(Statehouse) – A bill that would approve the annexation of several counties in Illinois by Indiana have advanced out of a House committee at the state legislature.
The bipartisan committee voted on Monday to approve the plan and send it to the full House chamber for consideration. House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers), who is personally carrying the bill, said Indiana has to respond to the votes by nearly a third of counties in Illinois to secede from the state.
“We don’t want to see our neighbors to our west languish. Ultimately, their success or failure affects our own success or failure,” he said. “But it’s up to them to change their course. And in the meantime, to the Illinois counties and residents feeling unheard and unrepresented, we hear you and we invite you to come back home again to Indiana.”
All of the counties in Illinois that have voted to secede are heavily Republican counties in a state long dominated by Chicago-area Democrats.
The bill approved by the committee would set up a commission to begin the proceedings of annexation. In order for Indiana to annex the counties who want to leave Illinois, the move would need approval of the Indiana legislature, the Illinois legislature, and Congress.
Rep. Chris Campbell (D-West Lafayette), was the only “no” vote in committee. She said the bill only furthers political division in the United States by redrawing state boundaries along party lines.
“There are so many of us who feel the same way in our state, that we are not heard, that we are an extremely gerrymandered state,” she said. “I’m not ready to disrupt the constitutions that we have created in our states and in our country at this point.”
Indiana Democrats also asked if consideration would be given to approve Indiana counties joining Illinois, such as the heavily Democratic county of Lake County.
Huston said it could be considered, but that Lake County residents would have to vote for themselves to secede first.
(Story by Network Indiana)
