This Sounds Familiar

Where have we heard this one before?

• Given all the graft and corruption over the years, mayoral candidate Bill Daley says it’s time for Chicago to overhaul its government, starting with reducing the number of aldermen from 50 to 15.
  
  There is, of course, some irony in Daley, the brother and son of two former mayors who held the office for a combined 43 years, saying it’s time to restructure City Hall. After all, the Daley machine grew from a fiefdom in the heavily Irish 11th Ward in Bridgeport to, under Richard J. Daley, a political power structure of national significance.
  
  Bill Daley, however, argues that times have changed and the days of “50 mini mayors” running the wards no longer exist. He argues the city’s neighborhoods are better connected these days through technology and a more centralized City Hall and that many of the powers aldermen used to enjoy have dissipated. Those that do remain — such as veto power over zoning and permits in their wards — often lead to corruption, Daley argued.

We seem to recall a number of blog posts and a petition drive by....wait a minute. This was an idea by our readers! And the blog assisted in gathering around 11,000 signatures if we recall correctly. It was tens of thousands of signatures short of even getting near a referendum (and the Board of Elections would have killed it anyway), but it would seem that the Tribune is hitching its wagon to the Daley Machine once again.