From TwinCities.com:

If Democrats don’t defeat U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann at the ballot box this fall, they likely will try to draw her out of her seat after the election.

U.S. Reps. Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison are odds-on favorites to be re-elected next month. But if Republicans get a chance, they’re almost certain to create a single, new Minneapolis-St. Paul district and knock one of them off in 2012.

Those are some of the high-profile offices at stake when the next Minnesota Legislature tackles the once-in-a-decade process of redrawing the state’s political boundaries after new U.S. census figures are released early next year.

Though jobs, the economy and a state budget awash in red ink are the big issues in the current state campaigns, you can bet redistricting is in the back of every legislative and congressional candidate’s mind.

Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1964 “one person, one vote” ruling, the Legislature must draw new lines after each decennial census to ensure that Minnesota’s 201 legislative and eight U.S. House districts have equal populations. That job will fall to the 67 state senators and 134 state representatives who are elected Nov. 2.

For lawmakers, redistricting is intensely personal and can be fiercely partisan. Each legislator’s political career is at stake, as is control of the Legislature and the Minnesota congressional delegation for the next decade.

“This is really a 10-year election,” said Michael Brodkorb, deputy chairman of the state
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Republican Party.

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