Polinaut: December 1, 2008 Archive

The Daily Digest: 12-1-08

Posted at 7:52 AM on December 1, 2008 by Tom Scheck
Filed under: Daily Digest

The Senate recount resumes this morning after a four day break for Thanksgiving. They hope to finish the recounting by Friday.

The Star Tribune says Democrat Al Franken faces a math problem.

The U of M's Smart Politics blog says a win by GOP Sen. Coleman lead would be historic. They say it would be the first time a GOP Senator was elected to the Senate when a Democratic presidential candidate won the state by double digits or more.

The Star Tribune profiles Ramsey County Elections Director Joe Mansky.

State Government

The revenue forecast is released this Thursday and it won't be pretty. The Star Tribune and MPR have stories.

DFL House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher said a large budget shortfall creates challenges in the upcoming session.

DFL Rep. Tom Rukavina tells the Minnesota Daily that everything is on the table including already passed capital investment projects.

The Star Tribune says a program that helps poor and minority students could face the budget axe.

KARE says budget problems could cause problems for the Vikings stadium quest.

Gov. Pawlenty will meet with President-elect Obama and Vice-President-elect Joe Biden tomorrow. Pawlenty is a part of a bipartisan group of governors who will talk about how the economic crisis is impacting states. MinnPost has the story (Note: The meeting is in Philadelphia not Washington D.C. as MinnPost reports).

Mayors will also hit up the feds for some cash.

The Outdoor Heritage Council meets today.

Four suburbs are working to court light rail.

The U of M will hold a forum on redistricting today. Minnesota could lose a Congressional seat in 2010.

The firesafe cigarette rule starts today.

First Lady Mary Pawlenty will light the Christmas tree at the Governor's Mansion tonight sans Gov. Pawlenty.

Obama

President-elect Obama will release his national security team today.

The New York Times says Hillary Clinton will be Secretary of State.

AP says Obama will broaden the role of genetics into medical care.

Congress

DFL Sen. Amy Klobuchar starts a jobs tour.

She says her vote for the bailout bill was a difficult decision.

The Washington Post says the Senate could give Obama some early victories. Klobuchar is mentioned.

DFL Rep. Collin Peterson is in Europe to talk about regulating credit default swaps.

Will Minnesota lose a seat in Congress?

Posted at 10:00 AM on December 1, 2008 by Tim Nelson (2 Comments)

With the U.S. Census set to open an office in St. Paul tomorrow, political discussion focused this morning on Minnesota's eight U.S. House seats. The Humphrey Institute is holding a forum on redistricting reform today.

State demographer Tom Gillaspy said, as it stands now, Minnesota's "last seat" has fallen off the bottom of the Congressional roster, below Washington state's 9th and California's 53rd.

Here's the upshot: Congress has been fixed at 435 seats for almost 100 years. Each state gets one Representative, and the other 385 are doled out proportionately. But the population - and the makeup of Congress - have been moving to the Sun Belt. Texas is likely to get four new seats, for example, and those seats have to come from somewhere else.

Minnesota's "last district" (it could be any of the current eight) now stands 387th on the probable ranking that Gillaspy has drawn up.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that Minnesota is only about 1,800 people from making the list. That's about two weeks of population growth in Minnesota. "It's close," Gillaspy told the legislators and political wonks who turned out for the discussion. "It's closer than the Senate recount right now."

And with exactly 16 months before Census Day (April 1, 2010), there's still time to close the gap. Heck, there's still time to even "grow your own," if you were of a procreational mind about Congressional representation.

Gillaspy suggested something with a shorter gestational period: "When you get those census forms," he joked, "Fill 'em out early and fill 'em out often."

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