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[CHATTER] RACHEL REABE: It looked and sounded very much like a victory party. It's Northeastern Minnesota Democrats gathered on election night to celebrate their clean sweep of legislative and congressional offices. But as the band played "Happy Days are Here Again," some longtime politicians expressed concern about the future. The Iron Range delegation will return to the Minnesota legislature in 1993 noticeably smaller. The nine-member group has shrunk to six members, victims of a decade long population decline in Northeastern Minnesota. Senator Doug Johnson from Cook.

DOUG JOHNSON: People should be feeling uneasy in rural Minnesota with the loss of population. There's just no doubt that the Iron Range does not have the representation. And I suppose you could say then that it won't have as much clout as it used to have.

RACHEL REABE: Legislators from the Iron Range have developed clout in Saint Paul, partly because of their seniority. The electorate on the range returns them to office year after year, allowing them to hold leadership positions on key committees. Johnson, who spent over 20 years in the legislature, is chairman of the powerful Senate Tax Committee.

Chairmanships of the education and labor committees in the House were also held by Iron Rangers until this year, when Senator Ron Dicklich of Hibbing and representative Joe Begich of Eveleth retired. But the Iron Range delegation has also been effective because they stick together and form a powerful bargaining unit. Battles are mostly fought behind closed doors. And when they're settled, the legislators work together to get the range's agenda accomplished. Doug Johnson.

DOUG JOHNSON: We know how to fight, and how to work and reach for goals. Iron Range legislators have known how to work within the system to develop good relationships with other legislators throughout the state and many times on a bipartisan basis to develop legislation for our region.

RACHEL REABE: The power base of the Iron Range has been helped by the millions of dollars pumped annually into economic development by the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board. The state agency's funding comes from taxes paid by taconite mining companies and has been jealously guarded by Iron Range politicians. And then there were the glory days when native son Rudy Perpich of Hibbing was governor. During his three terms in office in the late '70s and '80s, Perpich and the Iron Range delegation worked to shore up the ailing taconite industry, develop tourism and expand the forest products industry.

JIM MARSHALL: The length of this entire line here is about the same as three football fields. So it's a tremendous expansion. The central piece of machinery in the foreground.

RACHEL REABE: The forest products industry, which employs some 10,000 people in Northeastern Minnesota, grew dramatically in the 1980s when major projects, like this, $350-million facility at the Blandin Paper Company in Grand Rapids were constructed. The expansion at Blandin was made possible in large part by a state provision to exempt sales tax on construction materials and capital equipment, a move that saved the company millions of dollars. Paper company officials say they aren't so sure they would be successful getting similar concessions today with an eroding power base. Jim Marshall, public affairs supervisor at the paper mill.

JIM MARSHALL: When you lose that number of seats, you're going to lose some votes. You're going to lose maybe some issues. And sooner or later it's likely to hurt up here.

RACHEL REABE: Marshall says the Iron Range delegation, with its reputation for tough negotiating, may have to change its style to be effective in the future.

JIM MARSHALL: The legislators in this part of the state will have to become better at coalition building and cooperative agreements with others. They have perhaps had the luxury with their numbers in the past of acting a little more independently, but those days are apparently going to be changing and they will have to change along with them.

RACHEL REABE: Rural sociologist Jim Creel, who directs the Blandin Foundation's community leadership program, agrees.

JIM CREEL: The old way of I'll get mine and maybe next time you'll get yours or maybe you won't simply is not going to lead us anyplace. So for folks who are on the range who are saying, gee, I wonder if things will continue the way they have in the past? no, they won't. Now, how successfully we adapt ourselves up here in the range is pretty much up to us.

RACHEL REABE: The presses are running at the Main Street office of the Free Press and Tribune in Chisholm. Editor and publisher Veda Ponikvar is a lifelong resident of the Iron Range. Despite their diminishing numbers, she says the Iron Range delegation will continue to get the job done because they work hard. And like the people they represent, they're survivors.

VEDA PONIKVAR: I suppose because of the ups and downs that have confronted the Iron Range communities over the many decades, it made us all stronger. And we learned a long time ago that you stick together, you work together, you drive and push together. And it may take a while, but eventually it all comes about.

RACHEL REABE: Veda Ponikvar of Chisholm. I'm Rachel Reabe, Minnesota Public Radio.

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