Minnesota has been on the bubble in the last few years as to whether or not it will lose a Congressional district in the next decennial reapportionment, but given the state's outsized economic drubbing in the current recession, I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that Minnesota will indeed forfeit one of its districts and electoral votes. Besides the people of Minnesota, the biggest casualty of this arrangement seems very likely to be one of America's most reviled Congresspersons....the noxious Michelle Bachmann.
This diary is very much inside baseball so try to bear with me if you're not from the state. Minnesota's redistricting process is, at least in theory, a compromise by the Governor and the Legislature. Due to partisan bickering between THREE parties in 2001 (Independent Governor Ventura, the DFL Senate, and the GOP House), no agreement was arrived at and a nonpartisan panel of judges drew up a pretty reasonable and competitive set of Congressional district and legislative district lines. Going into 2011, it's a pretty safe bet that the Democrats will control both Minnesota's Senate and House given how large their majorities are (it's likely they'll lose seats in 2010 but I have a hard time believing 2-1 DFL majorities will be wholly decimated). The Governor's race remains a mystery, but given that the Independence Party spoiler-of-the-year seems very likely to take away its usual 5%+ of would-be Democratic voters, the safe money is that the Republicans will hold the Minnesota Governor's mansion in the next election with or without Pawlenty (my bet is that he throws in the towel).
If this comes to fruition, the Democrats should have a better bargaining position in 2011 than they did 10 years prior. If given the opportunity, Republicans would merge most of the existing MN-04 and MN-05 and thus pit Democrats Ellison and McCollum against each other in the primary while simultaneously improving GOP prospects everywhere else in the metro area. Barring a 2010 DFL calamity in the polls, that's unlikely to happen, so what does that leave?
Tim Walz lives in Mankato in south-central Minnesota. John Kline lives in Lakeville in the southern Minneapolis-St. Paul exurbs. Erik Paulsen lives in Eden Prairie in western Hennepin County. McCollum lives in Little Canada a couple of miles north of St. Paul. Ellison lives in Minneapolis. Collin Peterson lives in Detroit Lakes way up in northwestern Minnesota. And Jim Oberstar lives in Chisholm in northeastern Minnesota's Iron Range. Their respective geographic location would make it logistically difficult to pit them against each other in any redistricting scheme. Yet Minnesota is still likely to lose a Congressional seat. That leaves only one sitting Congressional incumbent who seems to get the short end of the geographic stick....Michelle Bachmann.
Bachmann lives near Stillwater east of St. Paul. Washington County, where the city is located, is the least Republican portion of her oddly shaped district. It seems a near-certainty that Bachmann will be the incumbent to face off against another incumbent, most likely either Oberstar or McCollum, while forfeiting the majority of her existing district (and likely losing the most Republican turf). My bet is that it unfolds as such....
Collin Peterson in MN-07 regains most of the St. Cloud area that his district lost in 2001 and the rest of Bachmann's western exurban terrain is split between Oberstar, Kline, and Paulsen, whose districts will all have to grow in size to account for the lost Congressional district. Without wingnut-heavy Sherburne and Wright Counties on the district's west side, Bachmann can't win. And whether McCollum's district lines move east to pick up the Stillwater area or Oberstar's district lines move south to pick it up, Bachmann is almost certainly finished.
My hunch has always been that Bachmann is too conservative to be a comfortable fit for any Minnesota Congressional district, even the heavily GOP 6th district. Her 2008 re-election is entirely the product of a fourth-rate Independence Party candidate taking a full 10% of the anti-Bachmann vote away from Democrat El Tinklenberg. I suspect that even if existing district lines largely prevail and Bachmann avoids further serious embarrassments (fat chance), there will be a slow drip-drip realization of what a terrible person she is similar to the trajectory of the voters in Colorado's 4th district's recognition of fellow vile GOP Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave. The blind luck of MN-06's current district lines made Bachmann's election possible. It still pisses me off that Minnesota, as a result of its perennial high turnout, can produce more voters every election cycle that states with 11-12 electoral votes yet still stands to lose a district of its own, but if everything plays out as planned and Bachmann is the casualty, I will certainly feel less aggrieved about the matter.