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By Michael Khoo, Minnesota Public Radio
March 28 2001
Part of MPR's online coverage of The Faces of Minnesota
Political consultants are already sharpening their map-drawing pencils with an eye towards the once-in-a-decade redistricting battle. Sharp growth in the Twin Cities' suburban ring will require lawmakers to redefine legislative and Congressional boundaries to match shifting populations.
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THE STATE'S 2000 CENSUS DATA weren't yet a day old, and to no one's surprise, the state's top two political parties were already at odds over how to use the numbers to redraw political boundaries.
The state has seen the strongest growth in the 11 counties surrounding the Twin Cities. And much of that's come at the expense Minneapolis and St. Paul, which grew at a slower pace. Bill Walsh, who is directing the redistricting effort for the state GOP, contends it's time to condense the the 4th and 5th Congressional seats, representing St. Paul and Minneapolis, respectively, into a single urban district, while creating a new seat in the suburbs.
"The loss of population has been in the core cities. They are similar in nature; they are communities of interest, if you will. They have similar needs in Congress, such as transit needs, housing needs, urban development, economic development, health and human services," according to Walsh.
The 4th and 5th Districts are currently represented by first-term Rep. Betty McCollum and 12th-term Rep. Martin Sabo. Both are DFLers, and Democrats aren't eager to sacrifice one of their incumbents in order to add another suburban district. Moreover, state party chair Mike Erlandson says merging the Minneapolis and St. Paul seats reduces the political influence of urban dwellers.
"The other thing you do by combining Minneapolis and St. Paul is you really weaken the voice that minorities have in the state of Minnesota. You basically condense them into one Congressional district where they now have a strong voice in two. And so I think that is a negative," Erlandson says.
Redistricting is historically a contentious process. The new maps will determine the political landscape and, hence, the balance of power until at least 2010. But this year's process has a new wrinkle: Gov. Jesse Ventura and his Independence Party. Ventura has created a commission to advise him on redistricting, and he's suggested a novel criterion for drawing new boundaries.
Administration official Jack Uldrich says the governor wants to study previous voting patterns and whenever possible, draw boundaries without clear majorities from any party.
"In the past with redistricting, major parties essentially have tried to pick their constituents first. And what we want to do is have districts as competitive as possible so that the citizens of those districts are actually the ones determining who their elected officials are, whether they want them to be a Republican, DFL or Independence or Green Party or any other party, for that matter," says Uldrich.
Conventional wisdom says Republicans perform better than other parties in the suburbs, and the boom in the ex-urban growth has Walsh predicting GOP majorities in both houses of the state Legislature within two years.
Carleton College political scientist Steven Schier says that sounds like wishful thinking. "All this depends on how the lines are drawn and where. Both parties have excellent technology for figuring out which lines work best for them. It all comes down to either a political agreement with the governor or decisions made by the courts, and the courts usually do not radically re-alter or radically alter maps," according to Schier.
All parties say they'd like to reach agreement with going to the courts. But experience doesn't offer much hope. Each redistricting since 1950 has attracted legal challenges, in some cases, before a map had even been drawn.
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