The good-government crowd is inviting Gov. Pat Quinn to ride to the rescue and save the public from gerrymandered state legislative maps.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn says a lot of things, many of which contradict what he's said previously.

But Quinn's past public comments about the upcoming legislative redistricting process, following last year's U.S. census, should be taken to heart by every citizen of Illinois. He has been consistently skeptical of the notion that the majority party in the General Assembly should be allowed to draft a partisan, political map that guarantees that party a big advantage come election time.

So perhaps Quinn will accept a recommendation from the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform to use his bully pulpit and the power of his office to urge legislative Democrats to hold public hearings on state House and Senate map proposals and solicit the public's opinion about them.

Cindy Canary, executive director of the good government organization, has urged that Quinn "demand some real transparency in the map-drawing process even though state law will not mandate it."

Legislators of both parties pay a lot of lip service to the idea of fair elections, but the ugly reality is that they really could not care less about that. Individual members of the Illinois House and Senate want safe districts in which to run and a gerrymandered statewide map that guarantees their party a legislative majority.

That's the way it's been in Illinois for decades, and it reflects the worst instincts governing the reapportionment process. That's why the public needs to be involved. If they're not, the maps will be gerrymandered, and election results will be foreordained for the next 10 years, just as they have been for the last 10 years.

Last year, the General Assembly, bowing to the idea of fairness, passed SB 3976, the Redistricting Transparency and Public Participation Act. It purports to solicit public comment about the map-drawing process for state House and Senate districts. In reality, it does no such thing.

"The only things transparent about SB 3976 are the motives of the bill's drafters, who wanted to enact an empty promise of transparency and leave open the option of proceeding with business as usual at the same time," Canary wrote in a recent commentary.

The legislation requires four regionalized public hearings on the map-drawing process. But it's no accident that the hearings will focus on population changes in the old districts. Further, they can and almost certainly will be held before anyone sees the House and Senate maps prepared by House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton.

Canary urges Gov. Quinn to intervene in the map-drawing process to ensure that public voices and influence are not just heard, but heeded.

"He should ... tell them that if the General Assembly does not embrace real transparency when drafting maps, he will hold his own hearings about the proposed maps all over the state. He could invite the map-makers in the General Assembly to join him at those public hearings and let them tell local voters why they chose particular district boundaries," Canary wrote.

Most legislators operate under the theory that reapportionment is their business, not the public's business. That's just the kind of attitude that Quinn has denounced his entire political career. Through the referendum proposals and various protests he's led, Quinn always has embraced bringing the public into the political process.

There hardly could be a more important issue for Quinn to try to assert himself, mostly because the state will be stuck with the results of reapportionment for 10 years.

Gov. Quinn always has held himself out to be for the people, not any political party. If that's really true, he'll accept Canary's well-reasoned suggestion and embrace an interventionist role on reapportionment. As governor, he wields considerable power, and he ought to use it in a way that ensure voters choices in competitive legislative elections, not the one-sided charades they've endured in the past.