Republicans in the Indiana statehouse have proposed legislation that would redraw the state border with Illinois and annex some southern counties to the Hoosier State.
According to Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston, more than 30 counties in Illinois have voted to secede since 2020 due to the state’s high taxes. Indiana House Republicans included the bill on a list of their top priorities for the 2025 session.
“To all of our neighbors to the west, we hear your frustrations,” Huston said. “Instead of seceding and creating a 51st state, they should just join us.”
If the legislation passes, the Indiana General Assembly would create an “Indiana-Illinois Boundary Adjustment Commission,” which would be tasked with helping those Illinois counties become part of Indiana. However, the Illinois General Assembly would also need to pass a similar resolution, and Republicans have not controlled any part of the Illinois government since 2003, with the exception of former Gov. Bruce Rauner’s single term from 2015 to 2019.
“That is a process that follows a constitutional process for redrawing state boundaries,” Speaker Huston said, claiming that Indiana believes “there might be some interest in the Illinois legislature to do that.”
The rural Illinois counties of Calhoun, Clinton, Green, Iroquois, Jersey, Madison, and Perry voted affirmatively in November 2024 to the question of whether the counties should explore “the possibility of separating from Cook County to form a new state and to seek admission to the Union as such.”
Many of these are on the Illinois-Indiana border or close to it, though not all of them are.
Illinois officials have previously raised skepticism about the idea of Illinois counties seceding.
“It is my opinion that non-home-rule counties … do not have the authority to secede from the state of Illinois and join another state,” Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in 2023.
Huston noted that the bill is not meant to “stir up trouble with Illinois” but called it a serious proposal.
State Rep. Ed DeLaney, a Democrat, said that while the bill likely has the votes to pass in the Indiana House, which has a Republican majority, it distracts from other issues the state is facing.
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“If we need more rural counties, how are we doing for the, what, 60-70 rural counties we already have where they’re losing hospitals, where their schools are shrinking?” DeLaney asked.
“So no, this is not a serious proposal,” he said, adding that it “could make us a laughingstock.”
