With most major finance bills clearing the House and Senate floors, attention will now turn towards conference committees this week. Conferees on several bills have already been appointed by legislative leaders.

As he talked about meeting with thousands of potential voters on the campaign trail, Jason Metsa found himself using a certain word, and paused to acknowledge what it meant. “Those people are now my constituents,” he said.

n the four months since legislative maps were released, political strategists and journalists have been scrutinizing the new House and Senate districts to determine which ones favor Republicans or Democrats and where the key battlegrounds will be in 2012.

It was one of those votes no one wanted to take. The state’s new maps dropped DFL senators and allies John Marty and Mary Jo McGuire into Senate District 66, forcing activists in the area to pick between them at a recent endorsing convention.

Connie Bernardy, who retired from the House in 2006 after five years in the chamber, bested Tom Tillberry after only one ballot at a gathering of delegates at Columbia Heights High School. Tillberry replaced Bernardy in the House after she retired.

DFL Sen. Ken Kelash lost his endorsement bid in the newly drawn Senate District 50. He said he will abide by the endorsement of Melissa Halvorson Wiklund.

Minneapolis DFLers lost another legislator last weekend. Freshman Rep. Marion Greene, who replaced former DFL House Speaker and gubernatorial candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher in the chamber, fell in an endorsement contest against DFL House colleague Frank Hornstein.

The most anticipated political event of the year at the Capitol — the unveiling of court-drawn state legislative and congressional districts that will be used for the next decade — arrived at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

Former teacher Joe Brothers has registered to challenge Wolf, joining former Rep. Connie Bernardy in hoping to unseat the first-term Republican.