump, Faces Charges and Test of His Loyalty

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Jack Downing, C.I.A. Chief in Cold War Capitals, Dies at 80

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Democrats Have a Year to Save the Planet

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New top story from Time: Smallville Actor Allison Mack Sentenced to Three Years in Prison in NXIVM Sex Cult Case

(NEW YORK) — TV actor Allison Mack, who played a key role in the scandal-ridden, cult-like group NXIVM, was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday on charges she manipulated women into becoming sex slaves for the group’s spiritual leader.

Mack — best known for her role as a young Superman’s close friend on the series “Smallville” — had previously pleaded guilty to the charges and began cooperating against NXIVM leader Keith Raniere. Prosecutors credited her with helping them mount evidence showing how Raniere created a secret society of brainwashed women who were branded with his initials.

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At her sentencing in Brooklyn federal court, Mack renounced the self-improvement guru.

“I made choices I will forever regret,” she said, also telling the judge she was filled with “remorse and guilt.”

“I am sorry to those of you that I brought into NXIVM,” she wrote in a letter filed with the court last week. “I am sorry I ever exposed you to the nefarious and emotionally abusive schemes of a twisted man.”

She reiterated her apologies to the victims in court on Wednesday: “From the deepest part of my heart and soul, I am sorry.”

Mack wept at times while reading her statement to the court. U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis told her he believed her apology was sincere, but said she deserved a serious sentence for using her celebrity to groom victims as “a willing and proactive ally” and “essential accomplice to Raniere’s monstrous crimes.”

Under advisory sentencing guidelines, Mack had faced between 14 and 17 1/2 years behind bars, but her defense team argued in court papers that probation or a sentence to home confinement was more appropriate. Prosecutors had agreed that any prison term should be below the guidelines range because of her cooperation.

“The NXIVM saga and the story of Ms. Mack’s descent have been a tragedy for all involved. But that need not, and should not, be the end of the story for Allison Mack,” her lawyers wrote in court papers.

A victim, Jessica Joan, rejected Mack’s apologies, telling the judge the actor deserved no mercy.

“She can blame Keith all she wants but she is a monster cut from the same cloth,” Joan said in court on Wednesday. “Allison Mack is a predator and an evil human being.”

Mack, 38, was once part of the inner circle of Raniere, whose group attracted millionaires and actors among its adherents. Prosecutors said she became a “master” for “slaves” she ordered “to perform labor, take nude photographs, and in some cases, to engage in sex acts with Raniere.”

As authorities closed in on Raniere, he fled to Mexico with Mack and others to try to reconstitute the group there. He was arrested and sent to the United States in March 2018; Mack was arrested a few days later.

“Ms. Mack now understands that this was the best thing that could have happened to her at that time,” the defense papers said.

Mack provided information to prosecutors about how Raniere, now 60, encouraged “the use of demeaning and derogatory language, including racial slurs, to humiliate ‘slaves,’” the government papers said. More importantly, she provided a recording of a conversation she had with Raniere about the branding, they added.

The branding should involve “a vulnerable position type of a thing” with “hands probably above the head being held, almost like being tied down, like sacrificial, whatever,” Raniere told her. The women, he added, “should say, ‘Please brand me. It would be an honor.’ Or something like that.”

Raniere was sentenced last year to 120 years in prison for his conviction on sex-trafficking charges. A 41-year-old heir to the Seagram’s fortune, Clare Bronfman, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison in September for her role as Raniere’s unwavering benefactor.

Mack was allowed to remain out on bail in home confinement until surrendering to prison on Sept. 29. She left the courthouse on Wednesday without speaking to reporters.

New top story from Time: Bill Cosby’s Sexual Assault Conviction Overturned, Paving Way for Immediate Prison Release

(PHILADELPHIA) — Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and opened the way for his immediate release from prison Wednesday in a stunning reversal of fortune for the comedian once known as “America’s Dad,” ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.

Cosby, 83, has served more than two years of a three- to 10-year sentence after being found guilty of drugging and violating Temple University sports administrator Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He was the first celebrity tried and convicted in the #MeToo era.
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The former “Cosby Show” star was arrested in 2015, when a district attorney armed with newly unsealed evidence — the comic’s damaging deposition testimony in a lawsuit brought by Constand — brought charges against him days before the 12-year statute of limitations ran out.

But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that District Attorney Kevin Steele, who made the decision to arrest Cosby, was obligated to stand by his predecessor’s promise not to charge Cosby. There was no evidence that promise was ever put in writing.

Justice David Wecht, writing for a split court, said Cosby had relied on the former district attorney’s decision not to charge him when the comedian gave his potentially incriminating testimony in the Constand’s civil case.

The court called Cosby’s arrest “an affront to fundamental fairness, particularly when it results in a criminal prosecution that was forgone for more than a decade.”

The justices said that overturning the conviction, and barring any further prosecution, “is the only remedy that comports with society’s reasonable expectations of its elected prosecutors and our criminal justice system.”

A Cosby spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Nor did a Steele representative, Constand or her lawyer.

“FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted — a miscarriage of justice is corrected!’ the actor’s “Cosby Show” co-star Phylicia Rashad tweeted.

“I am furious to hear this news,” actor Amber Tamblyn, a founder of Time’s Up, an advocacy group for victims of sexual assault, said in a Twitter post. “I personally know women who this man drugged and raped while unconscious. Shame on the court and this decision.”

Four judges formed the majority that ruled in Cosby’s favor, while three others dissented in whole or in part.

Even though Cosby was charged only with the assault on Constand, the trial judge allowed five other accusers to testify that they, too, were similarly victimized by Cosby in the 1980s. Prosecutors called them as witnesses to establish what they said was a pattern of criminal behavior on Cosby’s part.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices voiced concern about what they saw as the judiciary’s increasing tendency to allow testimony that crosses the line into character attacks. State law allows “prior bad acts” testimony only in limited cases, including to show a crime pattern so specific it serves to identify the perpetrator.

But the court declined to say whether five other accusers should have been allowed to testify, considering it moot given the finding that Cosby should not have been prosecuted in the first place.

In New York, the judge presiding over last year’s trial of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, whose case had sparked the explosion of the #MeToo movement in 2017, let four other accusers testify. Weinstein was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison. He is now facing separate charges in California.

In May, Cosby was denied paroled after refusing to participate in sex offender programs behind bars. He has long said he would resist the treatment programs and refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing even if it means serving the full 10-year sentence.

Prosecutors said Cosby repeatedly used his fame and “family man” persona to manipulate young women, holding himself out as a mentor before betraying them.

Cosby, a groundbreaking Black actor who grew up in public housing in Philadelphia, made a fortune estimated at $400 million during his 50 years in the entertainment industry. His trademark clean comedy fueled popular TV shows, books and standup acts.

He fell from favor in his later years as he lectured the Black community about family values, but was attempting a comeback when he was arrested.

The AP does not typically identify sexual assault victims without their permission, which Constand has granted.