The proposed bill introduces the "Residence of Individuals in Government Custody Act," which aims to ensure that individuals in government custody are counted at their actual residences for redistricting purposes. The bill mandates the Department of Corrections to collect and maintain an electronic record of the legal residence and demographic data of individuals entering custody after January 1, 2026. This record will include the last known complete street address prior to incarceration, race, ethnicity, and age.

The Department of Corrections is required to report this information annually to the Division of Statewide Planning by May 1 of each year, detailing the street address of the correctional facility, the last known address of the individual, and demographic information. The data provided must not include the names of incarcerated individuals and must be treated as confidential, only to be disclosed in aggregated form for redistricting purposes.

The Division of Statewide Planning is tasked with preparing redistricting population data that reflects incarcerated individuals at their residential addresses, rather than their places of incarceration. This data will serve as the basis for congressional districts, state house of representative districts, state senate districts, and local government districts based on population. The division must ensure that individuals are not counted in population totals for geographic units that do not include their legal residence.

The data prepared by the Division of Statewide Planning must be completed and published no later than thirty days after the federal decennial data is published or forty-five days after the effective date of the chapter, whichever is later. Additionally, the data collected under this act will not be used for the distribution of state or federal aid. The provisions of the act are severable, meaning that if any part is held invalid, the remaining provisions will still be effective.