Legislators should make proposed new district maps public in time for serious discussion before they are adopted.

They came. They appeared to listen. They refused to commit.

That's a thumbnail description of a Saturday hearing at Parkland College that was held by an Illinois House committee and devoted to a discussion of new state legislative and congressional maps.

As far as it goes, the hearing was fine. A variety of speakers told legislators how they would like to see state and federal district boundary lines drawn for the 2012 election.

But the problem is that it's hard to be specific when discussing generalities.

So let's not just talk about what various individuals and groups would like to see in a map, let's have a robust discussion both plaudits and brickbats about the specific maps once they are put up for consideration.

Most people may not pay much attention to the question of redistricting, which occurs after the decennial census and is aimed at creating districts of generally equal size. But it has a 10-year shelf-life.

Although some states take a good government approach and try to draw nonpartisan, competitive maps Iowa being one example it's always been an insiders' game in Illinois. Leaders of the majority party in the General Assembly draw a map that gives their party a permanent advantage and the minority party a permanent disadvantage.

Democrats drew the last state legislative map in 2002, guaranteeing themselves a permanent majority. Even more disturbing, they drew a map that guaranteed most legislative races would not be seriously contested, meaning voters really had no choice on election day.

It is by specific design that state Reps. Naomi Jakobsson, the Urbana Democrat, and state Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, had only token opposition last fall. Many legislators don't even have token opposition.

That kind of approach may serve the political interests of House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton, but it does not serve the public interest.

Most people realize that, and enough politicians this year were getting enough heat that they decided to make a show of having a fair process. That's why legislators are holding hearings all over the state like the one held last weekend in Champaign.

But it's only half a process before but no after.

Speculation is rampant that even now legislative leaders are having gerrymandered maps drawn behind closed doors, even as legislators go around taking testimony on what the maps should look like.

It may be naive, particularly by Illinois standards, to suggest a new way of doing business. But this beleaguered state really needs to do better, and it can do better.

The bad old habits of the past need to be abandoned, and a new, open way of doing business adopted, one that allows voters a real choice on Election Day. When the final maps are drawn, let's make them public in time for a round of serious discussions about their strengths and weaknesses.