Monday,  March 31, 2014 • Vol. 16--No. 256 • 18 of 32

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which elects its own House member. Those single-member House districts were created to give American Indian voters a better chance to elect candidates of their choice.
• Frerichs said rural districts are getting too large, and a move to all single-member House districts would help put lawmakers closer to their constituents.
• His redrawn District 1 in northeastern South Dakota, a traditionally Democratic region, now includes Roberts, Marshall and Day counties and the northern part of Brown County. The new boundaries put five incumbent Democratic lawmakers into that one district.
• "It just makes the district too wide," he said. "There would have been other ways to split it up. It's basically trying to pack us in the one area."
• Frerichs said prior to redistricting, seven of the nine lawmakers in northeastern South Dakota's three districts were Democrats. That number dropped to five after the change.
• Lust said he's sympathetic to the call for single-member House districts but he doesn't think they're the answer. He said rural legislators could be given higher travel budgets to help them meet their constituents.
• During this latest redistricting round, the committee spent most of its time trying to reach a consensus on the Native American districts and there's nothing it can do about the state's continued migration to its urban centers, he said. Legislators have no choice but to expand those boundaries to bring the districts up to the needed numbers.
• "They are just huge, and that's going to continue," Lust said.
• Frerichs said Democrats can help improve their numbers in the Legislature by recruiting strong challengers. He said the House and Senate would benefit from more lawyers and "rank and file farmers."
• "It still all comes back to running quality candidates," he said.
• Lust said he's glad the state doesn't have to deal with redistricting on a national political level.
• "You want to talk about a battle, that is where the battles are," he said.

Heavy snow to hit parts of the Dakotas, Minnesota

• GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) -- A combination of heavy snowfall and very strong winds is expected to create blizzard conditions in parts of the Dakotas and northwest Minnesota.
• The National Weather Service expects the snow to begin late Sunday and continue into Monday evening. The snowfall will become especially heavy late Monday

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