Citizens Say Keeping Cities Together Is Key in Redrawing District Lines

When Senate and House district lines inevitably are redrawn, some residents are concerned that cities will not be kept together.

This is why several nonpartisan nonprofits, led by the League of Women Voters Minnesota, have formed a citizens’ commission of 15 members known as Draw the Line Minnesota. Draw the Line has two primary goals: produce maps through a fair, open and participatory process; and modeling a process that can inform discussions about larger reform.

The group hosted a meeting Tuesday, Aug. 16, in Minnetonka to hear input from people in the state’s 3rd Congressional District. Twenty concerned residents came to City Hall in a downpour to give their testimony or find out more information prior to the drafting of maps.

Currently, District 3 is comprised of Minnetonka, Edina, Eden Prairie, Plymouth, Coon Rapids, Maple Grove, Brooklyn Park, Bloomington and surrounding communities. In order to balance representation in Congress, each Minnesota congressional district would have to include 662,991 residents for the next decade. District 3 has 650,185 people, and 12,806 will have to be added, according to recent Census numbers.

“When you take parts of other cities, they are much less inclined to feel that they are the same part of the Senate district as those who are in the majority because most of the precincts are in the same city,” said Lynn Swon, an Edina resident who is involved with the Republican party. “It’s really a challenge when you have little bits and pieces who don’t feel that commonality.”

After looking at the maps created by the Legislature that did not pass into law this session, Minnetonka resident Joyce Anderson is concerned that it will happen to her.

“I already have, like, three school districts. I’m in Hopkins and then there’s Minnetonka and Robbinsdale,” Anderson said. “I was concerned when I noticed my little area of Minnetonka was chunked out and put with Golden Valley and St. Louis Park. That doesn’t make sense to me.”

David Wheeler, project coordinator of Draw the Line Minnesota, said it has been 50 years since the Legislature, which is tasked with redistricting, has been able to complete the process. If state lawmakers don’t get the job done, the decision goes to the courts.

“This year is no different,” Wheeler said. “It’s gone to a panel of five judges—good people, but most of us who care so much about the process believe that it is very important to have input from citizens during the whole process of redistricting.”

Citizens voiced other concerns besides keeping cities together, such as keeping districts politically competitive and making sure citizens are informed of why a line ends up being drawn the way it is. 

“We talked about having maybe three maps to present to the judges,” Wheeler said. “We may rank them, we may not.”

Draw the Line will come back to District 3 with several maps highlighting different principles used for deciding the lines. Then the group will decide how to choose between the maps or have all of them presented to the court. No time, date or place has been set for the next meeting. 

Wheeler said the map created in the Legislature and other groups will probably present their maps to the judges.

What is redistricting?

Redistricting is the process of redrawing the boundaries of election districts and is done in the U.S. after the completion of the Census every 10 years. The purpose of redistricting is to ensure that the people of each district are equally represented.

In Minnesota, the state Legislature has statutory responsibility for redistricting congressional, legislative and Metropolitan Council districts. County boards are responsible for redistricting county commissioner districts, city councils for redistricting city wards and school boards for redistricting board member districts. 

Minnesota has eight congressional districts, and the population shifts creating the need to redraw political lines were expected even before the 2010 Census. Population had boomed in the suburban and ex-urban areas north and south of the Twin Cities. It grew much more slowly in the urban core and the rural areas.

What was found out from the Census?

What the census numbers confirm is that Minnesota's 6th district is now home to 759,478 people. The district includes most or all of Benton, Sherburne, Stearns, Wright, Anoka and Washington counties.

Another large population growth happened in Minnesota's District 2. The Census found its population to be 732,515 people. The district contains all of Carver, Scott, LeSueur, Goodhue and Rice counties as well as most of Dakota County and a part of Washington County.

Thousands of people have to be cut away from those two districts as part of the process.

None of the other six districts grew as quickly and all of them will have to gain people to arrive at 661,991 people per district. Those needing the greatest gains are the 4th and 5th districts in the core of the Twin Cities.