By Greg Bishop | The Center Square
The Center Square

(The Center Square) – If you’re not willing to stick around and help make the state better, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker says you can “get up and move.”

Pritzker made the comments Thursday afternoon in Southern Illinois when asked about the movement to split the state into two.

“Look, if you want to leave the state, I would like you to stay, I’d like you to get involved and make it a better place by working together with us,” Pritzker said. “But if you want to leave, then get up and move.”

G.H. Merritt, the chairman of New Illinois, a movement to split the state in two, said 70 of the 102 counties in Illinois have a state split movement growing.

“One would think that if you’re at the helm of a state and this is going on, you would at least be a little curious about why are these people thinking this,” Merritt told The Center Square. “Why are these people wanting to do this? He has no curiosity about that.”

Pritzker said splitting the state was a partisan idea and won’t ever happen.

“That’s not how it works. You know, if they really want to get involved, they should show up, vote, make sure that their voices are heard,” Pritzker said.

Merritt said it’s not partisan, they’re not moving and the governor is getting it wrong.

“He gets it wrong because he doesn’t care, and he’s never asked, he’s never sat down with any of us to find out what the story is and the story is that in the state of Illinois, if you don’t live in Cook County, you have no voice,” she said.

Merritt said Pritzker stands up for voices of Texans against gerrymandering, but for Illinois he signed the most gerrymandered map in the country.

“Well, unfortunately, our voice isn’t heard because he’s gerrymandered the state to death,” Merritt said.

Illinois has been among the states with the largest domestic outmigration to other states in annual Census estimates.