Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 6:45am

Dissolve Illinois!

 

John Kass, the only reason to read the Chicago Tribune, has a column calling for the dissolution of the failed State of Illinois.  Go here to read it.  I see my chunk of the State would go to Indiana.  I could live with being a Hoosier if it meant being out from under the thumb of Cook County.

 

 

My preferred solution of course would be Illinois separating into two new states:  The Land of Lincoln and Cook County.

 

Alternative names would be God’s Country and Hell.

 

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Elaine Krewer
Admin
Thursday, June 22, AD 2017 6:04pm

If I’m reading the map correctly — some downstate cities, highways or landmarks should have been included for reference — Springfield would go to Missouri (aside from being a Cubs fan, I’d be OK with that) but they already have a Springfield so I suppose our Springfield would have to change its name. Any suggestions?

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Thursday, June 22, AD 2017 6:17pm

Have you ever noticed godless Democrats squeeze into small areas like snakes in a den, but then they devastate areas from beyond where they live?

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Thursday, June 22, AD 2017 6:20pm

Hmmm… not sure how I feel about Kentucky getting some of that… what did we do wrong?

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Thursday, June 22, AD 2017 6:45pm

Who would get Great Mistakes (I mean Great Lakes) Naval Training Center?

Tom McKenna
Thursday, June 22, AD 2017 7:12pm

I sympathize… I wish we could create the state of Northern Virginia (Washingtonistan?) north of the Rappahannock, and leave the rest of the Commonwealth to her sane self. I was wondering what your take on Illinois’ woes was. I like the suggestion I saw that would require any state declaring bankruptcy to revert to territory status, give up its representation in DC, and have to apply for readmission to the Union. But it seems that, like in Virginia, one small part of the state is doing most of the mischief.

DJH
DJH
Thursday, June 22, AD 2017 8:15pm

Michigan has enough problems, so I’m happy that we would not get part of Illinois.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Thursday, June 22, AD 2017 9:35pm

DJH, IL does claim part of Lake Michigan (it’s the purple wedge on Don’s map). So you might get that, but fortunately only fish live there.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Thursday, June 22, AD 2017 9:45pm

As for Springfield’s new identity, I’d suggest “Lincoln Theme Park and Video Gaming Parlors”.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 1:45am

Surely a step in the right direction. Maybe we need a Constitutional Convention to bring the country back in line with the founders conception.

Don the Kiwi
Don the Kiwi
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 1:47am

Hoha. This is so an inter country problem
Here in NZ, those who live in Auckland (our biggest city of 1.5 mil situated in the northern quarter of the North Island) – are known as ‘JAFFA’S – translated as “just another funny f****in Aucklander’. Why, because they think that all NZ resides in that city. The boundary to the souht west is the Bombay Hills – a low range that tends to separate Auckland from the fertile Waikato region and the rest of the country to the south, west and east. So the Jaffa’s think that NZ ends at the Bombay hills.
News for them – as NZ is essentially a primary producing economy, the bulk of the wealth comes from those regions south of the Bombay – including the balance of the North Island, and the South Island. The Jaffas even tend to speak a bit differently – even if it is only our imagination – but it is there attitude; and most Jaffas are lefties – so the balance of the real kiwis are happy to separate them. But we are not big eonugh, nor a federal state to cast them off – so we tolerate them 😉

Art Deco
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 7:33am

Arbitrary state and local government boundaries are an important problem, and one which receives very little discussion (and provokes neuralgic responses on the odd occasion it is brought up). It’s more of a problem in the northeast than the midwest. Local government finance is also an utter mess.

Mary De Voe
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 7:45am

Only with the consent of the state Legislature and the Congress. Article IV Sections 3 and 4

Mary De Voe
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 7:46am

Where is Abraham Lincoln when you need him?

Tom McKenna
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 8:39am

I agree that there seems to be impetus for possibly revolutionary changes in our union. I don’t discount the California secession movement; simply on demographics, their population is becoming more and more Latino, coupled with an aggressive *non* assimilation mentality. But the urban/rural-suburban tension is definitely causing many to reconsider old political orthodoxies. Like Glen Reynolds always comments, time to reconsider Baker v. Carr.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 11:07am

I like the “Land of Lincoln” remaining a state.
Cook County could become the “District of Cook” — similar with San Fran, New York New York etc. A federal district- under the legal authority of the federated government (representatives of the actual states)
??Would that disenfranchise them?

Art Deco
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 12:47pm

Like Glen Reynolds always comments, time to reconsider Baker v. Carr.

Why? The problems from which state legislatures suffer include pointless bicameralism, gerrymandering, bad parliamentary rules (see New York), bad electoral calendars, and being hamstrung by court orders and federal funding. Providing more opportunities for obstructive veto-groups to work their will addresses none of that.

Tom McKenna
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 2:05pm

Because the case was wrongly decided. There is no constitutional basis for the court to require equipopulous districts.

Art Deco
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 3:57pm

Prior to Baker v. Carr most legislatures were modeled on Congress, which struck a better balance between urban and rural populations. Additionally, of course, the whole one man, one vote concept, as set forth in Baker v. Carr, is complete rubbish and completely unconstitutional.
Because the case was wrongly decided. There is no constitutional basis for the court to require equipopulous districts.

That’s nice. And let’s posit a future which expunges the decision? What is to be done? You can explore the question by a historical and sociological review, or you can quote specutative exercises in The Federalist or some judicial opinion.

Multicameralism was a feature of medieval assemblies in a society of orders. We’re not a society of orders. New York’s colonial assembly had chambers functionally differentiated. The Philadelphia convention contrived a bicameral chamber as a compromise between competing principles of representation.

As far as I’m aware, there is only one state (Tennessee) where traditional components command some sense of affiliation on the part of politicians or the public. State’s which are incongruous are so as a consequence of the evolution of settlement – which, in certain cases – leaves part of the state as a tributary of the other part. The sensible thing to do is to partition the province, not to render the provincial government dysfunctional by requiring concurrent majorities you only get when political professionals are contriving against the public.

This is made all the more silly in our system as the interplay between the courts and elected officials has left the states with bicameral legislature wherein each chamber follows the same principle of representation and has the same functions (more or less). It might be differentiated (as it is in New York) by being gerrymandered differently.

Now, we can fuss over Baker v. Carr (which has had perverse effects, especially the many stupid subsidiary decisions). I’m not terribly motivated to protest the intervention of judges into legislative discretion when the legislatures themselves were of questionable legitimacy. (See Bork’s reference to certain legislatures being in defiance of the guarantee clause of the federal constitution).

TomD
TomD
Friday, June 23, AD 2017 7:57pm

“The sensible thing to do is to partition the province, not to render the provincial government dysfunctional by requiring concurrent majorities you only get when political professionals are contriving against the public.”

Well, no, that is not sensible at all, unless ‘sensible’ is defined as segregating people. What is sensible about devising political systems where urban people have no interest in rural affairs? Or vice versa? No, extending “one man one vote” to the upper chambers of the state legislatures was a disaster in this regard, and realigning state borders to ‘fix’ the issue actually would make the problem worse.

Government is dysfunctional? From what I see it is most dysfunctional when it passes laws too easily.

Also, Art, it is very interesting that you switched from ‘state’ to ‘province’. In general, states are sovereign, provinces are not. Since the U.S. Federal system is based on sovereign states, your proposal and language would seem, well, in many situations subversive of our constitutional order. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld used to say…but outside of the ivory tower such sentiments would seem costly.

Art Deco
Saturday, June 24, AD 2017 6:27am

Why not? The Republic toddled along quite nicely until 1962, with the Supreme Court resisting for over a century cases in which it was asked to meddle with the makeup of state legislatures.

Well, the system ‘toddles along’ right now. If being able to toddle along is the performance standard, one should be indifferent between unicameralism, asymmetric bicameralism, symmetric bicameralism, parliamentary administrations, separation-of-powers, federalism, French centralism, British centralism, executive monarchy, ceremonial monarchy, and Vladimir Putin. They all toddle along somewhere.

It would be easy enough to bring about a direct challenge by having a legislature enact an amendment to the State Constitution giving each county, for instance, one state senator apiece.

You can contrive a challenge. The question is, what’s the end state you are seeking?

“The Philadelphia convention contrived a bicameral chamber as a compromise between competing principles of representation.” Yep and it still works well today,

Only according to the most idiosyncratic understanding of the term ‘works well’. The Congress we have has (more often than not) been incapable of provisioning the government by any means other than catch-all continuing resolutions. That’s just the first item on the list of dysfunctions to which Congress is prone.

as it did on the state level until the intervention of our Platonic Guardians.
Again, there is a distinction between ‘works well’ and merely abiding. There are also competing interests at stake. Unlike Tennessee, New York did not blatantly ignore constitutional provisions which required re-apportionment. However, it applied an apportionment method which enhanced the weight of a set of 35 Upstate counties to the tune of about 65%. IOW, they had a premium of 14 seats in the Assembly. In a body with 150 members, those 14 seats proved decisive. County boundaries in New York have been more-or-less fixed since 1825, but there’s nothing special about counties. They do not command any affective loyalty from the public. They might to a degree from politicians jealous of their turf (which would be curious in New York inasmuch as county politicians accept being utterly hamstrung by the state legislature in ways that might surprise you). Now, the settlement patterns in the state had changed a great deal since the counties were erected, as well as the lines along which publics and politicians were divided. Ultimately, that generates political pressure to which there was (and remains) no very satisfying solution.

“The sensible thing to do is to partition the province, not to render the provincial government dysfunctional by requiring concurrent majorities you only get when political professionals are contriving against the public.” Not at all Art. The states are supposed to be laboratories and they truly were in representation prior to Baker v. Carr. The idea that representation must be based on number of noses rather than the representation of geographic areas within a state is completely judge created mumbo jumbo. If the people of a state wish to do so, well and good. If they wish to erect a system that reflects what the Founding Fathers gave to us on the national level, that should be their right. Of course the very idea that the Feds may intervene in the structure of state government makes nonsense of our federal system.
This response of yours is terribly confused. That the states are ‘laboratories’ is largely a political just-so story. Even if they were, the apportionment of their legislatures is irrelevant to that except insofar as the apportionment provides weight to one set of interests or another. You have a seminal system of representation which tends over time to be advantageous to one set of interests or another (in ways not anticipated), and those interests tend to protect their turf. Can be kind of a problem if their means lack legitimacy. Your contention that representation according to population is ‘judge created mumbo jumbo’ is very strange. If you mean the notional that all legislative bodies must be apportioned per population, yes that is a contrivance of the Warren court. The question arises as to what body has the authority to constitute the legislature in a particular way.
Your references to what the state wishes to do or does not wish to do beg the question. Robert Bork offered the view that a variety of formats for the state legislature are kosher so long as the constitution and re-constitution of the legislature was a consequence of majority discretion. That seems sensible. It is, however, a contrivance which contends with actual provisions in state constitutions (just one more congruent with local control).

I should mention that Bork did identify constitutional provisions (e.g. the guarantee clause) with which the architecture of state government ought to be in compliance.

Federalism as practiced today is an institutional mess which does not secure local discretion, It’s already nonsense. even if the courts compound the nonsense with more nonsense. We would benefit from institutional reforms which actually do secure decentralized decision-making. The creaky carpentry of state constitutions is not getting the work done.

As for representing ‘geographic units’, I’m not seeing the point of that unless the units themselves are something that’s there for reasons of inertia. People’s identification is strongest with their ‘home town’, but what that is is variable according to the frame of reference applied. I don’t think it’s readily possible to contrive a representation scheme based on ‘home towns’.

Art Deco
Saturday, June 24, AD 2017 6:53am

Well, no, that is not sensible at all, unless ‘sensible’ is defined as segregating people.

Whenever you place a political boundary somewhere, you are segregating people. Unless you have an objection to regional or local government per se, that’s a vacuous complaint.

What is sensible about devising political systems where urban people have no interest in rural affairs? Or vice versa?

When you’re asking these rhetorical questions, you’re incorporating two (mis) conceptions: (1) that ‘have no interest in’ has a fixed and discernible meaning in this context and (2) that if it did the answer to that question would conclude the argument. No and no.

No, extending “one man one vote” to the upper chambers of the state legislatures was a disaster in this regard,

It was actually the lower chamber in New York that was the main point of contention. That aside, what is this ‘disaster’? How does one recognize it?

and realigning state borders to ‘fix’ the issue actually would make the problem worse.

Meet me half way and tell me what ‘the problem’ is.

Art Deco
Saturday, June 24, AD 2017 7:01am

Government is dysfunctional? From what I see it is most dysfunctional when it passes laws too easily.

Your federal legislature cannot pass a budget and has left the Export-Import Bank in place for about 80 years now. Somehow, I suspect your concern is misplaced.

Also, Art, it is very interesting that you switched from ‘state’ to ‘province’.

‘Province’ or ‘region’ is a generic, ‘state’ is particular.

your proposal and language would seem, well, in many situations subversive of our constitutional order.

[rolls eyes]

TomD
TomD
Saturday, June 24, AD 2017 8:44am

Art, you and Mussolini (of the trains running on time fame) can roll your eyes all you like.

Art Deco
Saturday, June 24, AD 2017 2:14pm

Art, you and Mussolini

At this juncture, you’re making irritable mental gestures. No clue why.

TomD
TomD
Saturday, June 24, AD 2017 6:45pm

No clue? I’m irritated by one of the few people I know on the internet who knows mucho more facts than I do (namely you) engaging in sophistry and illogic that lead to administrative efficiency over liberty. On this thread you have denigrated nearly every feature of the American Experiment without introducing one positive idea in opposition. Not one.


And your style of debate stinks. For example, we have this:
“Whenever you place a political boundary somewhere, you are segregating people. Unless you have an objection to regional or local government per se, that’s a vacuous complaint.”
That is hardly true. Nearly all of our state and county borders were set when populations were much lower and economically more alike (read agrarian) than they are today. Such borders were arbitrary and unimportant to the creation of different people with different political interests. So you then equate these 200 year old events with your idea to redraw such borders so that people with similar interests will be together? That is really completely different, and not equivalent at all despite your assertion to the contrary. Plus, you completely ignore my point that your proposal would lead to MORE conflict, not less.
I could list plenty of other things you have posted on this thread that irritate me also. If you would like I could list them, but I think Don McC wouldn’t like the wasted space – I mean, you would just continue to raise nonsensical objections, like the one on segregation, right?

Art Deco
Sunday, June 25, AD 2017 9:40am

You’re complaining about ‘my style of argument’ having, in the course of this discussion, compared me to Mussolini and accused me of being ‘subversive of our constitutional order’. This is frankly bizarre. I cannot have much of a discussion with you if it consists of contending with the voices in your head.

What government’s do is enact a regulatory architecture and provide services. The portfolio of useful services varies according to features of the territory in question. The idea appears to have entered your head that the only territorial boundaries which are legitimate are random ones. You’re viscerally attached to that idea. I’m not sure why, other than you fancy it will ‘create more conflict’ (details on layaway).

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