Gov. Pat Quinn, the self-proclaimed defender of the little guy, is giving another lucrative job to one of the big guys.

It's hardly news anymore when an Illinois politician uses a position on the public payroll to reward a political supporter. But taxpayers, the ones who pick up the tab, ought to know about it.

That's why Quinn's appointment of Chicago lawyer Jennifer Burke to a lucrative post on the Illinois Pollution Control Board has become the subject of public discussion.

Burke is a lawyer, but she's not just any lawyer.

Her mother is a member of the Illinois Supreme Court while her father is a powerful Chicago alderman. Burke's father, Edward Burke, either gave or loaned the Quinn gubernatorial campaign more than $252,000, according to news reports.

Naturally, everyone associated with the appointment is denying that political favoritism has anything to do with the Burke appointment.

But that's a little hard to swallow since it appears that politics has everything to do with lucrative appointments to a variety of Quinn's state boards.

A recent investigative report by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch documented the high number of former elected officials, relatives of officeholders or political donors who are appointed to sit on state boards.

Here's a real shocker — the Post-Dispatch also reported the appointees do little real work, meeting once or twice a month to rubber stamp recommendations of the boards' professional staffs.

Burke's new job, assuming she's confirmed by the Illinois Senate, pays $117,000 a year and offers excellent health and pension benefits. She's currently working in the corporation counsel's office for the city of Chicago.

Her appointment is just the latest in a series of Quinn appointments awarded to defeated politicians or relatives of the political elite. Taxpayers should think of these lucrative positions the next time they hear some officeholder claim there's no money to cut from the state budget.