"It's not that we have anything against Chicago," she said. "My gosh, my daughter lives there. But if you're going to have a situation where a corner of the state is dominating everything, you're going to have a case where the rest of the state is disenfranchised."

But downstate Illinois gets disproportionately more state funding than Chicago and its surrounding suburbs, according to an April study from the Simon Institute.

Based on 2013 data, researchers found that Southern Illinois receives $2.81 in state funds for every dollar its residents pay in taxes, while Cook County receives 90 cents for every dollar paid in taxes. Merritt, though, rejects the study, saying funding to the many downstate public universities were unfairly included in the analysis. Plus, she said, the findings may be biased since the authors of the study have spoken out against state separation.

John Jackson, one of the study's authors and a visiting professor at the Simon Institute, does believe that state separation is unrealistic. But, he said, that doesn't mean he thinks the movement is just a fool's errand. It's about broader resentment.