MARSHALL — Legislative redistricting maps released this week brought some changes for Marshall area voters — but they weren’t drastic, area legislators said.

While the new congressional and state legislative districts have different borders, they won’t change so much that any current area legislators are paired in one district.

One notable change is that all of Lyon County will be in one Minnesota House and Senate district again. The last time the whole county was in a single district was in 2011, said David Sturrock, political science professor at Southwest Minnesota State University.

On Tuesday, a special panel of five state judges released new maps for U.S. House districts and Minnesota Senate and House districts. The maps were re-drawn based on population data from the 2020 U.S. Census, and will be used for the next 10 years.

The new district lines will take effect next year.

“As widely expected, the special judicial panel made minimal changes to the eight U.S. House districts. Lyon and neighboring counties remain in the 7th District. At least six of the eight seats are likely to be retained by the same parties, at least for the short term,” Sturrock said. “The First District, which starts with Luverne, Jackson and Sleepy Eye and runs to the Mississippi River, still leans Republican, while the Second District in the southern metro retains a slight DFL majority.”

The boundaries for state legislative districts changed more, but the region around Marshall was only lightly affected, Sturrock said. Lyon County will be part of the new House District 15A, which includes Lyon, Yellow Medicine and Lac qui Parle counties; and the new Senate District 15, which includes Lyon, Lac qui Parle, Yellow Medicine, Redwood and Brown counties as well as part of Blue Earth County.

The new districts also include the whole city of Granite Falls, which is partly in Yellow Medicine County and partly in Chippewa County.

“Because of slower population growth, southern Minnesota was going to lose one House seat, but the panel chose to squeeze a seat in the Fairmont-Albert Lea area while leaving intact all of the southwest Minnesota districts,” Sturrock said.

“When the courts do (redistricting), many times there’s not any major changes,” said Sen. Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls.

“It worked out very well,” Dahms said of the new district map.

The new Senate District 15 picks up townships and cities in southern Lyon and Redwood counties that are currently in another district. It also made sense to keep the city of Granite Falls together in one district instead of two, he said.

“I’m glad our district stayed generally the same,” said Rep. Chris Swedzinski, R-Ghent.

In the lead-up to redistricting, Swedzinski said he had prepared for the possibility that the new district would end up pairing him with Rep. Joe Schomacker, R-Luverne. That turned out not to be the case.

It will be exciting to represent all of Lyon County, Swedzinski said.

“I look forward to meeting people in the southern part of Lyon County,” he said.

The current House District 22A, which is represented by Schomacker, will largely become the new House District 21A. The new district includes Rock, Pipestone, Lincoln and Murray counties, along with parts of Nobles and Cottonwood County.

“With population gain in the Twin Cities, I was worried that we would lose border-city and border-county seats in the adjustment,” Schomacker said in a news release. “I am thankful to see that in southwestern Minnesota that is not the case.”

Minnesota’s Seventh Congressional District, represented by Michelle Fischbach, also saw some boundary changes in the new maps.

CD 7 still covers nearly all of the western edge of Minnesota, from the state’s northern border down to Pipestone County.

However, the district lost a large area of land in north-central Minnesota, which became part of the Eighth Congressional District. CD 7 also gained areas of central Minnesota, including Wadena County, part of Hubbard County, and Morrison County.

In southwest Minnesota, CD 7 now also extends further east into Brown and Cottonwood counties.