Metro East county considers joining Missouri. Illinois AG says no.
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/government-politics/metro-east-county-considers-joining-missouri-illinois-ag-says-no/article_3fed5dda-799a-11ee-82bd-732ba68a1408.html#tracking-source=home-top-storyIn response to a question raised by an official in Jersey County, located across the Mississippi River from Missouri, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said the county does not have “the authority to secede from the State of Illinois and join another state.”
Writing in an Oct. 17 opinion, Raoul said the state constitution does not provide a statutory procedure for the secession of counties from the state.
And, he added, there are federal issues that stand in the way too. Jersey County, along with others in downstate Illinois, have been investigating ways to break the state into two pieces, with Democrat-leaning areas in the Chicago region becoming one state, and Republican-dominated areas in downstate Illinois becoming another.
Located north of St. Louis, Jersey County has 21,500 residents. It includes the towns of Elsah and Grafton. The county seat is Jerseyville. Talk of breaking up states has become more common among Republicans after President Joe Biden won Illinois’ electoral votes over former President Donald Trump in 2020, despite only 13 of the state’s 102 counties voting Democratic.
Similar discussions have been underway in Oregon, where residents in the rural eastern part of the state don’t like the urban leanings of the Portland area and have sought to join Idaho.
In California, San Bernardino County, located east of Los Angeles, also has studied the possibility of secession.
Like the Illinois effort, such a change would entail more than just a county wanting to join a different state. Along with needing buy-in from the state legislature, Congress also would have to act.
No new states have been created since Hawaii in 1959.
At least two dozen Illinois counties, primarily concentrated in the southeastern portion of the state, have passed “separation referendums” dating to 2020.
But Raoul, a Democrat and former state senator from Chicago, said in his opinion that the effort is doomed to fail under state law.
“(A)ny referendum on the issue of county secession would have no binding effect,” he wrote.
