Rural areas of Illinois and California are aiming to secede from Democrat-controlled states and form new states.
A group called the New Illinois State drafted its own state constitution and announced plans to “Leave Illinois Without Moving.”
As part of their ballots earlier this month, seven Illinois counties voted on: “Shall the board of (the county) correspond with the boards of other counties of Illinois, outside of Cook County, about the possibility of separating from Cook County to form a new state and to seek admission to the Union as such, subject to the approval of the people?”
72.85% of voters said “yes” to the initiative.
Iroquois County resident Phil Gioja told the Wall Street Journal, “There’s a lot of people in Chicago, and I think that they make a lot of decisions that affect people downstate.”
A similar effort is underway through the New California State. Paul Preston, founder of New California State, told the outlet that he intends to petition Congress for statehood, arguing that the current California government is a “one-party communist state, and technically, they have seceded from the Union already.”
The Greater Idaho effort also wants to redraw state lines.
“The State of Oregon has said we’re not going to talk about it and are basically holding people in Eastern Oregon captive against our wishes,” said Matt McCaw, the executive director of Greater Idaho.
