Analysts say the maps make clear that 2012 is the year the state will finally to be forced to deal with population shifts that have been decades in the making.

The new district maps coming in 2012 promise to alter Minnesota’s political landscape for at least the next decade. But one key decision made last week could have an outsized effect — and portend GOP gains — for districts in one very important part of the state: the metro area.

The issues sound as arcane as the redistricting process itself: Should the metro area include seven counties, as it does now, or 11? When is it OK to split counties, cities or townships into separate districts?

Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District should be a battleground in 2012. That’s what the demographics say, at any rate. The Cook Partisan Voting Index ranks it “even” in terms of party edge.

It was just a month ago that Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak got a call from the political director at the Democratic National Committee, who wanted to know he if was interested in serving as one of five vice chairs of the group.

The passage of the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage was the defining moment of the final days of Minnesota’s 2011 legislative session, and the first modern Republican-controlled Legislature is gearing up to bypass DFL Gov. Mark Dayton’s signature again next year and add a few more to the 2012 ballot.

There is a political leadership crisis in Minnesota. The budget deal to end the state government shutdown demonstrates that. The inability of the two sides to strike a deal raises serious questions about the fitness of the governor and the Republican legislative leaders to lead the state and their parties.

Mark Jenkins knows how hard it is to win a legislative election as an Independence Party candidate: He ran last fall in Senate District 55 against DFL incumbent Sen. Chuck Wiger, earning just a little over 7 percent of the total votes in the North St. Paul and Maplewood district.

Gov. Mark Dayton has held the political upper hand throughout the first six months of his tenure. Polling has consistently shown him with approval ratings above 50 percent and widespread public support for his plan to eliminate the state’s $5 billion budget deficit through a mix of spending cuts and tax increases on the state’s wealthiest residents.

On Monday, yet another legal petition regarding the terms of a state government shutdown is expected to be filed in Ramsey County District Court, and this one makes a very simple case: In the event of a shutdown, priority funding should go to — no one. Nothing gets funded. Any such arrangement is illegal on its face according to the Minnesota Constitution.