MANKATO — The congressional seat now held by Rep. Tim Walz would no longer include southwestern Minnesota; the state Senate seat represented by Sen. Kathy Sheran would add Lake Washington, Madison Lake and Le Sueur County towns like Kasota and Cleveland; and parts of  Blue Earth, Faribault or Waseca counties could be pared with Albert Lea.

Those are some of the things that might happen if a judicial redistricting panel listens to the advice it heard from southern Minnesotans at a hearing in the Blue Earth County Justice Center Friday night.

The five-judge panel, appointed by state Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Gildea after state lawmakers and Gov. Mark Dayton couldn’t agree on a redistricting map for the next decade, is almost certainly going to make the final decision about how congressional and legislative districts are redrawn in Minnesota following the 2010 census.

Appeals Court Justice Wilhelmina Wright, the panel’s presiding judge, said she still hopes the Legislature can accomplish the task when it convenes in January. But Dayton, a Democrat, vetoed a redistricting plan written by the Republican-controlled Legislature earlier this year — saying any plan must have bipartisan support to get his signature.

The GOP plan received no Democratic votes and it’s highly unlikely that a bipartisan plan can be crafted in the short time left before a new map must be put in place for the 2012 general election.

“We must proceed with our work to act if necessary by the statutory deadline of Feb. 21,” Wright told the more than 60 people who attended Friday night’s hearing — the eighth and final hearing the panel has held around the state.

Coming from La Crescent and Luverne and everywhere in between, 26 people spoke to the judges about how they should perform the politically charged task of evenly dividing the state’s population into eight congressional districts, 67 state Senate districts and 134 House districts.

Mankatoans ranging from City Manager Pat Hentges to residents of the Lincoln Park and Tourtellotte Park neighborhoods urged the panel to put the city into a single House seat. The GOP legislative plan split off more than 8,000 Mankatoans living in the valley into a separate House district from the rest of the city, paring them with North Mankato, St. Peter and rural areas of Nicollet County.

City Councilwoman Karen Foreman noted that Mankato’s population under the 2010 census is 39,304 — almost a perfect match for the 39,582 target population to have 134 perfectly equal House districts.

 “So that’s just about the size of the pie you’re supposed to have,” Foreman said. “... Keeping us together to have one voice I think would be very helpful to us.”

Hentges and Blue Earth County Elections Director Patty O’Connor said dividing Mankato into two House districts would also add complexity and expense to elections and to the process, which will follow the statewide redistricting, of setting up council wards and county board districts.

A large contingent of Albert Lea residents spoke in favor of ending a four-decade marriage of that city and Austin in a single Senate district. Several said Albert Lea has less in common with Austin than it does with rural areas to the west, with some specifically mentioning Blue Earth and southern Waseca and Blue Earth counties.

A pair of Lake Washington residents urged paring that area, along with Madison Lake and possibly Kasota and Cleveland, with Mankato, North Mankato and St. Peter in a single Senate district. They said that makes more sense than the current arrangement, which has the lakes region in a Senate district that stretches to Arlington and New Auburn in Sibley County.

Of those who offered advice on congressional redistricting, all but one suggested that the current 1st District — which for the first time in state history stretches across southern Minnesota from Wisconsin to South Dakota — be transformed into a district encompassing only south-central and southeastern Minnesota. The southwestern counties would fit better, they said, in a north-south district spanning the state’s western border.