A long-shot crusade to break Illinois into two separate states is edging out of farm country and into Chicago’s commuter belt. The group leading the charge, New Illinois, wants to peel Chicago and much of Cook County away from the rest of the state, and this weekend it is bringing its pitch to public meetings in Barrington. Supporters cast the effort as a constitutional, grassroots fix for what they see as decades of urban-suburban-downstate tension, while political leaders in Springfield and legal experts say the odds of success are slim.
According to Axios, New Illinois plans to use the Barrington sessions to brief backers on next steps and walk through the financial analysis of a split. The group’s proposal would separate Chicago and much of Cook County from the rest of Illinois, arguing that state laws and budgets are tilted toward the densely populated city. Organizers say financial experts will be on hand to walk supporters through potential economic fallout if Illinois is actually carved in two.
The current push grew out of local ballot efforts far from the city. Between 2020 and 2024, 33 of Illinois’ 102 counties approved advisory referendums asking county boards to look at forming a new state without Cook County, according to the Illinois House Journal. Those votes are purely symbolic, but they often passed by wide margins where they were on the ballot and helped fuel new organizing chapters and events around the state.
How A Split Would Work
On paper, creating a new state is simple enough: Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution says no new state can be formed from an existing one without the consent of the state legislature and of Congress, according to Congress.gov. In practice, that double sign-off is a political brick wall. The last roughly comparable situation was West Virginia breaking away from Virginia during the Civil War, a one-off historical anomaly that helps explain why legal scholars say modern breakaway drives face an uphill climb. Backers of New Illinois argue that a long, sustained political campaign could eventually soften resistance, but the constitutional bar is high and very real.
Money And Pensions
Even if the votes were there, the dollars would be a monster headache. Any split would mean hashing out how to divvy up tax revenues, infrastructure responsibilities and long-term debts. Illinois’ combined unfunded liabilities across its five state retirement systems were pegged at roughly $144 billion as of Fiscal Year 2024, according to the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability. Advocates of a breakup say a new state could negotiate a fair way to share that burden. Critics counter that the pension tab alone makes the whole idea more fantasy than blueprint.
The rest of the Midwest has taken notice. In Indiana, lawmakers floated the idea of studying whether some downstate Illinois counties should be allowed to jump the border and join the Hoosier State after a wave of advisory referendums. That notion surfaced in coverage of a 2025 Indiana bill to create an "Indiana-Illinois Boundary Adjustment Commission," as reported by St. Louis Public Radio. The cross-state chatter shows how county-level votes in rural Illinois have generated regional questions that go well beyond local grievances.
New Illinois portrays the whole fight as a matter of political voice and local control. In a news release, chairman G. H. Merritt argued that "urban, suburban and rural areas have different needs, interests, cultures, and economies," and Axios reports that the Barrington meetings will feature analysts to "discuss the potential economic fallout of a split." Organizers have lined up more sessions in the coming weeks as they try to grow their base beyond traditional downstate strongholds.
So far, state leaders are not exactly shaking in their boots. Democratic power brokers in Springfield have shown little interest in the plan, and Gov. J. B. Pritzker’s office has dismissed the movement as "a stunt" that is highly unlikely to clear the legal hurdles needed for statehood, according to NBC Chicago. For now, the Barrington meetings are shaping up as a test of whether suburban curiosity can turn into something more than advisory votes, county resolutions and a very ambitious wish list.
