I’ve written in the past about the Greater Idaho movement, whose goal is the secession of a number of counties in eastern Oregon and their merger with Idaho, their eastern neighbor.
Oregon is not the only state where counties are looking to secede: a group of counties in southern Illinois wants to escape the death grip of the Chicago metropolitan area. According to the website Red-State Secession (“Preserving the American parts of America”), seven counties in southern Illinois are voting on whether to secede:
Seven Counties Will Vote on Splitting Illinois
Illinois Separation, the main organization behind the movement to split Illinois into two states, showed surprising strength last week. Friday was the last day for the Illinois State Board of Elections to certify candidates and public questions for inclusion on the 2024 general election ballot. Illinois Separation, in a Facebook post, revealed that seven counties will vote then on this ballot question: “Shall the Board of ____ County correspond with the boards of other counties of Illinois outside of Cook about the possibility of separating from Cook County to form a new state, and to seek admission to the Union as such, subject to the approval of the people?” The question is non-binding.
The seven counties are listed below. In Calhoun and Greene counties, citizens forced the question onto the ballot by collecting the number of valid signatures required by state law. In the other five counties, county boards unanimously or near-unanimously voted to add the question to the ballot.
In 2020-2022, 26 and a half counties voted in favor of such questions, and none voted in opposition. The counties averaged 74% in favor. With the partial county, Madison County, voting as a whole on the topic this year, the number of counties voting in favor of the proposal could reach 33. Illinois has 101 counties.
The possibility that downstate Illinois could become a new state increased recently when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer expressed openness to next year ending the ability of minorities to block Senate legislation using a filibuster. It’s conceivable that Democrats could trade statehood for Washington DC or Puerto Rico in return for statehood for downstate Illinois. It seems unlikely though, since the motivation for the movement for statehood for Washington DC seems to be mostly to lessen the Republican advantage in the Senate and in the electoral college.
Constitutionally, any deal to make downstate Illinois into a state would require approval from the Illinois General Assembly. Downstate Illinois legislators haven’t garnered support from upstate legislators for their bills that would advance the proposal, even though it would benefit upstate Illinois fiscally. The only region of the state that pays more than its share in state taxes are the collar counties around Chicago, according to a Southern Illinois University analysis.
Even downstate Illinois lawmakers sometimes shy away from the idea, as many of their donors reside in upstate Illinois.
Iroquois County will be the first county to vote on the issue that is not more southerly than Peoria, as the movement has been predominantly in the southern half of the state.
Jersey County board member Eric Ivers advocates for the Illinois state line to be relocated to make downstate Illinois a part of a neighboring state: Missouri. His county board voted May 14 to put the question on his county’s ballot. The idea of relocating the state line has been championed by a blog called Red-State Secession, whose Facebook group was cancelled by Facebook in 2021 but is survived by its MeWe group, Downstate Illinois Secession. Neither is associated with Illinois Separation, the main group focused on creating a new state.
A few legislators in Missouri, Indiana, and Kentucky briefly showed interest to the blog about relocating state borders. If there is to be progress, the movement will have to solicit a resolution in favor from a neighboring state legislature, or a bill to fund research into the impacts of relocating the state line.
The news that 23 counties voted for splitting Illinois in November 2020 was only reported by one news outlet, as attention was fixed on presidential election results. Only three and half counties have voted since then, as Illinois Separation’s and Downstate Illinois Secession’s heavily-followed Facebook groups and pages were inexplicably cancelled by Facebook three years ago. The Greater Idaho movement’s page and groups were deleted by Facebook at the same time, and also a few years prior.
The news that Illinois Separation now has questions on 7 county ballots is a sign that the movement has reconnected with some of its followers and is gaining strength. It dramatizes the role of Facebook in limiting the reach of conservative movements, especially movements that don’t affect the national conversations that Twitter and YouTube specialize in. It has limited the reach of the Texas Nationalist Movement, for example.
A third Illinois state-split organization exists, called New Illinois. It is not the organizer of the ballot referenda.
The state website does not report county election results. To get an email about the result of these elections, subscribe to our free Substack.
LIST OF COUNTIES that will have this question on their 2024 General Election ballot with date and (if applicable) how their board voted:
- MADISON Board vote: 15:7 4-17-2024
- JERSEY Board vote: 14:00 5-14-2024
- CLINTON Board vote: 12:1 7-15-2024
- CALHOUN Petitions filed 7-25-2024
- GREENE Petitions filed 8-03-2024
- IROQUOIS Board vote: 11:3 8-13-2024
- PERRY Commissioners vote: 3:0 8-15-2024
The wish of the people to be in control of their own fate politically has strong roots in the ideals of the Founders, in particular federalism and subsidiarity. The former regarding state’s rights versus federal or national ones, and the latter in terms of pushing decision-making authority downwards to as close to the people themselves as possible.
As the article reports, such measures often encounter opposition from unexpected quarters. Though one would expect left/Democrat opposition to such a measure, it is somewhat surprising to some that the GOP would oppose these measures. Why? As law professor and blogger Glenn Reynolds once quipped, “Insufficient opportunities for graft…”
Since a substantial degree of the power of local, county, state and national government officials resides in their ability to control the swag – a.k.a tax revenues – and do favors for friends and punish their political enemies – it is hardly surprising that granting the people their independence from the status quo is unpopular with the racketeers themselves.
As a former Illinoisan, I look with interest upon the groups seeking greater political autonomy from the tyranny imposed by Springfield and Chicago, and perhaps their wish to join a neighboring state – but since the fix is in pretty much everywhere in the Land of Lincoln, it will be surprising if these efforts are not DOA. Sorry to be so cynical, but I spent a lot of years in that crooked and corrupt place, and have the scars to prove it….
Many states could benefit from a state level electoral college set up. Rather than being dominated by one or two cities; giving every county an equal (or near so) weight would put an end to urban hegemony.
“There are currently secessionist movements active in 12 U.S. states campaigning either for full independence, to form a new state or to merge with an existing state.”
https://www.newsweek.com/secession-movements-now-12-us-states-campaigner-grant-dahl-1939044
“As’s been said before: ASSIMILATE, SEPARATE (Two-State Solution) or ASSASSINATE (War)—those’re the options. Hopefully, in the long-run, cooler heads’ll prevail and we’ll [peacefully] choose one of the first two before the third option’s foisted upon us by events. But once large numbers of Americans’re unable to work—either due to widespread protests/riots, financial calamity or political chaos—I fear that the collectivists’ cheese’ll slide off the constitutional cracker.
The clock’s ticking..” —posted to fb (Oct 2018)
The great Robert A Heinlein, in one of his last novels, “Friday”, predicted the US’ breaking up into three (I think) separate states. Purely from an outsider’s viewpoint, the dismemberment of the only democratic (? ) superpower would be a disaster for the rest of us
While I’m all for seceding, that’s only a temporary solution. Red states/areas go blue because those on the Right sit at home instead of voting. Also, people on the Right don’t want to be bothered with issues that affect their lives. When Red states go Blue, most of the time it’s the Right doing it to themselves.
Yeah, but it will be hard to make a 51-star flag.