Indiana annexes Illinois

[Muda69]

The best high school football field in Illinois is still Fleur-De-Lis field in Greenfield:

 

[CoachMack219]

1 hour ago, Sparty said:

I am never for anyone being “ousted” if they are qualified and doing a good job.  

I guess I'm safe, for now. 

[Titan32]

Gibson Southern has been going out for big-time competition for several years now.  Coach Hart has proven he will play anyone anywhere.

Technically a "suburb" southeast of Springfield....the Rockets have done pretty well when they travel up North to play in 4A state championships.

This year's addition of Rochester IL shows to be another one of these matchups.

• Rochester has won state championships in 2010–2011, 2011–2012, 2012–2013, 2013–2014, 2014–2015, 2016–2017, 2017–2018, 2019–2020, and 2023–2024.
• The Rochester Rockets football team won their ninth state title in 2023, beating St. Laurence 59-38 in the Class 4A state championship game. 

Edited February 18, 2025 by Titan32

[CoachMack219]

8 minutes ago, Titan32 said:

Gibson Southern has been going out for big-time competition for several years now.  Coach Hart has proven he will play anyone anywhere.

Technically a "suburb" southeast of Springfield....the Rockets have done pretty well when they travel up North to play in 4A state championships.

This year's addition of Rochester IL shows to be another one of these matchups.

• Rochester has won state championships in 2010–2011, 2011–2012, 2012–2013, 2013–2014, 2014–2015, 2016–2017, 2017–2018, 2019–2020, and 2023–2024.
• The Rochester Rockets football team won their ninth state title in 2023, beating St. Laurence 59-38 in the Class 4A state championship game. 

The Rochester Rockets are VERY good and have seen them anywhere between 3A and 5A. They were one of the programs I referred to in a previous post as one of the few outside of the greater Chicagoland area that is undeniably competitive. I've also heard some Illinois folks who believe Rochester's head coach is one of the best offensive minds in IL. 

[wabashalwaysfights]

11 hours ago, Muda69 said:

You may get part of your wish:  https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2025/02/18/illinois-secession-bill-passes-out-of-indiana-committee-with-mixed-support/

 

I mean...

It's all incredibly unlikely, but the thought is kind of remarkable.

[adambetz]

Indiana: First in basketball, fifth in corn, forty-fifth in everything else. Glad our reps are working hard to improve the general welfare of their constituents.

[WaffleWolf]

On 2/13/2025 at 8:58 PM, Alduflux said:

https://www.agriculture.com/indiana-considers-boundary-shift-and-agricultural-impact-as-illinois-counties-push-for-secession-8789473

For simplicity sake let's refrain from the political aspect of this situation and keep the conversation related to football.

There is a fanciful idea that a bulk of southern Illinois may secede from Chicago/Illinois.  In the event that were to happen they potentially would be annexed by Indiana.

How would that impact the Indiana high school state tournament?  What programs in the southern part of the state would be tournament powers in Indiana?  What classes would they fall under?  How would an expanded pool of schools change the class structure in Indiana?  What schools would you be excited to see in the Indiana tournament?

I definitely can tell this is the slow time of the year for football when we are debating hypotheticals that will never happen.

 How many more days until the season starts?

[Muda69]

22 hours ago, adambetz said:

Indiana: First in basketball, fifth in corn, forty-fifth in everything else. Glad our reps are working hard to improve the general welfare of their constituents.

Indiana is also third in the number of chickens, and egg production, in the nation.  But we all know how that is going lately.........................

 

[US31]

Despite what the Indiana Legislature is looking at, my understanding from my Illinois friends is that this group of Illinois counties doesn't really want to secede and join another state like Indiana or Missouri.  They want want to make Cook County/Chicago Metro something like its own district (i.e. Chicago D.C.) that has less political influence over the rest of the state.  When they've explained it to me they use the example of Washington DC being geographically part of Maryland but politically separate (I realize that is a federal designation and not a state level thing).  Most of those friends are in Chicago area and are about 50/50 for or against (and that does not fall along their "traditional" political beliefs.  A few very "blue" people are for it, and a few "red" people are against it).

I'm far from a legal scholar, but thats the vibe from people I know who have been watching this from inside Illinois for the last handful of years.  How that works in actual reality I would have very little insight.  From a purely "football" perspective, I'm not really on board adding a few hundred mostly smaller schools to our current tournament format.  

Those of you with more knowledge of Illinois football, if you exclude Chicago Metro (and I'll leave it to you to define that); how many schools in Illinois would fit in with the current size for 5A (Currently about 1500-2100)?  How many for 6A (currently about 2100+)?   I'm sure this is online somewhere but I have no energy to look for it😜

[Muda69]

53 minutes ago, US31 said:

Despite what the Indiana Legislature is looking at, my understanding from my Illinois friends is that this group of Illinois counties doesn't really want to secede and join another state like Indiana or Missouri.  They want want to make Cook County/Chicago Metro something like its own district (i.e. Chicago D.C.) that has less political influence over the rest of the state.  When they've explained it to me they use the example of Washington DC being geographically part of Maryland but politically separate (I realize that is a federal designation and not a state level thing).  Most of those friends are in Chicago area and are about 50/50 for or against (and that does not fall along their "traditional" political beliefs.  A few very "blue" people are for it, and a few "red" people are against it).

I'm far from a legal scholar, but thats the vibe from people I know who have been watching this from inside Illinois for the last handful of years.  How that works in actual reality I would have very little insight.  From a purely "football" perspective, I'm not really on board adding a few hundred mostly smaller schools to our current tournament format.  

Those of you with more knowledge of Illinois football, if you exclude Chicago Metro (and I'll leave it to you to define that); how many schools in Illinois would fit in with the current size for 5A (Currently about 1500-2100)?  How many for 6A (currently about 2100+)?   I'm sure this is online somewhere but I have no energy to look for it😜

Chicago needs to become a city-state, like Athens and Sparta of old or Monaco and Vatican City of today.

[oldtimeqb]

1 hour ago, US31 said:

Despite what the Indiana Legislature is looking at, my understanding from my Illinois friends is that this group of Illinois counties doesn't really want to secede and join another state like Indiana or Missouri.  They want want to make Cook County/Chicago Metro something like its own district (i.e. Chicago D.C.) that has less political influence over the rest of the state.  When they've explained it to me they use the example of Washington DC being geographically part of Maryland but politically separate (I realize that is a federal designation and not a state level thing).  Most of those friends are in Chicago area and are about 50/50 for or against (and that does not fall along their "traditional" political beliefs.  A few very "blue" people are for it, and a few "red" people are against it).

I'm far from a legal scholar, but thats the vibe from people I know who have been watching this from inside Illinois for the last handful of years.  How that works in actual reality I would have very little insight.  From a purely "football" perspective, I'm not really on board adding a few hundred mostly smaller schools to our current tournament format.  

Those of you with more knowledge of Illinois football, if you exclude Chicago Metro (and I'll leave it to you to define that); how many schools in Illinois would fit in with the current size for 5A (Currently about 1500-2100)?  How many for 6A (currently about 2100+)?   I'm sure this is online somewhere but I have no energy to look for it😜

https://www.ihsa.org/Sports-Activities/Football/State-Series-Information-Results?url=/data/fb/enrolln.htm

Here is the numeric enrollment.  If you go up, there is a way to sort school by alphabet if you would rather look that way.

 

 

[CoachMack219]

2 hours ago, US31 said:

Those of you with more knowledge of Illinois football, if you exclude Chicago Metro (and I'll leave it to you to define that); how many schools in Illinois would fit in with the current size for 5A (Currently about 1500-2100)?  How many for 6A (currently about 2100+)?   I'm sure this is online somewhere but I have no energy to look for it😜

Thanks to @oldtimeqb's efforts I can answer this for you. Excluding what I would define as Chicago Metro (or close enough) I counted:

5A (1460+): 11

6A (2141+): 3

[US31]

37 minutes ago, CoachMack219 said:

Thanks to @oldtimeqb's efforts I can answer this for you. Excluding what I would define as Chicago Metro (or close enough) I counted:

5A (1460+): 11

6A (2141+): 3

Thats actually more than I would have guessed....thanks Coach

Is there really ONE high school (Berwyn-Cicero) that has 7700+ students!?!

Edited February 20, 2025 by US31

[CoachMack219]

3 minutes ago, US31 said:

Thats actually more than I would have guessed....thanks Coach

Is there really ONE high school (Berwyn-Cicero) that has 7700+ students!?!

For sure was more 5A schools than I thought there would be. 6A seemed about what I would of guessed. But yes, the Illinois version (Morton East) of my alma mater (Hammond Morton), in name only. Lol I believe they have a very large Hispanic population and are traditionally good at soccer.  

[Titan32]

8 hours ago, CoachMack219 said:

Thanks to @oldtimeqb's efforts I can answer this for you. Excluding what I would define as Chicago Metro (or close enough) I counted:

5A (1460+): 11

6A (2141+): 3

Now answer for the football everyone REALLY cares about in Indiana 4A and 3A!  I'd be curious about those counts as well.

[CoachMack219]

17 hours ago, Titan32 said:

Now answer for the football everyone REALLY cares about in Indiana 4A and 3A!  I'd be curious about those counts as well.

Christ (sorry church folks), I'll be back in a little while... Lmao 

[CoachMack219]

17 hours ago, Titan32 said:

Now answer for the football everyone REALLY cares about in Indiana 4A and 3A!  I'd be curious about those counts as well.

Again, many thanks to @oldtimeqb's efforts so I can answer this new version of the question for you. Excluding what I would define as Chicago Metro (or close enough) I counted:

3A (513+): 41, give or take a school.

4A (810-1459): 31, give or take a school. 

[Southside]

I saw this on a Southern Illinois facebook page. 

[Frozen Tundra]

On 2/24/2025 at 11:07 AM, Southside said:

I saw this on a Southern Illinois facebook page. 

Nah Illinois gets to keep St. Clair County (East St. Louis) or they can pawn them off on Missouri. The only land we should give up to Illinois is Lake County. Maybe we can throw in St. Joseph County so they can have an exclave like Russia has with the Kaliningrad Oblast. But the rest of northern Indiana should remain with Indiana.

[MacAttack53]

Hard pass.

[Coach Nowlin]

On 2/24/2025 at 10:07 AM, Southside said:

I saw this on a Southern Illinois facebook page. 

OH NO NO NO NO.  🙂 

 

[Muda69]

https://mises.org/mises-wire/secession-why-redrawing-us-state-borders-makes-politicians-so-mad

Quote

Over the past five years, 33 counties in Illinois have voted to secede from the state, presumably to either form a new state or join another state. In most of these counties, the voters were given the option to vote yes or no on  a ballot question that looked generally like this: 

“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?”

Many of the voters and policymakers supporting the separation note that they consider themselves to be economically, culturally, and historically separated from Chicago and the counties surrounding it. Most of the state’s 13 million residents—more than nine million people—live within the greater Chicago metro area, but that potentially leaves one or two million people—a “state” the size of Montana or Nebraska—who are interested in breaking free of Chicago metro politics. 

The fact that the secession efforts keep coming up again and again suggest some political staying power, as does a new development in Indiana: last week, the Indiana House of Representatives passed new legislation creating a Indiana-Illinois Boundary Adjustment Commission. The purpose is to facilitate the secession of separatist Illinois counties and their subsequent annexation into Indiana. This greatly simplifies the matter, politically. Were Indiana to actually annex Illinois’s separatist counties upon separation,  the change would not even raise the problem of admitting a new US state. 

Essentially, were Illinois and Indiana to redraw their border, the matter of Illinois’s secessionist counties would be of minor national impact. For virtually everyone in the United States, life would go on as it had before. 

Yet, the Illinois ruling class, centered in Chicago, is dead set against the idea. Illinois’s Governor JB Pritzker called the secession effort a “stunt” and declared that it is “not going to happen.” The Illinois attorney general has declared the effort illegal. Critics have adopted the usual posture of those in power when faced with secession efforts like these: a mixture of authoritarianism and patronizing contempt. 

In this, the people who control the Illinois regime are similar to those in Oregon, Colorado, Maryland, and other states where outnumbered political minorities have realized they have no chance of receiving any sort of fair representation or political influence at the state capitol. 

For example, several counties in Oregon have expressed interest in being part of neighboring Idaho, as part of the Greater Idaho Movement. Similarly, some activists in northern Colorado have proposed seceding from Colorado and joining Wyoming. Something similar has happened in western Maryland. 

In every case, the response from the “people in charge” has been similar to the sneering, deprecating attitude we now see at work in Illinois.  But, why does the governor of Illinois care so much if a small portion of the population wants to break off and go its own way?  It’s difficult to see this dug-in opposition as anything other than a naked exercise in preserving political power and the status quo for those who currently enjoy positions of power and influence. 

What Reasons Are There to Oppose Redrawing State Lines? 

Some opposition stems simply from the fact that redrawing state borders is something different from the norm. A great many Americans can’t stand the idea of anything other than the status quo, no matter how obsolete the status quo has become. 

For example, Illinois state representative Charlie Meier expressed the usual lack of imagination when asked about redrawing the Illinois border:  “I don’t see it happening. If they allow Illinois to split off, what happens if California wants to split? They could end up being five states even or (let) Texas split up.”

The proper question for Meier here is, “so what?” So what if California wants to split up? Why is that any business of an Illinois state representative? It is often pointed out that no state can change its borders without approval from the US Congress. This is unfortunately true, and the clause requiring this is one of the more idiotic portions of the US constitution. The requirement of Congressional approval, however, is not a reason to oppose redrawing state lines. If anything, the Constitutional clause in question is a reason to send the proposed change to Congress and see what happens. (In a few decades, when the US begins to collapse on itself like the Soviet Union, this provision will either be changed, or it will be ignored.)

The inertia of the status quo is enough to keep many people clinging to the refrain of “this is the way we’ve always done it.” Will the intellectual heirs of these people be saying this fifty years from now? I can picture it now: “well, you see, we cannot redraw these borders. When Illinois was a vacant waste of swamps and forests, the US congress drew some lines on a map around the area. That’s what we did 250 years ago, and that can never, ever change no matter what, until the end of time!“

Opposing Democracy When the “Wrong” Side Wins

What other reasons could be given for such strenuous opposition to changing the borders of US states? Certainly, those in opposition cannot claim to have “democracy” on their side. After all, the secession measures are exactly what we would call “democracy at work.” In many of these cases, lopsided majorities voted to secede from Illinois. Are we to now say that majority rule doesn’t matter after all? Even when it doesn’t violate anyone’s property rights? 

This, of course is exactly what Pritzker and friends would have you believe. Part of the privilege of being in the American political ruling class is being able to define “democracy” as whatever you want it to be. 

A more likely motivation for opposing secession is good old fashioned paternalism. 

We can see this manifest in a couple of ways. For one, those who oppose secession for these Illinois counties have said that rural parts of Illinois aren’t very productive and are essentially “welfare queen” counties. One would think that Illinois would therefore be happy to see them go. But no. Paternalism kicks in and the opponents of secession declare that the secessionists don’t know what’s good for themselves. 

Paternalism also takes another form which appears when politicians declare that those lousy separatists aren’t “progressive” enough to be allowed to govern themselves. We see this in recent comments from Pritzker who has declared that the separatist counties must never be allowed to leave because then they would implement policies that are insufficiently enlightened. That is, the Illinois separatists might loosen up gun laws, cut the local minimum wage, or reduce other government regulations. Pritzker reaction to that is essentially “over my dead body.” Thus, democracy is rendered null and void if the ruling party doesn’t care for your politics.  It’s simply the domestic version of the political imperialism that has always guided the anti-secessionist impulse: “we can’t let you leave because you might do things differently.”

Are These State Borders Sacred?

It’s important to remember that these states’ secession movements have no effect on geopolitical realities, or on federal revenue. In the cases where no new state would be formed, not even the US Senate would change. Yet, opposition to these minor changes to the status quo endure because politicians regard any such change as a threat to their power and their ability to impose their power as a means of rewarding their favorite interest groups. 

Admittedly, a redrawing of state lines would produce some changes to the electoral college. In the case of redrawing the Indiana-Illinois border, Illinois might lose an electoral college vote, and Indiana could gain one. This, of course, is bound to fuel opposition, but all this means is that opposition to redrawing state lines is based on parochial partisan concerns, and hardly on any sort of principle. 

Politicians try to cover their partisan motivations up, of course, which is why we see Pritzker opposing the counties’ secession —in a hamfisted appeal to feelings of Illinois nationalism—with the slogan “we are one Illinois.”  

The opponents of state-level secession should give it a rest. Few people outside Illinois with families and jobs—and who want to mind their own business—care if the border between Illinois and Indiana is changed. The same is true of the line between Idaho and Oregon. These lines weren’t drawn by the Almighty. Politicians care deeply about such things, however, because they care deeply about power, and about preserving the status quo that has served the ruling class so well. 

Agree on all counts.

 

[23andCounting]

On 2/24/2025 at 11:07 AM, Southside said:

I saw this on a Southern Illinois facebook page. 

I'd venture to guess that Fort Wayne leans further right than Indianapolis. This border makes zero sense. This would piss off pretty much the entire NE quadrant of the state. 

[gonzoron]

2 minutes ago, 23andCounting said:

This would piss off pretty much the entire NE quadrant of the state.

More than they already are?

[Frozen Tundra]

27 minutes ago, 23andCounting said:

I'd venture to guess that Fort Wayne leans further right than Indianapolis.

Based on voting history, that would be correct.