By GARRETT BERGQUIST
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
House Speaker Todd Huston on Monday said Indiana should respond to votes by nearly a third of Illinois counties in favor of secession from that state.
A bipartisan House committee vote Monday morning advanced a bill to set up a bi-state commission to redraw the border between Indiana and Illinois. Huston, R-Fishers, told the committee voters in 33 of Illinois’ 102 counties have approved ballot measures to explore seceding from that state since 2020, including seven this past November. He said more than 100,000 people have moved to Indiana from Illinois since the COVID-19 pandemic, often citing Indiana’s lower taxes.
Huston
“We don’t want to see our neighbors to our west languish. Ultimately, their success or failure affects our own success or failure,” Huston said. “But it’s up to them to change their course. And in the meantime, to the Illinois counties and residents feeling unheard and unrepresented, we hear you and we invite you to come back home again to Indiana.”
All of the counties in Illinois that have voted to secede are heavily Republican counties in a state long dominated by Chicago-area Democrats. Rep. Ragen Hatcher, D-Gary, asked Huston if, in the event such a commission were set up, long-Democratic Lake County would also be given the opportunity to potentially secede from Indiana and join Illinois. Huston replied it could be on the table but Lake County voters would have to decide if they want to deal with Illinois’ laws and tax system.
Rep. Chris Campbell, D-West Lafayette, was the only “no” vote in committee. She said the bill only furthers political division in the United States by redrawing state boundaries along party lines.
“There are so many of us who feel the same way in our state, that we are not heard, that we are an extremely gerrymandered state,” she said. “I’m not ready to disrupt the constitutions that we have created in our states and in our country at this point.”
Any attempt to redraw state boundaries ultimately would need approval from both the Indiana and Illinois General Assemblies as well as Congress. Illinois State Rep. Brad Holbrook, a Republican, has filed companion legislation in his state to set up the boundary commission but that bill has not yet been heard in committee.
This story was originally published by WISH-TV at wishtv.com/news/politics/indiana-legislators-secession-illinois.
I can understand very well why Republicans from Illinois want to secede away
from Chicago. On our American voting map of states, Illinois stands out like a “sore thumb” of blue among the red states of the upper northern and lower mid west states.
People who live in the eastern part of the states of Washington and Oregon want to draw the line away from the western parts of these states run by the Democrats. Northern California wants to draw the line away from southern California. They want to join the states east of them.
So here is the solution – force Chicago to secede away from the state of Illinois. In fact force all the Democratic run cities of the US to be entities of their own and draw a line separating cities run by the Democrats and cities, urban and rural areas run by Republicans.
I don’t want the shape of Indiana to change to accommodate the Illinois counties who wish to break away from Chicago, and I’m not sure how we would split Carmel and Fishers who have become the color of purple.