Five candidates for public office advertise their campaigns in a blackface minstrel show pamphlet. From the Minnesota Historical Society pamphlet collection, St. Paul.

Advertisements in the Big Minstrel Jubilee pamphlet (1924)

Five candidates for public office advertise their campaigns in a blackface minstrel show pamphlet. From the Minnesota Historical Society pamphlet collection, St. Paul.

Oil-on-canvas portrait of Governor Arne Carlson by Stephen Gjertson, 1999

Arne Carlson

Oil-on-canvas portrait of Governor Arne Carlson by Stephen Gjertson, 1999,

Campaign poster for gubernatorial candidate Wendell Anderson, 1970.

Wendell Anderson campaign poster

Campaign poster for gubernatorial candidate Wendell Anderson, 1970.

Portrait of Governor Karl Rolvaag, ca. 1965.

Karl Rolvaag

Portrait of Governor Karl Rolvaag, ca. 1965.

Senator Lloyd L Duxbury Jr. from the Minnesota Legislative Manual, 1963.

Lloyd L. Duxbury Jr.

Senator Lloyd L Duxbury Jr. from the Minnesota Legislative Manual, 1963.

Portrait of Judge Gunnar Hans Nordbye, ca. 1950. Photo by Arthur B. Rugg, Minneapolis Star and Tribune Company.

Judge Gunnar Hans Nordbye

Portrait of Judge Gunnar Hans Nordbye, ca. 1950. Photo by Arthur B. Rugg, Minneapolis Star and Tribune Company.

Portrait of Judge Robert C. Bell, 1934.

Judge Robert C. Bell

Portrait of Judge Robert C. Bell, 1934.

Portrait of Judge John B. Sanborn Jr.

Judge John B. Sanborn Jr.

Portrait of Judge John B. Sanborn Jr.

Portrait of Judge John B. Sanborn Jr.

Judge John B. Sanborn Jr.

Portrait of Judge John B. Sanborn Jr.

Legislative Redistricting, 1959–1993

By the late 1950s Minnesota’s legislative districts—last configured in 1913—had become alarmingly imbalanced. Though the state constitution required the districts to be drawn “in proportion to population,” the populations of House districts ranged from 7,290 residents to 107,246, and Senate districts from 16,878 to 153,455. It would take fourteen years, three federal lawsuits, three special sessions of the legislature, three governor’s vetoes, one trip to the Minnesota Supreme Court, and one to the US Supreme Court to fix the problem, and then temporarily. Twenty years and one more governor’s veto later, the US Supreme Court intervened again.

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