A group of Illinois Republican lawmakers are sponsoring a resolution urging Congress to separate Chicago from the state of Illinois, which would make the nation’s third-largest city its own state.
House Resolution 101 is the latest salvo in a nearly century-old tug of war between rural, conservative districts in southern Illinois and urban, progressive districts in the Chicagoland area. Like previous attempts to separate the city from the state, this proposal has little chance of becoming reality.
Even sponsors of the resolution admit they don’t actually want to see Chicago separated from Illinois. Instead, they said they’ve signed on to this resolution to express frustration with Chicago’s out-sized presence in state politics.
“I don’t believe that Chicago and the state of Illinois should be separated,” Illinois Republican Rep. C.D. Davidsmeyer, one of the co-sponsors of the resolution, told The State Journal-Register. “It’s more of a frustration of the policies than the true belief that Chicago and Illinois would be better off as separate states.”
Instead they say the resolution is intended to shine a spotlight on simmering cultural and financial tensions between urban and rural areas in Illinois.
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