Gov. Mark Dayton sent a letter Monday to Rep. Sarah Anderson, R-Plymouth, head of the House redistricting committee, wondering why the bill outlining the guiding principles for the process of redrawing political district lines hasn’t hit his desk yet. Dayton noted that the current bills being offered by the GOP are lacking in terms of ensuring minority representation and other principles that have traditionally been a part of the process. In 2001, he reminded, those bills had already been passed by May 1.

“By this time ten years ago, the Senate had already passed a resolution adopting principles for legislative and congressional plans,” Dayton wrote to Anderson. “The House passed its version on May 1, 2001. With only four weeks remaining in this legislative session, little time remains for adopting principles and developing a bipartisan plan this year.”

Dayton says that the GOP bills on redistricting fall short of historical standards for the state. He wants any principles to “achieve the smallest deviation possible,” to provide “fair representation for racial and language minorities,” to avoid splitting towns and cities when possible, to preserve “communities of interest,” and to avoid creating districts specifically to help or defeat incumbents.

The GOP’s redistricting plan, HF1546 and HF1547, introduced by redistricting commission chair Anderson, contains only a few principles: maintaining compact districts, nesting to keep legislative House districts within Senate districts, and instructions on the numbering system and data to be used in redistricting.

DFLers have introduced their own redistricting principles, HF406, that contain those outlined by Dayton, including representation of minority groups, encouraging political competitiveness and preserving “communities of interest,” defined as “geographic areas where there are clearly recognizable similarities of social, political, cultural, ethnic, or economic interests, or that are linked by common transportation or communication.”

The DFL also wants to create a non-partisan redistricting commission made up of five retired judges that have not served as part of a political party and who are selected by legislative leadership.

Here’s Dayton’s letter:

Despite a crowded field seeking to replace the retiring Gov. Tim Pawlenty in 2010, writes the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, “Democrats have to like their chances given the lean of the state where President Obama won by 10 points in 2008.”

Control of state government is key to the parties’ fortunes as new congressional districts get drawn.

State demographers renewed their warning last week that Minnesota is “on the cusp” of losing a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Polidata projects Minnesota will indeed be one of 10 states losing House seats (pdf).

The Sixth Congressional District now held by Rep. Michele Bachmann, has been identified as a leading contender for elimination due in part to the irregular shape of its boundaries.

By constitutional mandate, redistricting takes place every 10 years: Each state’s legislature must redraw the lines that define congressional and legislative districts. But it rarely happens the same way twice; when politicians fail, judges step in to finish the job.

Stakes are especially high in Minnesota, as the state may lose a congressional seat after the 2010 U.S. Census reapportionment. And if Minnesota loses a congressional seat, the redistricting process will decide whether the district of Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann or another incumbent will be relegated to the history books.

The bill, carried by Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller (DFL-Minneapolis), takes up recommendations from a group led by former Vice President Walter Mondale and former Gov. Arne Carlson.

The Mondale-Carlson group (technically, the Advisory Board for the Minnesota Redistricting Project of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota) proposed saving time and sweat by getting judges to draw congressional- and legislative-district lines before legislators themselves get involved. The reverse sequence — Legislature, then courts — is responsible for the state’s current political lines.

But some who were among the closest to the work of reshaping Minnesota’s political boundaries last time around seem to think the existing system worked pretty well.

Redistricting reform got nowhere last session, but this year Pogemiller pushed through his bill by a vote of 39–28 in the final days before the state Legislature adjourned. Next stop: the House’s Committee on State and Local Government Operations Reform, Technology and Elections, which could hold discussions on the topic before considering the bill itself when the legislative session resumes in February, according to legislative staff.

UPDATE: In an email, Committee Chair state Rep. Gene Pelowski promises that the committee “will be looking at redistricting over the summer and this bill will be included.”

Reform advocates, led by Mondale and Carlson, have argued (pdf) that the current system is “broken” — badly enough that it won’t do for the next round of redistricting after the 2010 census.

The new system would create a commission of five retired appeals court judges to make the first maps of new district boundaries based on the latest census data. The majority and minority caucuses from both the House and the Senate would appoint one judge each. The four judges would together choose a fifth to join them.

Their first plan would go to the Legislature for an up-or-down vote — no changes allowed. If that fails to pass, the commission would work up a second plan, which again would be subject to an up-or-down vote by the Legislature. Only if the second plan fails to pass would legislators have a chance at concocting their own plan.

Musical chairs

Demographic estimates predict the count in Minnesota may fall about 2,000 people short of the number needed to retain the state’s current complement of eight congressional districts. If that happens, the question of which party’s incumbent loses a seat in Congress will fall to the state’s redistricting process — and will likely make the decennially debilitating battles over creating new legislative boundaries look like cake walks.

So the rules for what could become a titanic game of musical chairs matter deeply. And exactly who applies those rules depends on who wins the race for governor next year. If Democrats retain control of the state Legislature but lack veto-proof majorities in both houses, then a Republican in the governor’s mansion keeps things complicated, as both the state’s legislative and executive branches must approve a new plan.

On the other hand, if a Democrat succeeds Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the struggle for the DFL becomes one of drawing the most advantageous plan possible under constitutional requirements.

The last time the state took on this task, after the 2000 census, it was not simply a matter for one party, or even two. For the first time, redistricting was a three-way partisan game: The Independence Party’s Jesse Ventura was governor, Republicans held the House, and the DFL controlled the Senate.

Each assigned a staffer to draw a redistricting plan. (Wielding somewhat less influence were the minority caucuses from each legislative body, whose redistricting staffers included one Michael Brodkorb for the Senate Republicans.)

Veterans of the trenches

Over the past few weeks, the Minnesota Independent interviewed key staffers from each party as well as the man who ran redistricting for the state Legislature: Peter Wattson, now secretary of the Senate.

All had a hand in drawing — or, in Wattson’s case, evaluating — maps that eventually got redrawn by the courts. But all seem satisfied by the result.

Wattson said the redistricting process last time was “pretty orderly, actually.”

Greg Peppin, who drew redistricting maps for the Republican House majority, recalls that “everyone felt that the plan was pretty fair.”

Vic Thorstenson, Peppin’s counterpart for Senate Democrats, said: “We were pretty happy with the court’s plan.”

Joe Mansky, who represented Ventura and the Independence Party, concurred: “We were pretty happy with the outcome,” he said.

That doesn’t mean all four oppose Pogemiller’s plan. Thorstenson and Wattson still work at the Capitol and wouldn’t give their opinions on the reform proposal.

Peppin, now a political consultant, said “the process is just steeped in politics” and reckons that a judicial panel assigned first crack at drawing maps “will not be able to do it better than the Legislature.”

Mansky supports the plan, in part because it hearkens back to a commission Ventura formed for the same purpose.

Popularity and obscurity

In his current role as elections manager for Ramsey County, Mansky became a familiar face this year to the dedicated followers of the Norm Coleman/Al Franken Senate race, due to long hours he spent on the witness stand of the recent election-contest trial.

But seven years ago, the trio toiled over their redistricting maps in relative obscurity — outside of the state Capitol, that is.

“We mapmakers were very popular,” Peppin recalls. Legislators of every stripe were eager to know how things were shaping up — particularly for their home districts. “There was a reason for changing the locks and giving us all fresh keys,” he said.

Thorstenson’s recalls his home-away-from-home during those days the same way: “I was in a room at the State Capitol that even the janitors weren’t allowed to go into.”

Coming: Scenarios past mapmakers see for the redistricting to come

SSP diarist Nathaniel90 has analyzed nearly half the states’ redistricting possibilities, but Minnesota is the first with politics complicated enough to warrant two possible maps — one if Republicans retain the governorship, another if the DFL party somehow breaks its jinx and gains that office in 2010.

Both scenarios assume Minnesota moves from eight to seven congressional districts, jumbling familiar boundaries and district numbers.

The first version, the imagined result of bipartisan redistricting, protects Bachmann’s seat. Instead it pits incumbent Democrat Rep.Tim Walz against incumbent Republican Rep. John Kline in a reconfigured First District in the state’s southeastern corner.

The second version, with Democrats controlling the state Legislature and the governor’s office, puts Kline up against fellow Republican Bachmann in a new district that wraps around the Twin Cities in a U shape. Nathaniel90 concedes, however, that Bachmann still could emerge the victor in a GOP primary battle.

For reference, here’s the current Congressional map. Note: District numbers don’t match because the maps above envision seven districts instead of the current eight.

Related:

Redistricting: What’s It Really About? (Part I)

Redistricting: Losing, Keeping Seat Too Close to Call

So is Minnesota going to lose a seat in Congress?Answer:  It’s too close to call.  Gillaspy told me he ran a projection last December using 2006 population estimates extrapolated out to April 1, 2010 (Census Day), and the results indicated a very close race between Minnesota, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia.  The nominal results indicated that Minnesota would indeed lose a seat, but Gillaspy added that a lot can change between now and April of 2010.  He said a similar situation existed in the late 1980s with Louisiana, and the final outcome “is likely to be close and much will depend on economic and other events between now and then, as well as the quality of the count in each state.”

On population growth in the North Star State, Gillaspy generally confirmed the conventional wisdom that suburban growth has been strong and urban growth stagnant or negative.  “The most rapid growth has been in the suburban and exurban districts.  While counties such as Anoka, Dakota, Washington and western Hennepin continue to see strong growth, the most rapidly growing areas are the next ring of counties including Scott, Carver, Wright, Sherburne, Isanti and Chisago counties.  Many counties [in western and southwestern Minnesota] continue to experience population decline or very slow growth.  The central cities and inner suburbs have also either declined or seen little population growth.  At this time, congressional districts 4 and 5 have the smallest populations, while the 6th District has the largest.”

An aside:  In public policy terms, this strikes at least one political writer as a good reason for strong rural economic development programs and massive improvements to public-transit infrastructure so that kids graduating from school and looking for jobs can live near home and commute to the cities for work, but that is another post altogether.

Gillaspy noted that minority populations are not just concentrated in the Twin Cities but also in northern Minnesota on Native American reservations, but that race and ethnicity issues will be considered by the legislature when they go about redrawing the map in 2010.  He said the same of the idea of combining the 4th and 5th congressional districts districts into one urban district, and of the requirements placed on the burgeoning 2nd and 6th districts — that the outcome will depend largely upon the leanings of those charged with drawing the lines.

So who will be drawing the lines?  Who wants to be involved, and who definitely will be?  Check back this week for more information on that front.