In my dreams, I'd love to see the 4th and 5th congressional districts (St Paul and Minneapolis respectively) combined into one district.
That would rid us of either Keith "Jihad" Ellison or Betty "Rubble" McCollum.
I suspect that, if Minnesota does lose a seat, that they'd likely expand either of the urban districts further out and take in more suburban area.
Or if the re-districters and Democrats, they could combine Jim Ramstad's (3rd CD) and John Kline's (2nd CD) district together.
Comments or opinions - anyone?
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"Minnesota had 10 Electoral Votes in 2000. It will have only 9 in 2012. What was the percent of change?"
Real world examples are always much better than that manufactured stuff from the old textbooks.
No question that with Ellison, they already have one seat too many.
We lost a seat in the last seat census, no reason to think it won't happen again.
In fact, good news really, that's how we carved #2 dem in the house 'Bonior,' out of a job.
There's a couple of critters on the chopping block...
No chance on Minneapolis and St. Paul combining. Too many people, too much of the state’s population. They also won’t take the 8th CD (Oberstar) either, IMO.
Since the Legislature will have to do redisticting it will be a Republican having to run against someone, preferably another Republican. Although calling Jim Ramstad a Republican is admittedly a bit of a stretch.
How much representation is ‘lost’ or shifted due to
counting non-citizens and even illegal aliens for purposes of representation?
It must be a lot.
we should have states make a determination that all congressional districts should be apportioned equally based on the number of citizens of voting age.
In the 2010 census, we should count the number of citizens and divide the districts accordingly.
It’s important we hold the Governorship and win back the legislature so Keef X and Betty Crocker can form a circular firing squad.
And a conservative state will gain one hopefully!
With apologies to Henny Youngman, take my 5th Cong. District, please.
After the 1990 census, Democrats controlled redistricting in a lot more states than Republicans. They tried to gerrymander just right and they spread themselves too thin. Republicans seemed to have made the same mistake in 2000.
How MN gets redistricted when it loses a House seat after 2010 (and it almost certainly will lose a House seat) will depend solely on who controls the state legislature and the governorship after the 2010 elections.
In 2001, Jesse Ventura was governor and the Dems and Republicans each controlled one house, so redistricting ended up in court, where they drew 3 rural districts, 2 urban districts and 3 suburban districts; before that, there were 4 rural CDs (one in each corner of the state) and 2 suburban CDs. Legislative Republicans had wanted to combine the St. Paul 4th with the Minneapolis 5th, but they didn’t have the votes.
If the state GOP has full control of the process in 2011, this is what I would advise that it does:
1. Create a minority-influence district that combines Minneapolis and its most heavily Democrat suburbs with St. Paul and some adjoining suburbs. The district would be defensible as a way of empowering minority voters, and would obviously serve to pack Democrats into a single district.
2. Create a Catholic Democrat district that starts off in the heavily Democrat Iron Range and, hugging the Wisconsin border, extends to St. Paul’s Democrat suburbs. It would be very difficult to draw a reliably Republican district that includes blue-collar Democrats from the Duluth area, and the Democrats in the St. Paul suburbs that would be left out of the combined Twin Cities CD would tend to make whatever district they are in lean Democrat, so combining these two groups in one district would allow a pro-life Catholic Democrat in the James Oberstar mold to be elected while making surrounding districts comfortably Republican.
3.-7. Create 5 GOP-leaning CDs in the rest of the state. The current MN-07, held by conservative Democrat Collin Peterson, could be extended to take in Republican parts of Oberstar’s MN-08 and other surrounding areas: The district would be sure to elect a Republican when Peterson retires, or if he finally switches parties. Southern MN could make up the redrawn MN-01, which would be more Republican than its current incarnation. Suburban GOP districts could be drawn in (i) Washington, Dakota, Scott and Carver counties (Kline), (ii) Hennepin and Wright counties (Ramstad or, hopefully, a pro-life replacement), and (iii) Anoka, Isanti, Chisago, Sherburne, Benton and Stearns counties (Bachmann).
If the GOP can draw 5 Republican CDs out of 7 in the state, it would be a huge victory. The trick is not to get too greedy by trying to draw 6 GOP CDs, or to make the MN-07 so Republican (in an attempt to knock off Peterson) that it gives the Democrats a chance of winning surrounding districts. But before any of that is possible, we need to (i) win control of both houses of the state legislature and (ii) retain the governorship in an open-seat race.
You can count 4 less conservatives in the very near future.
As soon as the daughter finishes high school, we're bailing on this state.
All life-long Minnesotas, all born in the cities -- raised the kids outstate though --- but outstate is getting strange too.
Tax cuts would be a good start to keeping people here. The higher the taxes, the fewer the good jobs and less reason to stay.
At http://www.census.gov/popest/datasets.html
are the latest estimates.
If the 2006 estimates are near right, then MN 8 would get the 435th seat. However there were 4 years left in the decade as of the estimate, so MN would be hard pressed to hold the seat.
It appears GA has already gained a seat (not at the expense of MN yet) — it would have an outside shot at a 2nd...NC and SC appear to be holding even....maybe an outside shot at a seat.
FL looks like +1 already, TX +2, and CA at 0 but all 3 are close to another seat. IL and MI are at 0 and are looking at -1.
If I recall the last time they redrew congressional lines there was talk about combining minneapolis and st. paul but there was lots of objections cause then the inner cities would be underrepresented....or some such gobbly gook. so they expanded those two districts into the suburbs then. I’m sure that’s what they’d do again.