* The Senate Dems kinda-sorta unveiled their redistricting plan yesterday. What I mean is, they held a press conference, but didn’t introduce an actual bill…

Under [the SDem] plan the legislature would draw the new map. If they chose to de-nest the districts, not have the same districts for the Senate and the House, then each chamber would draw its own map and pass it with a three-fifths vote. If they decided to stick to the current nested system, then the General Assembly would create one map that would pass as a bill and require the governor’s signature.

If the legislature cannot agree on a map, or maps, by June 30, 2011, a commission, appointed by the legislative leaders would get the job. The leaders would each appoint seven members to the 14-member commission to create a map for approval by the General Assembly. If that doesn’t work, the Democrat’s plan mirrors the Republican one in the creation of a special master to draw the map. That master would be chosen by the chief justice of the Supreme Court and a justice of the other party.

The major difference between the parties’ plans is who draws the first map. In the Democrat’s plan the legislature does it, while in the Republican plan it is a commission appointed by the leaders. This is the point on which it seems neither side is willing to compromise.

Sen. Raoul was pretty up-front about the GOP/reformer demands that legislators be entirely removed from the mapmaking process…

…Trying to take politics out of the process is a non-starter, [Raoul] said.

“I think we should be honest about that. The redistricting process is inherently political,” Raoul said.

That’s a fundamental difference.

Here’s some video from yesterday’s presser…

The Republicans were not kind in their criticism…

“The Democrat plan allows the General Assembly to pick its voters in every district,” said State Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon.

Sen. Righter also claimed that the new SDem idea was actually worse than the current redistricting apparatus. Watch…

* In other reform news, I’m always a bit torn when it comes to minimum signature requirements. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that would-be candidates have to knock on lots of doors in the rain and snow to get on the ballot. Putting together a decent petition drive can be a great tune-up for the upcoming campaign.

On its face, a bill requiring aldermanic candidates to gather 500 signatures doesn’t sound too horrific. That ain’t a lot. So, at first, this Progress Illinois piece seemed a bit off…

We recently stumbled across a bill (HB6000) introduced by State Rep. Joe Lyons (D-Chicago) that would make it a whole lot harder for new candidates to get on ballots in 2011. Lyons is attempting to bump up the number of required signatures on nominating petitions in Chicago elections to 500. Compared the current requirement — a mere 2 percent of the votes cast in the ward during the preceding election year — enacting the measure would raise the threshold in every ward. In some, the increase would be dramatic; last election cycle, for example, a 22nd Ward candidate only needed 87 names.

87 names? Sheesh. That seems way too low.

But, PI goes on to make a good point…

There’s another catch too. Lyons’ measure — which passed out of committee this week and is headed to the House floor for a vote — seeks to codify a state statue that ensures each voter can only ink one candidate’s petition. That’s currently the lay of the state election law, Jim Allen from the Chicago Board of Elections points out, but it has been routinely challenged because of a gray area in another state statute known as the Revised Cities and Villages Act of 1941. That, of course, would be eliminated by writing the rule into the amended statue.

Voters will be the big losers if the measure is adopted, David Morrison from the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform tells us. “It really puts a terrible burden on petition signers,” he says. “And in small wards, [candidates] could rack up 2,000 or 3,000 signatures and there would be no one left to sign.”

Well, not quite “no one,” but point well taken. The bill removes the cap on the maximum number of signatures that can be submitted at once, so the proposal could encourage vacuuming up as many sigs as humanly possible.

Therefore, I actually have to agree with the Tribune editorial board today…

Could they at least lay off the crass attempts to protect the members of the City Council? Come on. Stuff the Lyons bill. It’s an insult to your constituents.

* Today’s other Tribune editorial, however, is a bit silly. The Mother Ship is just beside Herself with rage at the lack of progress on ethics reforms…

Instead we’ll just point out that it’s February — late February — and lawmakers have shown little interest in finishing what they barely started last year.

Yeah. It’s February. The House’s 3rd Reading deadline for House bills is March 26th - a month away.

The Tribune also claimed that not much reform was passed last year. FOIA reform, contracting reform and campaign contribution caps - no matter how leaky - were all enacted last year.

And as far as the caps are concerned, how did they work out for the Tribune’s favorite US Senate candidate David Hoffman? The white knight reformer had to mostly self fund because he found out the hard way that outsiders have a real problem raising lots of money under the capped federal system. Heck, the Tribune opposes caps anyway on principle, except for last year, when the editorial board raged about how the state reformers’ cap plan was being blocked, even though the Tribune didn’t like the idea in the first place.

Sigh.

And what about this year? I doubt any of the reformers thought they could reopen the campaign finance reform stuff this session. Their focus right now is redistricting reform. They’ll most likely get back to the finance reform after there’s actually been an election under the changes enacted last year.

* Ever the “me too” little brother, the Daily Herald edit board also raged and rambled about an allegedly stalled campaign finance reform bill today.

Somebody apparently did a great job yesterday of ginning up these two papers.