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Frustrated Illinois residents are pushing to break away from Chicago and form a new state, driven by what the movement’s leader calls growing resentment over the city’s influence on the rest of Illinois.
Loret Newlin, director of Illinois Separation, which is leading the push to let voters weigh in on breaking away from Cook County and forming a new state, told Fox News Digital that residents outside the Chicago area are being ignored by state government and want to change that.
“Our area is not taken into consideration when laws are being made,” Newlin said. “There’s definitely more focus on them, and the laws are centered to benefit Chicago and Cook [County].”
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Loret Newlin, director of Illinois Separation, told Fox News Digital that residents outside the Chicago area are being ignored by state government. (iStock)
“There is a lot of area outside of Cook that should have been taken into consideration,” she said.
Newlin said that 11 counties and several townships in Illinois will vote on a non-binding referendum in November that asks residents if they’d be interested in separating from Cook County to form a new state.
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Residents in some Illinois counties are pushing to separate from Cook County, where they feel Chicago has an outsized influence on the rest of the state. (Scott Olson/Getty Images; Marlin Levison/Star Tribune via Getty Images)
The referendums are intended to gauge whether voters want to pursue forming a separate state made up of Illinois counties outside Cook County. The effort draws on a process outlined in Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, the same provision invoked when West Virginia became a state in 1863.
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She pointed to a proposed per-mile tax for drivers making its way through the Illinois legislature as one example of how she says state lawmakers are overlooking downstate residents.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker holds a news conference in Chicago, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Newlin said the proposed per-mile tax, introduced by state Sen. Ram Villivalam, whose district includes part of Chicago, would disproportionately affect rural residents, farmers and truckers who lack the public transit options available in the city.
“It’s a long way to a lot of important things for people who live in downstate. A lot of our businesses rely on transportation. One of our biggest industries down here is truckers, farmers. And the commute to a job is usually a little farther and we don’t have the option of taking the Chicago public transit system,” Newlin said. “And we tried to defeat this in 2019 and succeeded, but as typical, they won’t take no for an answer.”
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Newlin also criticized Illinois’ SAFE-T Act, saying she’s “not happy” with the law and believes it “really benefits the criminals,” and pointed to the impact it’s having on Chicago.
Crime scene tape is stretched around the front of a home where a man was shot on May 28, 2017, in Chicago, Illinois. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The SAFE-T Act, signed into law by Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker in 2021, eliminated cash bail and established a new system for judges to determine whether defendants should be detained or released while awaiting trial.
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Pritzker has opposed the idea of separation, and a spokesperson for his office previously called the movement a “stunt” that is “not going to happen,” according to NBC Chicago.
Fox News Digital reached out to Pritzker and Villivalam for comment.
