Cross Your Fingers!

The single most important reform in the history of Chicago just became a bargaining chip:

• Calling Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s bluff, the Hispanic Caucus has drafted a new Chicago ward map that cuts the City Council in half — with 25 wards nearly evenly divided between blacks, whites and Hispanics.

  The 50-member City Council is currently comprised of 22 whites, 19 blacks, eight Latinos and Ald. Ameya Pawar (47th), who is of Indian descent.

  The 25-ward map drafted by the Hispanic Caucus includes eight majority white wards, eight majority black wards, seven majority Hispanic wards, one Hispanic “influence” ward and one black influence ward.

  That more fairly represents a city now 32.9 percent black, 31.7 percent white and 28.9 percent Hispanic, according to Ald. Danny Solis (25th), chairman of the City Council’s Hispanic Caucus.

  “If it was 25 wards, we would be much better and more fairly represented because you’re starting from scratch. This would be welcomed by the caucus and me,” Solis said.

Not only is this an opportunity to cut waste, spending, redundancy in services along with the reduced size of a bloated Chicago political scene, it provides a unique opportunity for putting a boatload of politicians in jail as everyone jockeys for position, skeletons come out of the closet and deals are made over tapped phone lines. The entertainment value alone would be worth the attempt.

And there's no downside for the Hispanic caucus. They go from around 16% representation to almost 33% and then they trust demographic trends and "sanctuary" policies to give them an outright majority within a decade. They'll still have to wheel-and-deal to get the extra six votes or so for a 13-12 majority, but that's a lot easier than what exists at the moment.

Rahm may have made a misstep here - or the most brilliant misdirection since D-Day.