Can America’s Unluckiest Residents Escape Illinois without Moving?

As part of my continuing comparisons of blue states and red states, I’ve written several columns comparing New York and Florida, and I’ve done the same thing with Texas and California.

I was thinking of doing something similar for Illinois and Indiana.

After all, these neighboring states starkly illustrate the difference between bad governance and good governance.

• Illinois is a corrupt, high-tax state that is controlled by bureaucrat unions and their political cronies.
• Indiana, by contrast, has low taxes, school choice, and other policies that enable more prosperity.

And the gap is apparent when looking at state rankings.

• Indiana is #7 and Illinois is #37 according to Economic Freedom of North America.
• Indiana is #10 and Illinois is #39 according to Freedom in the 50 States.
• Indiana is #10 and Illinois is #37 according to the State Tax Business Climate Index.

But instead of simply comparing Illinois and Indiana, I want to use the two states as a springboard for a discussion about secession.

But not the bad version of secession like the U.S. experienced in 1861.

Instead, we’re going to discuss a good version, specifically the effort by some counties to secede from Illinois and join Indiana.

This is not a trivial effort. As shown by this map, 33 counties in the Prairie State have explicitly voted to leave Illinois.

The effort has even attracted the attention of the Wall Street Journal.

Here are some excerpts from an editorial last week.

…the difference between good and bad governance is coming into sharper relief for voters. Enough people are noticing in Illinois that some counties want to secede from the Land of Lincoln and join a state that isn’t ruled by public unions and their political yes-men. …Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston says the Illinois counties would be more than welcome to come on over. On Jan. 14 the Republican introduced legislation to establish the Indiana-Illinois Boundary Adjustment Commission, which would include five members appointed by the Indiana Governor and five members appointed under Illinois law, to discuss moving the state line. …Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker called the secession idea a “stunt”… Mr. Pritzker is essentially claiming the superiority of his welfare-state, public-union governance model. But fewer people are buying it. …Illinois saw the third highest state out-migration of people in the country, according to census data from October 2024. The state lost 93,247 residents in 2023, after losing 116,000 in 2022 and 141,000 in 2021. Indiana gained 30,000 residents in 2023.

It’s almost an understatement to say that people are fleeing Illinois.

There are many reasons, some of which are shown in this table that was part of the WSJ editorial.

The moral of the story is that Illinois is an unfriendly place for people who are productive.

Many of the problems in Illinois are the result of the state being dominated by one of the worst-governed cities in America. So it’s understandable that many downstate residents are moving.

But wouldn’t it be nice if they could simply stay where they are and instead become part of a well-governed state?

As the late, great Walter Williams wrote, secession is a great way of helping people escape oppression.

P.S. I wrote back in 2015 about how some people in Sardinia want to secede from Italy and join Switzerland. And imagine how many lives could have been saved if people followed my 2014 advice about Ukraine and secession.