* 2:05 pm - The House Redistricting Committee is meeting at 2 o’clock today in Chicago. The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform is live-Tweeting the blessed event as are the House Republicans. You can follow them below. Underneath the live coverage of today’s House hearing is ICPR’s coverage from yesterday’s Senate Redistricting Committee hearing…

…Adding… Live, streaming video is here.

…Adding more… Now that the House hearing is over and the ScribbleLive program is closed, the chronology flips. So, you’ll see the Senate coverage first, followed by the House coverage.

* This was Saturday’s most important development, which subscribers already knew about last week…

A coalition of Latino groups that had worked together for more representation in the state legislature fragmented [Saturday] at a state Senate hearing over the effects of a proposed Democratic redrawing of Illinois’ legislative boundaries. […]

Juan Rangel, CEO of the United Neighborhood Organization and head of the Latino Coalition for Fair Redistricting, voiced support for proposed map lines that create an additional Latino majority Senate district on Chicago’s Southwest Side.

Rangel credited Democrats who control the Senate with how they were able to “strike a balance with other minority groups, particularly African Americans” who lost population in Chicago while the Latino population grew in the city and suburbs. […]

But Sylvia Puente, executive director of the Latino Policy Forum, which had been part of the pre-map coalition with UNO that had been working to promote additional representation in Springfield, told the Senate panel the group was “disappointed” in the proposed map.

“Given the dramatic 33 percent growth of the Latino population over the last decade, our analysis indicates that Latino residents have been shortchanged by the current proposal,” Puente said.

* More disagreements…

But Dr. Mujahid Ghazi of the South Asian Community Alliance on Chicago’s North Side testified that the proposed map further fragments communities of people from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

“We have already suffered for 10 years, and now if we suffer another 10 years, it is going to be a great disaster for our community at large,” said Ghazi, who was among about two dozen people who signed up to testify during the hearing. […]

During Saturday’s two-hour hearing in Chicago, Valerie Leonard of the Lawndale Alliance neighborhood association suggested senators tweak the map to increase the percentage of black voters in two proposed districts in the Chicago area.

But the Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community was pleased because the greater Chinatown area in Chicago was largely consolidated in one Senate and one House district.

* On to the House map…

Illinois House Democrats posted a map of newly drawn legislative districts Friday, but refused to offer any demographic information showing how minority-population shifts influenced their mapmaking.

The 118 House districts that comprised the map were shaped using 2010 U.S. Census data that showed marked declines in African-American populations and a significant uptick in Latino populations.

An aide to House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, would offer no insight into how the map was drawn or into the demographic make-up of each district, insisting only that the once-a-decade exercise in legislative mapmaking adhered to the Constitution and federal law.

“It follows the law. That’s what I know. That’s the way it’s always been done,” Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said.

* Not all Republicans are upset…

“We were following requirements of the constitution, both state and federal. We were certainly making sure that there were equal populations from one district to the next,” she says.

State Rep. Mike Fortner (R-West Chicago), the committee’s minority spokesman, agrees. He says there’s little that can be done to avoid such changes when considering population changes and demographic shifts. He says this even though he’s one of the Republicans drawn out of his district.

“With population changes, there are going to be pairings of incumbents. Whether it’s me or somebody else, that’s going to be the basis,” he says. “You have to look at what are the population numbers, what are the demographic numbers, and does it make sense from that point of view?”

* Even so, there was no demographic data in the House’s release…

House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego blasted the lack of racial and other demographic data in the map’s release.

“How can the residents of our state have time to access the information, digest it and be prepared to testify at a hearing in Chicago on Sunday afternoon?” Cross said in a statement. “A hearing in Chicago and one in Springfield is not enough; we are calling for more statewide hearings in the next few weeks before a vote is taken.”

* Here’s a screen shot of the empty House xml file…

* And the gamesmanship played with these maps is having an impact on the session’s closing days…

“The remap sucks the air and the oxygen out of the Capitol and leads to an even more skittish legislature, which really needs to buck it up and make very difficult votes in the last two weeks for the future of the state,” said state Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale. “It’s a really bad time to have a remap process going on.” […]

The GOP and Democratic caucuses in the House also have sought to cooperate on retooling the state’s workers’ compensation system and public employee pension changes. But bipartisanship may give way to hard feelings based on how the boundaries have been drawn.

“This is my own point of view, you know, but maybe our era of good feeling might be over with,” said state Rep. Bill Mitchell, R-Forsyth, whom Democrats would stick in a district with another Republican lawmaker. […]

Several Republican lawmakers said the final days leading up to the scheduled May 31 adjournment may turn into a version of the January lame-duck session of the legislature. Lawmakers who lost in November’s election and those who opted to retire, no longer having to face angry voters, lent their votes to a massive tax increase and a pension borrowing plan.

* More…

Cross also called the map “very punitive to the Republicans” and said it could affect resolution of the state budget and other issues.

“I had hoped that we would have this passed before the map came out, because I knew that once the map came out this place would be up for grabs on all sides,” Cross said Friday during a taping of a Chicago radio show. “I think the next couple weeks are going to be a little tricky.”

* Related…

* Questions linger about new map for Illinois House: State Rep. Toni Berrios, D-Chicago, heads the Hispanic caucus in the Illinois House. Hispanics saw a 15 percent population jump in the 2010 census. “There are groups that have come together that are pushing Latino maps and minority maps, but we don’t know what the final map will be,” said Berrios.

* 2012 election first test for new map

* Syverson drawn out of own district

* Tri-Cities would get new representation in Dem map

* Proposed maps split McHenry County into 5 districts

* Remap process partisan, not well-regarded