George M. Leader, a Former Governor, Dies at 95

His death was announced by a spokeswoman for the Country Meadows center, the first in a network of 10 such facilities that Mr. Leader and his wife founded in 1985.

Mr. Leader, a Democrat, was a state senator who had been given little chance of beating Lt. Gov. Lloyd Wood, a rumpled, cigar-chomping political boss, when he won the governorship.

The victory was credited to his television advertising campaign, one of the earliest in American politics. Two years before, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first to use TV ads extensively in a presidential campaign.

Mr. Leader was only 37 when he took office in 1955, making him the second-youngest governor in Pennsylvania history. (Robert E. Pattison was 32 when he was inaugurated in 1883.) He was the first Pennsylvania governor to appoint a black cabinet officer. Mr. Leader served one four-year term, the maximum allowed by law at the time.

One of Mr. Leader’s main accomplishments was cutting the population in Pennsylvania’s mental hospitals to 11,000 from 39,000; he did so by giving more state money to mental health clinics that helped patients adjust to life outside hospitals.

He also signed a law changing Pennsylvania’s school code to require the education of the disabled. Within five years, 250,000 more children swelled the enrollment lists in public schools.

He lost a bid for the United States Senate to the Republican Hugh Scott in 1958 and never ran for office again, devoting himself to his assisted-living businesses and to causes like prison reform.

“When I was governor, we had 7,000 people in prison. Today we have 33,000 in state prisons, and we can’t keep up,” Mr. Leader said in 1996. “We could do the same thing with the prison population that we did with the mental health population.”

Mr. Leader belonged to an old York County family. The village of Leader Heights bears the family’s name.

George Michael Leader was born on Jan. 17, 1918, the third of Guy and Beulah Leader’s seven children. He grew up on his parents’ poultry farm and attended a one-room schoolhouse. He later attended Gettysburg College and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.

He served aboard the aircraft carrier Randolph during World War II. When the war ended, he returned to York County and used a G.I. loan to buy a 110-acre farm.

Mr. Leader and his wife, the former Mary Jane Strickler, whom he married in 1939, were both living at Country Meadows when she died in March 2011.

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As Governor Steers Maryland to the Left, Talk Turns to 2016

But the opponents had no chance, as allies of the governor passed sweeping gun restrictions, the final victory in a series of triumphs that capped one of the most successful 2013 legislative seasons of any governor in the country.

Besides gun control legislation, Mr. O’Malley coaxed a liberal wish list from the General Assembly session that ended Monday: repeal of the death penalty, a $1.7 billion subsidy for offshore wind turbines and a bump in the gasoline tax to pay for mass transit and roads.

Republicans fumed that Mr. O’Malley had steered well to the left of Maryland residents’ concerns, and denounced his agenda as a punch list for a 2016 Democratic presidential primary campaign. Mr. O’Malley — largely unknown outside Maryland, though he is mentioned in presidential speculations alongside Govs. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and John W. Hickenlooper of Colorado — said the bills were smart policy and in step with state residents.

“I don’t think the relevant question for Maryland families is whether we’re moving left or right; it’s whether we’re moving forward or back,” he said in an interview. To voters under 35, who represent a generational shift in American politics, especially on social issues, “these are pretty mainstream things,” he added.

In a relaxed mood a few days before the adjournment of the General Assembly, Mr. O’Malley, 50, offered a tour of the fine art in his office. He pointed out a Rembrandt Peale portrait of George Washington, whose distant eyes are the most arresting feature.

“They have the look of a man who knows how the conversation is going to end before it begins,” Mr. O’Malley said.

It was a comment that could apply as well to Mr. O’Malley, who is in his next-to-last year as a governor facing term limits. That he is looking ahead to a presidential campaign “is the worst-kept secret in Annapolis,” said Anthony J. O’Donnell, the Republican minority leader in the House of Delegates. Mr. O’Donnell added that the governor was “planting his flag as far to the left as possible” with left-leaning Democratic primary voters in mind.

Mr. O’Malley would not confirm any such thing. He said he was flattered that people noticed “the tough things we’ve accomplished here.”

“I haven’t put a whole lot of brain power or effort or time into 2016,” he said.

His successes come on top of others a year ago, when lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled legislature approved same-sex marriage and in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants. After opponents forced both measures onto the state ballot in November, Mr. O’Malley campaigned hard for them, and voters upheld the changes — victories that provided political capital that allowed the governor to pass his even more ambitious agenda this year.

But with lawmakers in Annapolis increasingly on the ideological wings of each party, it is an open question whether Mr. O’Malley has left Maryland residents behind. Protests against his gun restrictions, including an assault weapons ban and fingerprinting for handgun buyers, were the largest and most inflamed in memory. In a Washington Post poll last month, a plurality of Maryland residents, 48 percent to 41 percent, said the state was on the wrong track.

A former mayor of Baltimore, who despised the city’s dark portrayal in the television show “The Wire,” Mr. O’Malley is not a traditional liberal. His arguments to abolish the death penalty were practical, not moralizing, in keeping with his reputation for shaping policy by analyzing data. He argued that capital punishment failed as a deterrent and did not reduce violent crime.

Similarly, his defense of same-sex marriage and tuition breaks for illegal immigrants is an economic argument, aimed at attracting the well-educated and socially tolerant “creative class” to Maryland. “We believe that openness and inclusiveness are good for creating jobs and expanding opportunities,” he said.

Mr. O’Malley has succeeded with a fiscal policy balanced between tax increases and spending cuts, of the sort President Obama has sought with less success in talks with Congressional Republicans. He has nearly wiped out a $1.7 billion structural deficit he inherited in the Maryland budget, partly by slowing the rise of spending. He won re-election in 2010 in part by pointing out that spending went up less in his administration than under the previous governor, a Republican.

But Republicans denounce his tax increases, including on individual incomes above $100,000 — a definition of “high earner” that is lower than the $250,000 threshold Mr. Obama campaigned on during his re-election race. Critics say Maryland has chased entrepreneurs to lower-taxed Virginia.

“Since 2007, we’ve lost 40,000 jobs in this state; we’ve lost 6,500 small businesses who have closed their doors to move across the border,” said Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, the Republican minority whip in the legislature’s lower house.

Mr. O’Malley has been called a rising star in the Democratic Party since he rode on the back of garbage trucks as mayor. But he has picked his battles with care. He decided not to challenge Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in the Democratic primary for governor in 2002. When she lost the general election, Mr. O’Malley had a clean shot at Annapolis four years later.

He went on to lead the Democratic Governors Association, raising his national profile as a happy partisan warrior who attacked “the dinosaur wing of the Republican Party.”

Strategists who have worked with him do not believe he will seek the presidency in 2016 if Hillary Rodham Clinton commits to the race. The governor is close to Mrs. Clinton, whom he supported in her unsuccessful 2008 primary campaign. A generation younger, he will presumably have many options when his term ends in 2014, including a run for the Senate or a cabinet position in a future Democratic administration.

Mr. O’Malley pointed out that he had begun campaigning to overturn the state’s death penalty in 2007, his first year in office, long before Republicans in the General Assembly accused him of checking boxes for a presidential race.

“These guys would be sorely pressed to say that that was some sort of appeal to the base in Keokuk, Iowa, or Manchester, N.H.,” he said.

He turned to an aide, Teddy Davis, his director of strategic communications. “They still have the death penalty in New Hampshire, don’t they?”

Mr. Davis said they did. “They had passed a repeal bill about 10 years ago. Governor Shaheen had vetoed it,” he said, referring to Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat who is now one of the state’s senators.

And how did an aide to Maryland’s governor know policy details in New Hampshire, which holds the first presidential primary?

“Just learned my New Hampshire stuff,” said Mr. Davis, whom the governor recently hired to help with the next phase of his career.

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South Carolina House Panel to Hear Ethics Complaints Against Governor

Thursday, she faces a State House ethics hearing over whether she blurred the lines between her work as a legislator and her work as a hospital fund-raiser and a business development consultant with an engineering firm.

From the Republican governor’s perspective, the hearing is just more of the same: attacks by Democrats and the Republican Party old guard who resent her Tea Party-style efforts to change government and the fact that she is a woman and a minority in a state that has had relatively few of either in positions of power.

For those who pushed for the hearing — most notably John Rainey, one of the most powerful Republican fund-raisers in South Carolina — it is a step in a long-fought battle to prove that the governor has been less than transparent and improperly mixed her governing duties and her business enterprises.

For many voters in South Carolina, however, the hearing is not much more than another twist in the state’s bare-knuckled brand of politics based on personal grudges and its history of conflict between governors and legislators.

“Unfortunately, it is being perceived as politics as usual,” said Robert W. Oldendick, a professor at the University of South Carolina who is director of the Institute for Public Service and Policy Research. “Unless there’s a smoking gun that hasn’t been revealed, a week from now we’ll say there was a little damage done to the governor.”

The Republican-heavy House Ethics Committee will not call Ms. Haley to testify during the two days it examines the issues, but her lawyer will present her case.

On the committee’s witness list are business executives and lobbyists for companies including the Lexington Medical Center and BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, as well as governmental affairs experts.

They are expected to describe Ms. Haley’s role in two business deals when she was a state representative from Lexington County from 2005 until she became governor.

South Carolina lawmakers serve part-time, and most hold other jobs. One of Ms. Haley’s was to raise money for the medical center’s foundation, at a salary of $110,000 a year. The hospital wanted to open a new heart center and needed governmental approval as part of the process.

Ms. Haley maintains that her legislative efforts to support the heart center were because the hospital, which was in her district, was part of her constituency. Her other efforts to raise money for the foundation did not fall under lobbying rules, her lawyer, Butch Bowers, said.

The other issue centers on part-time consulting Ms. Haley did for Wilbur Smith Associates, an engineering firm in Columbia that paid her a total of $42,000 to help develop business. The firm had worked on a project to create a state farmers’ market.

Ms. Haley would not discuss the hearing directly, but Mr. Bowers and members of her staff have characterized it as a political witch hunt led by a man angry that Ms. Haley did not try to curry his favor to win the governorship.

In her recent memoir, Ms. Haley describes seeking Mr. Rainey’s support when she was planning her campaign. He asked to see her tax records to make sure, she said he told her, that she did not have any connections to terrorists in her background — a comment he said in later interviews that he did not recall, but dismissed as most likely a joke.

Ms. Haley, who is of Indian descent, went on to win without the support of Mr. Rainey, long an important figure in helping to bankroll political candidates in South Carolina.

“This a complaint brought by an old Republican crank who called her a terrorist and the chairman of the Democratic State Party, so it’s pretty clear,” said Tim Pearson, her chief of staff.

That Democratic chairman is Richard A. Harpootlian. He said Ms. Haley was using that explanation to present herself as the victim of political scoundrels who do not want things to change.

The political alliance might seem unlikely, but Mr. Harpootlian said he and Mr. Rainey were united in trying to hold accountable a governor they see as secretive and ethically compromised.

“Both of us have a sense that justice, no matter what the political affiliation, should prevail,” he said. “What’s clear is this governor has avoided answering the questions and has deflected every allegation as politics.”

The men filed a lawsuit last year over the same assertions. In March, a Circuit Court judge dismissed it, saying the court was not the proper venue to examine legislative ethical issues.

If the committee decides the governor did violate ethics, it could issue a reprimand or refer the case to the attorney general for criminal investigation. Most likely, Mr. Oldendick said, the hearing will only underscore what is becoming obvious to many in the state.

“For as good of a job as she did campaigning and getting elected,” he said, “her inability to relate to members of her own party in the General Assembly has been frankly surprising.”

Robbie Brown contributed reporting.

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In bid to unseat Wisconsin governor, whither the challengers? (Reuters)

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – Critics of Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker showed on Tuesday how unpopular he is with many voters, filing more than 1 million signed petitions -- nearly twice the number needed -- to force the first-term Republican to defend himself in a special election.

On Wednesday, they faced what is likely to be a harder task: finding a Democrat who can beat the battle-tested 44-year-old.

"There is no single preeminent candidate," said Charles Franklin, a political scientist and visiting professor of law and public policy at Marquette University, said of the Democrats who might challenge Walker, who gained a national following in leading a successful push to curb Wisconsin's public unions.

Although some Democrats have hinted in recent weeks they might be interested in running against Walker in a recall, so far no one with a marquee name has committed to what is sure to be a bruising fight. No date has been set for the election.

On Wednesday, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk announced her candidacy. But Falk, who governs the county that encompasses Madison, the state's capital, is viewed by the Wisconsin political insiders as a weak candidate given her past political losses and her liberal fiscal platform.

Due to those factors, political analysts say Falk will almost certainly have company. Other Democrats mentioned as possible candidates have included Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, former congressman David Obey and State Senator Tim Cullen.

None has the cachet of Russ Feingold, the former Democratic senator popular among progressives. But an effort last summer to draft Feingold fizzled when he announced he was not interested.

"Polling shows that (Walker) has one of the highest name recognitions in the country among active governors," Franklin said. "None of the Democrats are at that same level of name recognition and familiarity."

In November, 2010, Walker defeated Barrett in the governor's election by 52 to 46 percent -- a margin of 124,000 votes out of 2.13 million cast.

A Democratic primary, needed if more than one Democratic challenger enters the fray, could divert time and money from the fight against Walker, who set off a firestorm by curtailing the collective bargaining rights of unionized public workers.

A weak Democratic candidate, and a Democratic loss in the special election, could have implications for President Obama's reelection hopes.

Indeed, a Walker triumph in a special election could turn Wisconsin, currently a battleground state, into a GOP stronghold, according to Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics and a professor of politics at the University of Virginia.

"If Walker is reelected and Republicans are energized because of this, that will have an impact in the presidential race," Sabato said. "I bet if the White House had their druthers the recall would not be happening."

Organizers of the drive to recall Walker submitted what appeared to be more than enough signatures on Tuesday to trigger the special election.

Sabato said that shows the polarizing effect Walker and his agenda has had on the state.

"The hatred for Scott Walker on the Democratic side is white hot and that is what generated the one million signatures and that is what gives them a great base," said Sabato.

Walker has remained undeterred during his tumultuous first year as governor. During the passage of collective bargaining legislation, the governor pressed on even in the wake of massive protests at the Capitol each day.

When 14 Democratic state senators left the state in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to deny the Republican-controlled body a quorum and halt action on the proposals, Walker and his allies engineered passage without them.

"He was in a bunker mentality very quickly in February of his first term and maybe having survived that may make a more resilient politician now," said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin.

The Republican hold on the state legislature has also survived the political storm kicked up by the collective bargaining reforms, which Walker and his allies defended as necessary to address a gaping budget hole.

Although six Republican state senators were forced to defend their seats in special recall elections this summer, only two lost their seats. As a result, Republicans held onto a razor thin majority, 17-16, in the Senate.

In addition to Walker, four Republicans Senators, including Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, are facing the possibility of recall elections in a second round of special elections triggered by the union fight.

Officials at the state's Government Accountability Board said last week they may need more than 60 days to verify the signatures submitted on Tuesday. Currently, the law requires the process to be completed in 31 days.

According to a Government Accountability Board report, processing recall petitions will cost the state more than $650,000. The total cost of recall elections for the state and municipalities may be more than $9 million, according to estimates from board officials.

(Editing by James Kelleher and Peter Bohan)

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In bid to unseat Wisconsin governor, whither the challengers? (Reuters)

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – Critics of Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker showed on Tuesday how unpopular he is with many voters, filing more than 1 million signed petitions -- nearly twice the number needed -- to force the first-term Republican to defend himself in a special election.

On Wednesday, they faced what is likely to be a harder task: finding a Democrat who can beat the battle-tested 44-year-old.

"There is no single preeminent candidate," said Charles Franklin, a political scientist and visiting professor of law and public policy at Marquette University, said of the Democrats who might challenge Walker, who gained a national following in leading a successful push to curb Wisconsin's public unions.

Although some Democrats have hinted in recent weeks they might be interested in running against Walker in a recall, so far no one with a marquee name has committed to what is sure to be a bruising fight. No date has been set for the election.

On Wednesday, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk announced her candidacy. But Falk, who governs the county that encompasses Madison, the state's capital, is viewed by the Wisconsin political insiders as a weak candidate given her past political losses and her liberal fiscal platform.

Due to those factors, political analysts say Falk will almost certainly have company. Other Democrats mentioned as possible candidates have included Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, former congressman David Obey and State Senator Tim Cullen.

None has the cachet of Russ Feingold, the former Democratic senator popular among progressives. But an effort last summer to draft Feingold fizzled when he announced he was not interested.

"Polling shows that (Walker) has one of the highest name recognitions in the country among active governors," Franklin said. "None of the Democrats are at that same level of name recognition and familiarity."

In November, 2010, Walker defeated Barrett in the governor's election by 52 to 46 percent -- a margin of 124,000 votes out of 2.13 million cast.

A Democratic primary, needed if more than one Democratic challenger enters the fray, could divert time and money from the fight against Walker, who set off a firestorm by curtailing the collective bargaining rights of unionized public workers.

A weak Democratic candidate, and a Democratic loss in the special election, could have implications for President Obama's reelection hopes.

Indeed, a Walker triumph in a special election could turn Wisconsin, currently a battleground state, into a GOP stronghold, according to Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics and a professor of politics at the University of Virginia.

"If Walker is reelected and Republicans are energized because of this, that will have an impact in the presidential race," Sabato said. "I bet if the White House had their druthers the recall would not be happening."

Organizers of the drive to recall Walker submitted what appeared to be more than enough signatures on Tuesday to trigger the special election.

Sabato said that shows the polarizing effect Walker and his agenda has had on the state.

"The hatred for Scott Walker on the Democratic side is white hot and that is what generated the one million signatures and that is what gives them a great base," said Sabato.

Walker has remained undeterred during his tumultuous first year as governor. During the passage of collective bargaining legislation, the governor pressed on even in the wake of massive protests at the Capitol each day.

When 14 Democratic state senators left the state in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to deny the Republican-controlled body a quorum and halt action on the proposals, Walker and his allies engineered passage without them.

"He was in a bunker mentality very quickly in February of his first term and maybe having survived that may make a more resilient politician now," said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin.

The Republican hold on the state legislature has also survived the political storm kicked up by the collective bargaining reforms, which Walker and his allies defended as necessary to address a gaping budget hole.

Although six Republican state senators were forced to defend their seats in special recall elections this summer, only two lost their seats. As a result, Republicans held onto a razor thin majority, 17-16, in the Senate.

In addition to Walker, four Republicans Senators, including Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, are facing the possibility of recall elections in a second round of special elections triggered by the union fight.

Officials at the state's Government Accountability Board said last week they may need more than 60 days to verify the signatures submitted on Tuesday. Currently, the law requires the process to be completed in 31 days.

According to a Government Accountability Board report, processing recall petitions will cost the state more than $650,000. The total cost of recall elections for the state and municipalities may be more than $9 million, according to estimates from board officials.

(Editing by James Kelleher and Peter Bohan)

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Dems plan midnight launch for Wis. governor recall (AP)

MADISON, Wis. – Political foes hoping to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker over his moves to significantly curb union rights in Wisconsin planned a late-night rally and early morning pajama parties to officially kick off the effort.

More than 100 events were planned across the state Tuesday to begin collecting the more than 540,000 signatures required to get a recall election on Wisconsin's ballot next year. Supporters have until Jan. 17 to turn in signatures.

Walker came out swinging, running his first television ad in reaction to the recall during the Green Bay Packers' Monday night football game. The 30-second ad features a school board member from Waukesha speaking in support of the governor, followed by Walker talking directly to the camera.

"Wisconsin's best days are yet to come," Walker says in the ad. "It won't happen overnight, but we are on our way."

Walker's campaign manager Keith Gilkes said the ad was running in all Wisconsin markets except Milwaukee and would be up for at least a week.

Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefsich and at least three Republican state senators also will be targeted for recall next year. Two GOP state senators lost their seats during recall elections this summer.

"I fully anticipate there will be signatures collected in every single Wisconsin county tomorrow," said state Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate. He said he hoped to collect at least 600,000 signatures by the deadline.

The recalls organized by Democrats, labor unions and others, are largely motivated by Republicans' adoption of a Walker-supported law that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers. Wrangling over the law earlier this year spurred protests that grew as large as 100,000 people and motivated all 14 Democratic state senators to flee for three weeks in an ultimately vain attempt to stop the proposal.

Walker said Monday he remains focused on fulfilling his campaign promise to grow jobs by 250,000 by 2015, when the term he was elected to last year ends. He defended his record and said voters were ready to move forward and didn't want to get stuck in an endless campaign cycle.

"We've made a lot of progress," he said. "It's a new day in Wisconsin."

Governors have only been recalled from office twice in U.S. history, in North Dakota in 1921 and in California when voters removed Gov. Gray Davis from office in 2003.

Walker recall organizers hope to tap ongoing anger over the collective bargaining law and build on momentum from last week's vote rejecting a similar law in Ohio. Wisconsin doesn't allow for a referendum challenging its law to be put on the ballot, so opponents targeted Walker and the three state senators.

"Any recall attempts filed will be nothing more than a shameless power grab by the Democrats and their liberal special interests, and will not deter Republicans from moving the state forward under responsible leadership," Republican Party spokeswoman Nicole Larson said Monday.

One Tuesday march and rally is planned for outside Walker's private residence in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa. Organizers said they would gather petition signatures on the lawns of Walker's neighbors. In downtown Madison, a Democratic state lawmaker planned to circulate the petitions in his neighborhood near the Capitol.

This summer nine state senators — three Democrats and six Republicans — underwent recall elections spawned by their position on the collective bargaining law. Two Republican incumbents lost, leaving the GOP with a narrow one-vote majority in the state Senate. Republicans also control the Assembly.

The three Republican state senators being targeted for recall by the Democratic Party this time around are Van Wanggaard of Racine, Pam Galloway of Wausau and Terry Moulton of Chippewa Falls, according to Tate. All three defeated Democratic incumbents in 2010.

"I can't be distracted by what they're going to do," Wanggaard said. "If this is going to happen, it's going to happen. We're going to work hard to stay."

Galloway and Moulton had no comment.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said he has not ruled out Republicans running as Democrats on the ballot to force a primary election and prolong the process, as was done in the summer recalls. He also said he expected to be targeted for recall, but would wait until when signatures are returned in January to decide whether to go after any Democrats.

But he said others not operating with support of the party may file their own recall petitions sooner.

The Senate races will be fought in their current legislative districts, not under new boundaries set to take effect with the November 2012 elections. Republicans redrew the district maps earlier this year as required every 10 years when new Census data is released.

The new lines are generally more favorable to Republicans, making it more urgent for Democrats to target the incumbents before those boundaries take effect.

The Wisconsin Republican Party announced Monday that it was launching a website to gather details about potential fraud related to recall petition circulation. Party executive director Stephan Thompson encouraged people to submit videos, recordings, photos and other incident reports that he said would be reviewed by party staff as well as retired law enforcement officers.

One Wisconsin Now director Scot Ross said his liberal group also would be closely monitoring the recall process to dispel misinformation and make sure the work of those legally seeking signatures isn't impeded.

Democrats do not yet have an announced candidate to take on Walker should enough signatures be collected to force an election. The earliest such an election could occur, without any expected delays in verifying the signatures or legal challenges, is March 27. Most expect any election would be later in the spring or in the summer.

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Illinois governor signs election law favoring Democrats (Reuters)

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Illinois Democratic Governor Pat Quinn signed into law on Friday a new congressional district map that could reverse gains Republicans made in the state in 2010 midterm elections.

Democrats were able to leverage their control of the General Assembly and a Democratic governor to approve a new election map for 2012 that analysts said could help Democrats win at least three more congressional seats in the state.

The effects of the law, which Republicans or third-party interest groups may challenge in court, would be to pit strong Republicans against each other, extend Chicago Democratic incumbent districts into suburban Republican districts, and incorporate new voter blocs into Republican strongholds.

Quinn denied that the redistricting was a partisan ploy by Democrats.

"This map is fair, maintains competitiveness within congressional districts, and protects the voting rights of minority communities," Quinn said.

Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady differed.

"This bill is a crass, partisan political move to silence the voices of Illinoisans, who last November made it very clear that they wanted to fire Nancy Pelosi by electing a majority Republican Congressional Delegation from the home state of President Obama," Brady said.

The Illinois Republican Party's lawyers will review the maps to see if any state or federal laws have been broken, said Jonathan Blessing, a party spokesman.

In the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans picked up 60 House seats nationally, knocking Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi from power and putting Republicans in charge of House committees. It was the biggest shift in power in the House since Democrats gained 75 House seats in 1948.

But Democratic analysts believe Illinois and California, where Democrats are still in power at the state level, are their best chances to gain back seats in 2012 through redistricting.

Republicans in power in most of the Midwest and South are drawing maps in those states seeking to protect new Republican members of Congress elected in 2010.

In Illinois, Republicans picked up four seats in 2010 to hold an overall edge of 11 to 8 in the state's congressional delegation. They also kept control of the wealthy North Shore suburban Chicago district vacated by Republican Mark Kirk's successful Senate bid.

Illinois will lose one of its 19 congressional seats due to slow population growth relative to other states, according to the federal census.

Andy Shaw, President of the Better Government Association, said the Illinois map was partisan politics as usual.

"Most of Quinn's adult life was spent in opposition to this blatant political manipulation of the system," Shaw told Reuters. "His willingness to sign the bill without any changes is another indication that he has had to abandon many of his progressive principles to be able to deal with the political realities of Springfield (the state capital)," he said.

(Editing by Greg McCune)

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