'State of New Illinois' committee continues push to secede from Cook County

ILLINOIS - The movement among Illinois counties to separate from Chicago and Cook County to form a new state continues to grow.

Those for separating point to things like high taxes and a shrinking influence at the state capital for wanting to secede from Illinois. 

Voters in 33 Illinois counties—nearly one-third of the state's 102 counties—including multiple counties in the St. Louis region have now approved non-binding ballot measures saying they no longer want to be part of the state.

At least 48 counties now have committees actively working to advance the issue.

Indiana has now come calling.

Todd Huston, R-Indiana, speaker of the house, said, “Instead of seceding and creating a 51st state, they should just join us."

He’s introduced a bill to create an Indiana-Illinois boundary adjustment commission to look at making disheartened Illinois counties part of Indiana.

“At least they understand the legitimacy of what we’re doing,” Virgil Straeter of Highland, Illinois, said.

He heads the Madison County committee for a group called the State of New Illinois. The group is drawing up its own state constitution but is not looking to join Indiana.

“If you took Cook County out of Illinois, the balance of Illinois has more geography, more commerce, and more people than the state of Indiana,” he said. “The objective of New Illinois is to allow people who do not want to be part of the Chicago establishment to be able to have a place to go... when Cook County has more voting power than the rest of the state... we have, as they said in the revolutionary war, taxation without representation.”

However, Article IV of the United States Constitution says, “No new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”

Illinois Republican State Rep. Charlie Meier, whose district includes Highland, supports separation but says support in Congress is highly unlikely. 

“I don’t see it happening. If they allow Illinois to split off, what happens if California wants to split? They could end up being five states even or (let) Texas split up... I am a strong Trump supporter, but I don’t believe we’re going to go in to take Canada. You make statements to prove a point," Meier said.

He’s introduced a joint resolution for a state constitutional amendment to allot one state senator per three contiguous counties, which would give down state Illinois a senate majority instead of Chicago, which now dominates both houses of the Illinois General Assembly. Counties with a million residents or more would each get their own senator.

This, he says, is more doable and far less sloppy than trying to add a 51st star to the American flag.