LINCOLN- Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks said she saw an opening.

And it presented an opportunity to continue to play a role in public service and impact lives after term limits nudge her out of the Legislature at the end of the year.

Redistricting decisions adopted by the Legislature last September appear to have reduced the Republican voter registration advantage over Democrats in eastern Nebraska's 1st Congressional District from about 20 percentage points to perhaps a 10- to-11-point difference now, she said.

"People were pushing me," Pansing Brooks said, "and the path was sort of opening. And then I thought I have to try. You have only one life to live."

So she entered the 1st District House race as a candidate for the Democratic nomination with a determination to "bring some of Nebraska to Congress" after eight years in Nebraska's unique nonpartisan Legislature, where she said she has "worked back and forth across the aisle."

The challenge seems daunting. A Democrat hasn't won a House race in the 1st District since 1964, when Clair Callan of Odell was elected to represent a much different congressional district than the one that has been sharply revised by subsequent redistricting decisions and now includes Lincoln, Bellevue, Norfolk, Fremont, and Columbus.

Pansing Brooks says she is ready for debates, and she's planning to become a familiar face throughout the district.

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