Political operatives who have been crunching the numbers and talking to candidates see no shortage of swing districts in this year’s legislative elections. The new redistricting maps have tweaked the partisan complexion of many districts.

In surveying the 2012 campaign cash landscape in Minnesota, it’s not immediately obvious who’s going to help Republican legislators defend their majorities.

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.

The bill emerged largely as introduced Wednesday, except for a nominal amount of funds for a Mankato civic center, which supporters added as a placeholder Thursday morning.

A year after Republican legislators joined forces with DFL Gov. Mark Dayton to enact changes to state education policy, the GOP’s 2012 K-12 agenda is foundering.

With significant questions about its implementation and cost, the Senate Finance Committee sent a Voter ID constitutional amendment to the Rules Committee.

Assistant Senate Minority Leader Terri Bonoff predicted Friday that the bill -- which has drawn the ire of teachers and some DFLers -- would pass and head to the governor's desk.

David Lloyd, owner of a financial advisory practice, has registered to challenge DFL Rep. John Benson in House District 43B, a seat the benson won with about 51.5 percent of the vote in 2010.

It was the inaugural hearing of the newly founded Minnesota Sunset Advisory Commission, and for those who worked hard to shepherd the group through the legislative process, William Eggers was saying all the wrong things.

Nobody knows what the legislative maps will look like in 2012. The politically charged redistricting process will almost certainly be decided by the courts, most likely in February. But that uncertainty over legislative district boundaries hasn’t stopped numerous challengers on both sides of the aisle from declaring their candidacies.