(The Center Square) – Madison County voters are being asked if they want to separate from Chicago.
At an unrelated news conference earlier this year, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Madison County is just as important to Illinois as Chicago is.
“It’s also, frankly, too easy to let partisanship and regional differences divide us,” said Pritzker. “The idea that someplace in Illinois wants to kick out another place in Illinois should not be on the ballot. It shouldn’t be something that’s part of a lexicon and discussion of politicians. We’re one state.”
A proponent of splitting Illinois into separate states, Dave Stopher said this is a small step in the process. About a third of the 102 Illinois counties have passed similar referendums. Fifty-one counties need to pass referendums asserting their desire to separate from Chicago, then both the Illinois General Assembly and the U.S. Congress would need to approve those counties’ request for Chicago to become a 51st state.
“In November, you have seven more counties who are voting on this,” said Stopher. “Before we even begin considering the next step, we have to have a quorum of counties, effectively a Constitutional Convention.”
Voters in Iroquois, Perry, Clinton, Madison, Calhoun, Jersey and Greene counties will see similar non binding advisory referendum questions this November. Twenty-six counties have already passed similar referendums asking voters if they want to separate from Chicago.
Pritzker argues the Chicago area gets roughly 80 cents on every dollar spent in taxes, while Southwest Illinois gets roughly $1.40 for every dollar, with that figure growing to $2 when all of southern Illinois is considered. A 2021 study by researchers at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale echoes Pritzker’s assertion.
Stopher said the study doesn’t take into account the millions spent on criminal justice reform and immigration programs.
“This is a taxpayer issue and it remains bipartisan and the bulk of the counties who passed this are tired of seeing their money go north,” said Stopher.
Getting the referendum on the ballot can be “daunting,” according to Stopher. State law requires signatures for questions to get on the ballot. For Madison County, advocates would have had to collect about 7,200 signatures.
“There’s another way to do this also through Illinois statute and that is to go to the county board and petition the board to vote and put this on the ballot,” said Stopher.
Stopher said out of the 26 counties who have passed such referendums, 24 have taken the route where they gather enough signatures to place the question on the ballot.