Tag Archives: Texas secession

International news, State news

Texas cannot secede a second time

103109_txsecession001_jv_png_800x1000_q100

It’s coming again.

Fruitcakes are talking about looking for ways to allow Texas to secede from the United States of America.

The Texas Tribune has provided a fascinating primer on what’s allowed and what is not.

Secession is not allowed. Period.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/24/can-texas-legally-secede-united-states/

What fascinates me more than anything are the phony parallels the Texas secessionists — which admittedly comprise a tiny fraction of the state’s population — are drawing with the British vote to exit the European Union.

There are no parallels.

Why? Well, for starters, Texas is not a sovereign nation. It belongs to a larger nation, with a federal government and a Constitution to which elected officials in all 50 states take an oath to “protect and defend.”

The EU is a loose conglomeration of sovereign nations that have within their own governing structures mechanisms to initiate a withdrawal from that group. That’s what the British voters did.

As the Texas Tribune reports: “The legality of seceding is problematic,” said Eric McDaniel, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. “The Civil War played a very big role in establishing the power of the federal government and cementing that the federal government has the final say in these issues.”

The issue won’t die a quick and painless death, though.

The state has a history of once being an independent republic, from 1836 until 1845, when it became one of the United States. Texas did secede as the Civil War was breaking out.

According to the Tribune, none other than the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia put it all in its proper perspective.

“The answer is clear,” Scalia wrote. “If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, ‘one Nation, indivisible.’)”

Are we clear now?

State news

Can’t we just end this ‘secede’ talk? Now?

secede-sign_jpg_312x1000_q100

I can’t believe this topic is still being discussed in some dark corners of Texas.

Some people actually want the state to secede from the United States of America.

It won’t go anywhere. The Texas Republican Party — which controls almost everything in this state — won’t allow it.

And yet …

The talk continues to fester.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/04/19/texas-secession-debate-getting-kind-real/

The Texas Tribune reports that when the Texas Republican Party meets next month the talk is going to get some traction in some quarters.

Sheesh, already!

The article I’ve attached to this post lays out an interesting summary of state history. The most fascinating element of it is how — after the Civil War, which the Confederacy lost — a law came into being that denied all the former states of the Confederacy the ability to ever secede from the Union.

Which state brought that prohibition forward? Texas!

Here, though, is where we stand today — with elements of the state GOP talking openly about persuading Texans to actually vote to secede.

Then-Gov. Rick Perry didn’t help matters when, in 2009, during a TEA Party rally he talked about how Texans might secede if they got angry enough at the federal government. He took back those comments, saying he opposes secession.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2009/04/what-he-could-have-said/

His retraction seemed to fall on a few deaf ears.

I take heart in the belief that the state won’t secede. History tells us the only time we did so didn’t turn out so well. The state and the rest of the Confederacy lost the bloodiest war in American history.

If only some of our fellow Texans would just heed that lesson.

 

political news, State news

Texas GOP comes to its senses

103109_txsecession001_jv_png_312x1000_q100

I’ll admit something.

Part of me wanted Texas Republicans to be able to vote on whether to support the goofiest idea conceived since, oh, just before the Civil War. A Golden Triangle-based group wants a secession referendum placed on the GOP primary ballot in March.

My thought was, hey, let ’em vote on it. Let ’em vote it down and then we can be done with this nonsense. It won’t happen.

The Texas Republican Party executive committee has voted the idea down. It’s not going to the party’s ballot in March after all. The GOP frowns on outside groups, such as the Texas Nationalist Movement, putting issues on party ballots. My hunch is that the executive committee decision will stand, no matter what the Nationalist Movement does.

The Texas GOP sometimes seems a bit goofy. But with this decision, the party seems to be run for the most part by grownups.

The state Democratic Party was harsh in its criticism of the pro-secession measure. Imagine that. According to the Texas Tribune:

“Calling it ‘unpatriotic,’ the Texas Democratic Party had seized on the secession debate as evidence that the state GOP was falling victim to extremists in its own ranks.

“‘Every hardworking Texan should be worried that fringe issues are now the hot topic in the same party that controls state government,’ Crystal Kay Perkins, the executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a statement after the vote Saturday.”

Well, no need to worry about that now.

Reason has prevailed at the top of the Texas Republican Party.

Still, a resounding defeat at the polls would have sent an equally clear message.