Start county anew? Breaking up is hard to do

SPRINGFIELD -- Pretend for a moment the Northwest suburbs somehow managed to break away to be a new, 103rd Illinois county free of the weighty new taxes emanating from the Cook County Board.

On Day 1, its residents face daunting questions.

For starters, when the Palatine police arrest someone, what courthouse and jail will they use? Residents are either going to have to pay another county to provide them or fork over loads of cash to create their own.

And then there's everything Cook County has in the region, from county roads to forest preserves. Don't think they'll go free of charge to this new breakaway republic.

Top it off with the potential for higher tax assessments, and even some of the harshest Cook County tax critics say the idea of a suburban "Lincoln" or "Reagan" county doesn't make sense.

"In the short run, taxes would go up and we'd be thrown out of office," said Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson, believing the concept is all but impossible.

The decades-old idea of a suburban-based Lincoln County has emerged anew from the growing discontent with Cook County government and swelling tax burdens. The latest 1-percentage-point sales tax hike makes the county among the nation's tax leaders.

Suburban leaders are trying to fight back.

State Rep. Suzie Bassi, a Rolling Meadows Republican, filed legislation that'd let the Northwest communities split off from the rest of Cook. She'd like to call it Lincoln County.

"This is Boston Tea Party time. It's gotten to the point that if they're not going to pay attention to us, then secession is the real deal," Bassi said.

Palatine Republican Matt Murphy filed the same plan in the Illinois Senate. He prefers Reagan County.

"I don't see why we should be tied to a county that we don't want to be part of," said Murphy.

The plans have yet to budge from a political holding pen controlled by Democrats. And that leads to a quick examination of political reality.

Suburban Republican leaders might think creating a new county is a good idea, but Illinois government is controlled by Chicago Democrats. Murphy and Bassi must convince Democratic majorities to go along. And then, all of Cook County would vote on whether to let the Northwest suburbs split.

"An idea like that is probably going to take us six years to get through. But it's gotta start someplace," Bassi said.

Murphy also stressed this is a long-term project.

"But … shouldn't we have the right if we think we can do it better, to have the chance? And why do we have to stay tied to a county we don't want to be part of just because they're bigger than us. It seems un-American."

Part of the motivation, they say, was to put county leaders on notice that the Northwest suburbs are peeved about the higher taxes, few services and growing fears of businesses fleeing to neighboring counties.

To that extent, the plan has worked. The proposal for the new county has drummed up media attention, and Cook County Board President Todd Stroger is scheduled to appear at Harper College in Palatine Wednesday.

"I'll believe it when I see it, frankly," quipped Bassi.

The same, however, could be said about proposals for new suburban counties.

Veteran Illinois political observer Steve Brown recalls writing about the topic as a Daily Herald Capitol reporter in the 1970s and has greeted its return with skepticism ever since, believing reporters should adhere to an unwritten coverage rubric.

"Around the Capitol, writing about 'Reagan County' falls under the same category as writing about bomb scares: You just don't do it," Brown said.

He specified that his comments were those of a longtime statehouse observer, not in his official capacity as spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Chicago Democrat.

Advocates for a new county acknowledge that suburbanites missed a rare opportunity in the mid-1990s when DuPage Republicans ruled the Capitol and went out of their way to seek political retribution against Chicago, Cook County and Democrats in general.

"Heady times for the GOP in the 1990s. Maybe they thought they could change Cook County, too," Murphy said. "They were wrong."

Neither he nor Bassi served during that era.

Should the idea ever advance, there are sure to be added hurdles.

Some legislative critics have suggested "Jefferson Davis County" would be a more befitting name for this separatist county.

Reagan County is intended as homage to the Republican president's fiscal conservatism. But Reagan also left behind the legacy of unification, famously telling the Soviet leader in 1987, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

As for Lincoln County, President Lincoln fought one of the bloodiest wars in American history in order to preserve the union.

Lawmakers from Lincoln and Reagan turf downstate aren't keen on the suburbs co-opting their history. And they'd get to vote on it, too.

"I think that would be hard to swallow," said state Sen. Larry Bomke, a Springfield Republican. "But it won't become a reality anyway, so it's a moot point."