The McDonough County board voted 15-to-3 this week to ask residents whether it should enter into discussions with other counties about separating from Cook County and forming a new state.
“This referendum’s really just trying to take the temperature of the public and see how many people are in support of it, and who’s not,” said board member Clayton Cook, who introduced the resolution.
The measure, which will appear on the November ballot, reads:
“Shall the Board of McDonough County correspond with the boards of other counties of Illinois, outside of Cook County, about the possibility of separating from Cook County to form a new state, and seek admission to the union as such, subject to the approval of the people?”
The measure, which is being promoted by a group called Illinois Separation Referendum, has already been approved by voters in several other Illinois counties, including Hancock and Brown counties.
Voters in Henderson County will also be asked to approve it this fall.
“Since our neighbors are voting on it, I think we should know what our county thinks, too,” Cook said.
He favors trying to do something different in Illinois. He said Chicago is so large that state-level laws that work for the city don’t always work well downstate.
Cook: “We need to find a way to create some state-level law that works for them but maybe it not necessarily all to apply to us when it doesn’t work as well for us.”
TSPR: “Do you have an example in mind?”
Cook: “I think a lot about our property tax code, and it may work well in Chicagoland, but we need to do some things different down here. It’s just different. Everybody gets paid different, the money’s different, and we need work differently down here.”
Illinois Separation calls the ballot measure a non-binding referendum that, if approved, gives counties a seat at the table to discuss the possibility of separating.
The group also said it is not a plan to join any other state. Illinois Separation Referendum also is not affiliated with another movement called New Illinois, though the leaders of both groups communicate with one another and are supportive of each other.
The Illinois Separation Referendum was profiled this week on NPR’s All Things Considered.
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