Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) signs a supporter's head.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/teambachmann/6545315509/sizes/z/in/photostream/">TeamBachmann</a>/Flickr
On Tuesday morning, newly christened Swiss citizen Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) blasted out the frantic email to her national supporter network, asking for money:
I’m reaching out to you today because I need your support to continue fighting in the U.S. House of Representatives against President Obama’s big government agenda.
A major development has just occurred in my race for the U.S. House of Representatives and I’m asking for your immediate help…
…You see, in retaliation for repeatedly standing up to President Obama on the national stage, liberal judges have redrawn the lines of my Minnesota Congressional District to try and wipe me off of the political map once and for all.
Their bias was so obvious they even gerrymandered my home—where my wonderful husband Marcus and I live—entirely out of my District and placed it into one held by a six-term Democrat incumbent!
Yikes. Also: totally false. The so-called major development that “just occured” actually happened in February, and in the interim period, Bachmann has sent no fewer than four fundraising emails calling attention to said major development. The “liberal judges” tasked with drawing up Minnesota’s new congressional districts were selected by the state’s chief justice, Lorie Gildea, who was appointed to the bench by former Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty. (Just two of the judges on the five-judge redistricting panel were Democratic appointees.)
Although Bachmann sounds deeply hurt that she and Marcus will no longer live in her district, the move actually makes her district more Republican. The redistricting panel swapped Bachmann’s Washington County, a more moderate county that includes suburbs of St. Paul, with a more conservative rural county. (If it makes her feel better, the district still includes Anoka, where she attended high school.) Democrat Jim Graves, the Minneapolis hotel magnate who’s challenging Bachmann this fall, has his hands full.
This isn’t out of the ordinary for Bachmann. As I reported last summer, Bachmann has for years falsely claimed that she was targeted for redistricting by Democrats when she served in the Minnesota state senate. (Then, as now, the redistricting was controlled by a Republican judge, and Bachmann was placed in a conservative-leaning district).
