Guest post:

I am a member of a group of volunteers known as Downstate Illinois Secession, which is devoted to convincing Illinois to relocate its state lines to allow southern and central Illinois be governed by Indiana, by Kentucky or by Missouri.

Our Facebook poll of Hoosiers got 1200 votes and the poll showed 82% were in favor in 2019.

Since early 2020, 33 counties have voted in non-binding referendums to separate from Illinois, and election results average 74% in favor, and more counties will be added every 2 years. The results so far prove that all of southern and central Illinois prefer to separate from northern Illinois.

Initially, our proposal was to trade urban northern Lake County Indiana for an equal population in southeastern Illinois, but Facebook polls in 2019 with almost 9000 voters found only 20% support overall, and IN state rep Carolyn Jackson found little support among her colleagues in northern Lake County, so we revised our proposal to only be one directional.

I support moving the state line because it pushes Illinois law 200 miles farther away from some of our counties, including immigration sanctuary laws, marijuana, and abortion centers.

It gives us the satisfaction of freeing good people in Illinois from bad Illinois law.

We published an analysis online in 2018 that shows the benefits to Indiana and Illinois of various groups of counties joining Indiana. The analysis tabulates how that would affect election results and state budgets in each state.

We recognize that Indiana would not want northern Illinois counties, which could destabilize the Republican majority that Indiana has. So we believe the largest group of counties that Indiana might want to annex is a group of 74 counties that had 2.8 million people in 2018, and includes all of southern and central Illinois, up to the Illinois River just short of Peoria and Bourbonnais. This area had 1.7 Trump voters per Hillary voter in 2016, when Indiana only had 1.5 Trump voters per Hillary voter. For reference, southern Illinois alone had 2.5.

Contrary to media reports, HB 1008 does not specify which counties should be considered for a border relocation. Proposing a group of counties would be one of the tasks of the commission, if they decide that border relocation is a good idea.

It may be that Indiana would choose not to annex all 74 counties, in order to protect the state budget. So we identified various groups of counties that have a higher average income per person than Indiana has. Another option, instead of being so selective, would be to design legislation that would create a tax mechanism to cause the whole group of counties to pay their share of our state’s taxes.

One possible group of counties is the eastern half of central Illinois, which has a population of 1.1 million people. It already has a higher average income than Indiana has, so if it joined Indiana, it would make our state’s average income $59 per person higher than it is now, and so our state government would collect about $4 more per person in income taxes than it does now.

But we agree with the Speaker of the Indiana House, Todd Huston, that all of these counties’ income would improve if they weren’t held back by Illinois regulation and tax rates. The Illinois Basin contains huge amounts of shale oil and natural gas that is barely tapped in Illinois, but is being drilled and fracked in neighboring states such as Indiana. Several developers have given up trying to obtain permits from Illinois.  The New Albany Shale development alone could support tens of thousands of high-paying jobs.

Some argue that this bill is frivolous because the governor of Illinois wouldn’t sign a companion bill. But it might not be long before a debt crisis could suddenly force the government of Illinois to need a massive influx of money. Moving the state line could provide that influx because even if Indiana isn’t willing to pay anything for these counties, still it makes sense for these counties to bring part of Illinois’ debt with them. Because if you divide the Indiana state debt by the number of Hoosiers you get about $9000. If Illinois counties took that amount of debt per person into Indiana, it wouldn’t change the debt per Hoosier, but it would be a sudden influx of money for northern Illinois. If Indiana passes this law now, then the commission will be ready to form as soon as Illinois is ready, which could possibly be before the next legislative session.     

There’s another reason Illinois may eventually want to get rid of these counties. Illinois’ budget is based on high income tax rates, so these counties are a big drain on Illinois’ budget but would not be a big drain on Indiana’s state budget because Indiana’s tax structure is different. And Illinois state leaders should be glad to eliminate the risk of another Republican becoming governor like Rauner did.

Some of the reasons that downstate Illinoisans have focused on creating a new state rather than relocating the state line is that when the movement started, people didn’t know that relocating state lines is an option, and many of their leaders and volunteers live in northern Illinois, in counties that Indiana wouldn’t be willing to take. But another one is that they didn’t know whether a neighboring state would be willing to take their counties. Indiana can help answer that question with this bill.

For more information, visit the full analysis.

[At the time of this post, help is needed to pass a bill in the Indiana Legislature related to this.]