TruthToTell Oct 25: REDISTRICTING 2011: First, Consider Your Cities – Audio file below

And now it begins – at least at the local level. The battle over who is represented by whom for the next ten years is under way with discussions about the upshot of population growth or shrinkage in some districts as well as shifts from one district to the next – or several miles away. As the 2010 Census figures are compiled for presentation early next year, coalitions are forming to ensure that statewide redistricting is seriously reformed after decades of Legislative redistricting wound up in the courts – and still safe districts for incumbents were the outcome. When once we thought it possible Minnesota’s eight Congressional districts might be whittled to seven by the Census outcome, it now appears we’ll hold the eight by a very slim margin – as little as 1,500 souls.

Minneapolis has a question on the November 2nd ballot asking whether the city’s Charter Commission should be the body to redraw City Ward and Park District lines, unlike the political-party-appointed Redistricting Commission, which ten years ago found itself under a cloud for its DFL-heavy redistricting out of Green Party incumbents and other anomalies which landed the entire process in court. This time out, the struggle is over whether the Charter Commission, itself questionably representative of the city as a whole, is likely to properly redraw the city’s lines of representation. (Under state statute, all Charter Commissions are appointed from pools of self-selected applicants by the chief judge of the appropriate district court of jurisdiction, in this case the Chief Judge of the Hennepin County District Court.)

Saint Paul’s Charter Commission is itself the city’s redistricting commission (Disclosure: your servant was a member of that body for eight years back in 1990 and was part of the redrawing of St. Paul’s Ward boundaries). Many think that’s enough. But, again, with chief judges appointing (Ramsey County, in this case), can it be as representative of the city’s diversity or not?

And yet, how to ensure diversity, anyway?

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN query those zeroing in on this issue – some for the coming referendum in Minneapolis, the others for Saint Paul or the statewide planning process quickly coming into place for 2011 and 2012.