{"id":87742,"date":"2022-11-16T01:03:31","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T07:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=87742"},"modified":"2022-11-16T01:03:31","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T07:03:31","slug":"87742","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=87742","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Ill-Exit? Movement to Create a New State in Southern Illinois Gains Momentum<\/a><\/p>\n

Agrowing list of Illinois counties disenfranchised with the goings-on in Cook County have voted in nonbinding resolutions to leave Illinois and form a new state.<\/p>\n

Residents in three more counties \u2013 Brown, Hardin and a portion of Madison County \u2013 voted in favor of a nonbinding resolution allowing their county board to explore the possibility of leaving the state, bringing the total to 27. In all three counties, close to 75% of residents were in favor of the idea.<\/p>\n

The driving force behind the referendums was to allow the county board of each area to coordinate with other county boards to explore the possibility of leaving Illinois because of the influence that Chicago and Cook County have on the state\u2019s political decisions.<\/p>\n

In Brown County, the ballot question read, \u201cShall the board of Brown County correspond with the boards of the other counties of Illinois outside of Cook County 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t use the word secession because that\u2019s not what this is, it\u2019s legally something different,\u201d said G.H. Merritt, chair of the nonpartisan organization New Illinois. \u201cWe are trying to form a new state, and we\u2019re not trying to kick Chicago out of Illinois, we\u2019re trying to kick ourselves out of Illinois.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only Congress has the power to create new states, but there has never been a formal agreement on how the process should take place.<\/p>\n

Merritt said a driving force behind the expanding movement is that many southern Illinoisans want to be heard regarding issues that affect the state as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have this movement in Illinois, you have it in California, you have it in New York, you have it in Colorado, it’s because the people in the rural areas don\u2019t have a meaningful voice in the government,\u201d Merritt said.<\/p>\n

She said a resolution is expected to be filed in January to begin the process.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time frustrated downstate Illinoisans have lobbied to split from the state. In the 1970s, residents of western Illinois declared themselves \u201cForgottonia\u201d as a protest against the government\u2019s failure to improve the transportation infrastructure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ill-Exit? Movement to Create a New State in Southern Illinois Gains Momentum Agrowing list of Illinois counties disenfranchised with the goings-on in Cook County have voted in nonbinding resolutions to leave Illinois and form a new state. Residents in three more counties \u2013 Brown, Hardin and a portion of Madison County \u2013 voted in favor … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87743,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87742\/revisions\/87743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}