Indiana forms commission to consider 'adopting' several Illinois counties

[transcript] Some Indiana lawmakers are hoping some Illinois counties will join their state. Now a newly formed commission will take a closer look at making it happen. WCI-3's Capitol P.O. Chief Alex Whitney cut up with a member of the commission to find out how close the states are to drawing new maps. Clay Andrews has spent almost his entire life in western Indiana. He grew up just 100 yards away from the Illinois border. But now he hopes to see that border push back. Yeah, I got a call from a guy from Brown's office and he, you know, I've met Brown a few times. He knows where we live and what I do and I guess he thought that I'd be a good fit. Andrews is one of six members of a new Indiana Illinois Boundary Adjustment Commission. The group has one goal, redraw the state border so that rule conservative Illinois counties can join Indiana. 33 of those counties have already passed non-binding referendum saying they'd like to split from Cook County. You know, they wake up, work hard and do what they can for their families and they're just kind of tired of feeling like they're not being represented by their state government. Parts of one state trying to leave to join another state hasn't happened since West Virginia split from Virginia during the Civil War. But University of Illinois Springfield professor Ken Owen says that hasn't stopped states from trying. That almost any time in American history, you will find some part of the country, sometimes several parts of the country in which these movements take place. And Owen says there is something unique about this commission that other movements have lacked. The official support of a state government. Very often this is something that's formed by county boards, local officials, but it doesn't really get that stamp of state wide approval. Andrews says the next steps for the commission aren't exactly clear. They have their members and their first meeting is in October, but he says what their conversations will be or when any new maps could come out of it is still up in the air. It's fun to be on us, so to speak, front line to look into it and, you know, have discussions and hopefully we can serve this commission well and give the governor and then legislation what they want. Now, Illinois officials have been mostly opposed to the commission earlier this year. Governor Pritzker called the commission a stunt and said he was not going to happen.