KDSN Radio

An Iowa lawmaker says it’s time to explore whether some western Illinois counties might become part of the State of Iowa.

Representative Taylor Collins was born in Macomb, Illinois, but his hometown is Mediapolis, in southeast Iowa. His Iowa House district includes Muscatine, Louisa, and Des Moines Counties, which border the Mississippi River.

“I know a lot of folks on both sides of the river,” Collins said, “and I hear consistently from the folks right on the Illinois side that they would much rather be governed by the politics here in Des Moines rather than the politics of Chicago.”

Collins has introduced a bill that would create an Iowa-Illinois Border Adjustment Committee and Collins said he’s gotten interesting feedback on the bill.

“I continue to have outreach from Illinois residents saying, ‘Please do this,'” Collins said. “The only feedback I’ve gotten from the Iowa side is: ‘Oh, I don’t know about this so much.'”

The chair of the House State Government Committee told the Quad City Times the proposal isn’t ready for consideration and the bill won’t advance this year. The bill Collins has introduced is similar to a law in Indiana. Since 2020, 33 Illinois counties have passed non-binding referenda calling for secession, and the Indiana-Illinois Boundary Adjustment Commission held its first meeting last fall. The governor of Illinois says the commission is a political stunt, and he has refused to appoint residents of Illinois to serve on the commission with Indiana residents.

Rural residents of California have been talking for decades about splitting from California and creating a new state called Jefferson. Any boundary changes have to be approved by Congress. Congress approved Iowa’s current borders in 1846, and the Iowa Constitution, adopted in 1857, defines the borders of Iowa.