With final approval by the Indiana House on Thursday, the Indiana-Illinois border bill passed both chambers of the Indiana legislature and heads to Gov. Mike Braun’s desk for signature into law.

Braun intends to sign the bill, governor’s office spokesman Griffin Reid said Thursday.

When asked about the governor’s response to the bill, Reid pointed to Indiana Secretary of Business Affairs Mike Speedy’s testimony in favor of the bill while it was discussed in the House Government and Regulatory Reform committee in February.

“The Braun Administration wants to work hand in hand with the General Assembly to build a pro-growth, pro freedom, taxpayer friendly state, the most in the whole country here in Indiana,” Speedy testified. “Illinoisans have noticed the stark contrast and they want freedom, a pro-opportunity, pro-business state.”

House Bill 1008, authored by Speaker Todd Huston, would establish an Indiana-Illinois boundary adjustment commission to research the possibility of adjusting the boundaries between the two states. If the bill becomes law, Braun would have to set the commission’s first meeting no later than Sept. 1.

On Thursday, Huston presented the bill before the House for final approval because it was amended in the Senate Public Policy committee. The Senate committee amended the bill to allow one more Indiana representative to the commission and, with that, give the commission a quorum to meet.

Huston, R-Fishers, said he drafted the bill after learning that 33 Illinois counties have voted to secede from their state, including seven in November, since 2020.

After the House voted 64-23 in favor of the bill, Huston said that Indiana is “a great place to live, work, raise your kids and enjoy a high quality of life.”

“We welcome our neighbors in Illinois seeking lower taxes and more opportunity to join us in the Hoosier state. House Enrolled Act 1008 starts that conversation and I’m eager to see it become law.”

G.H. Merritt, chairwoman of New Illinois, clarified in a House committee hearing in February that her organization is one of two in Illinois working toward seceding from Illinois and creating a new state, not necessarily joining an existing one like Indiana.

“Our goal is the constitutional formation of a new state separate from Illinois,” Merritt said.

Indiana would have six commissioners and Illinois would have five commissioners, and a quorum of the commission consists of at least six members, according to the bill. The Indiana commissioners would be appointed by the governor, and the commissioners cannot be legislators. No more than four commissioners can be members of the same political party, according to the bill.

The bill stipulates that the Indiana commissioners can serve a 4-year term that expires on June 30 of an odd-numbered year, and the members can be reappointed. Any commissioner who is not a state employee can receive per diem, mileage and travel allowances, while commissioners who are state employees can be reimbursed for travel expenses, according to the bill.

Once the commission, which should meet at least once a year, reaches a recommendation on adjusting the boundary, its members will have 60 days to submit a written report to the general assembly, according to the bill. Finally, the bill states the commission’s recommendation to adjust the boundary between Indiana and Illinois wouldn’t take effect until approved by the Indiana legislature, the Illinois legislature and the U.S. Congress.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker brushed off the proposal — and fired back at the neighboring state — when he was asked about it at an unrelated news conference in January.

“It’s a stunt. It’s not going to happen,” Pritzker said. “But I’ll just say that Indiana is a low wage state that doesn’t protect workers, a state that does not provide health care for people in need, and so I don’t think it’s very attractive for anybody in Illinois.”

A spokesman for Pritzker said Tuesday the governor’s position on House Bill 1008 hasn’t changed. But a companion bill has been filed in Illinois.

Illinois state Rep. Brad Halbrook, R-Shelbyville, filed Illinois House Bill 1500, and it “does similar things and is comparable to the Indiana bill,” he previously said.

Illinois House Bill 1500 states that if Indiana House Bill 1008 becomes law then, within 60 days after receiving notice from the governor of Indiana, the Illinois governor should appoint five members to the Illinois-Indiana boundary adjustment commission.

Indiana state Rep. Phil GiaQuinta, D-Fort Wayne, asked Huston on Thursday if Indiana should be taking in 33 counties, which research has found are poorer counties, as the state faces a revenue forecast shortfall of $2 billion in the next budget cycle.

Huston said “all of those considerations have to be considered.”

“You have to work through all the financial aspects of it, and certainly you’d want to look through the revenue impacts and expense impacts. It would all be open for that discussion. It would have to be considered,” Huston said.

Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, said he researched the 33 Illinois counties that have voted to secede and found that the residents in those counties pay about $2,986 per person in state taxes but receive $5,430 per person in state support.

If the counties were absorbed by Indiana, the state would have to put up $2 billion per year to maintain the counties, Hicks said.

“It would cause us to be on average a poorer, less well-educated state. When you’re adding poorer, less well-educated households to your state it’s hard to really see big benefits from that,” Hicks said.

The only benefits to Indiana absorbing those parts of Illinois would be in the “small ‘p’ politics” category, Hicks said.

Indiana would see a stronger Republican supermajority, Hicks said, because most of the 33 Illinois counties vote Republican. The move would add one or two seats in the Indiana delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives, which is likely to lose seats in the 2030 census, he said.

“I think it’s almost exclusively a political activity,” Hicks said. “I’m sure the legislature would like to say, ‘Look, Indiana as a state is fiscally sound relative to Chicago.’ It’s great to poke fun at that, but once you get past that fact, it’s very difficult to come up with a big laundry list of things that Indiana is doing monumentally better.”

Since the Indiana commissioners will have a quorum to meet, Hicks said sarcastically that the members should compare the Indianapolis Colts to the Chicago Bears and the Indiana Pacers to the Chicago Bulls.

On serious matters, Hicks said as the commission looks at the fiscal differences between Indiana and Illinois, it’s likely they will find the move will save Illinois about $2 billion a year but require Indiana to come up with $2 billion annually to support the counties.

Hicks pointed to Indiana’s Wednesday revenue forecast, which found in the upcoming budget cycle the state is projecting a $2 billion shortfall.

“If they’re doing an honest job, they’re going to learn some unhappy things,” Hicks said.

GiaQuinta said House Bill 1008 “is a publicity play.”

“This is sort of gimmicky. We’ve got so many more important issues to worry about. It’ll probably never happen,” GiaQuinta said.

akukulka@post-trib.com