Illinois Conservatives Launch Effort To Boot Liberal Chicago Out of State
Several Illinois Republicans are cosponsoring legislation that would start the process of separating Chicago from Illinois, claiming the Windy City’s huge influence means rural areas of the state are not sufficiently represented.
Secession is an age-old American ideal — indeed, the United States itself was founded on the principle of secession.
Had our Founding Fathers not decided to secede from Great Britain, America as we know it today might never have existed.
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness,” the Declaration of Independence states.
Many people living in rural downstate Illinois don’t feel represented by their government because of Chicago’s massive influence over the state’s politics — Illinois has two Democrat senators and a Democrat governor, and many of the votes for these officials no doubt came from Chicago.
House Resolution 101, introduced in February, “urge[s] the United States Congress to take action to declare the City of Chicago the 51st state of the United States of America and separate it from the rest of Illinois,” according to the bill’ext text.
Illinois Republican state Rep. Brad Halbrook, who cosponsored the legislation, reasoned that there is a stark ideological divide between Chicago and the rest of the state.
“Our traditional family values seem to be under attack at every angle,” Halbrook told The State Journal-Register last month. “We are trying to drive the discussion to get people at the table to say these are not our values down here.”
“When you have a large population center that seems to control the agenda for the rest of the state, it just kind of creates some issues,” he added.
During an appearance Monday on Fox News, Halbrook explained his positioning further.
“The rural portions are not being equally represented,” Halbrook said.
Illinois Republican state Rep. C.D. Davidsmeyer, who also cosponsored the resolution, doesn’t actually want to separate Chicago from the rest of Illinois.
“It’s more of a frustration of the policies than the true belief that Chicago and Illinois would be better off as separate states,” he told The Journal-Register.
”I don’t believe that Chicago and the state of Illinois should be separated. Our relationship is mutually beneficial.”
But Halbrook suggested to Fox News that Chicago is responsible for “the piling on of debt. “The goal is to form a new Illinois,” he said.
“The U.S. Constitution,” Halbrook said, “gives us the guarantee that we are to have a small ‘r’ republican form of government. It’s simply not working in the state of Illinois.”
Either way, it’s clear that downstate Illinoisans are fed up with the oversized Democrat influence of Chicago. That being said, what Halbrook is proposing would be an arduous process, and Democrats in the state would likely do everything possible to stop it.
Democrats want to keep the rural communities of Illinois tied to Chicago because secession would likely give Republicans two more U.S. senators, as well as more representatives in the House.
Even on the federal level, Democrats are trying to give large urban centers even more power by abolishing the electoral college, which would make it nearly impossible for another Republican to become president.
Democrats use the influence of massive liberal cities to drown out the voices of conservatives in rural areas, and people are clearly starting to get tired of it.
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