Texas independence vote is imminent, group's leader says

They would have 40 electoral college votes in 2024.

If they secede, that would also mean losing 2 Senators and 38 Representatives, changing the balance of power in the House and Senate.

Don't threaten me with a good time!

Edit I also want to see Ted Cruz's face when he learns he's not a Senator anymore because Texas seceded.

He would just move to Florida
- Cancun.
Oh no. Democrats would need to find two additional no votes to block anything progressive.
If they secede, that would also mean losing 2 Senators and 38 Representatives, changing the balance of power in the House and Senate.
Losing 2 Senators, yes, but the loss of 38 Reps would be temporary. The size of Congress is permanently fixed by legislation to 435, and in the hypothetical case where a state simply goes poof, and 38 Representatives disappear, those seats would be reapportioned to other states after the next Census.
There is precedent for this, when Alaska and Hawaii were added as States, they were each given 1 Representative right away, temporarily increasing the size of Congress to 437, until 2 seats were removed in the next apportionment.
While there is no guarantee on where Texas' seats would go -- it would depend on the next Census after secession -- it is plausible that the new seats would be from less conservative districts than their current makeup.
- The size of Congress is permanently fixed by legislation to 435
  Speaking of which, we should absolutely do away with that. That is specifically capped just to help Republicans.
Rafeal Cruz. We must respect this man's choice to only recognize the name on the birth certificate
Cruz would finally have a shot at becoming a president.

So nowhere in the article is it mentioned that the supposed "Texas right to secede" is actually bullshit, and a complete misunderstanding of the actual right that they have, which is to be broken up into five separate states.

Except even that is bullshit, because it was talking about the Texas Territory, which was larger than modern day Texas.

The constitution clearly says that;

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

So yes, Texas could request to be broken up, but congress still needs to okay it.

Now, as to the "right to secede", that bullshit was settled with the Civil War, States do not have the right to secede, not even Texas.

Republicans like to pretend the Civil War never happened, and want a repeat, I guess.

That's true, though to be fair most secessions are illegal and are settled by violence.
Counterpoint: The UK isn't allowed to leave the EU. There's no mechanism.
- That's not a counterpoint. The EU is not a country. The EU is an economic and financial understanding between many different countries in order to collaborate on things like currency, trade, tariffs etc. Even if the EU was a country which, I can't stress this enough, it isn't, the EU agreement has clear rules for leaving it. Unlike the US Constitution, which isn't like the EU agreement in very many ways at all.
- Having no mechanism and being specifically legislated against are two different things. Brexit is the former, this sounds like the latter.
- There's a difference between having no official mechanism, and having the largest military in the world knock on your door to tell you that you can't do something.
  If Texas really truly tried to leave the United States, it would be war, and they would not win.
- A 5-year war wasn't fought in Europe over whether or not the UK was allowed to leave the EU.
- And you can smoke pot and get abortions in texas because they’re legal in Illinois. No the US actually has been tested on whether or not states have the right to secede and the answer is no, we had a civil war over it

lol. Please 🙏

GOP would not win the presidency for 20 years at least

It would also reduce the number needed to win.
538 EC votes / 2 = 269. 50%+1 for the win so 270.
Texas drops out, so now it goes from 538 to 498. / 2 = 249. 50%+1=250 to win.
And suddenly 270towin.com needs a new CNAME.
Just playing around with what something like that might look like:
Texas is not the swing state...
- Yeah, Texas is a reliable GOP vote. Which means losing it would be a massive blow to GOP electoral chances.
- That’s why removing it will have such a big impact
- Yeah, but a lot of conservatives would probably migrate.

OMFG I hope they do. They could no longer bus immigrants to other states and would have no other choice but to police their border with Mexico entirely on their own without any federal support. Fucking dumbasses.

we really shouldn't act like Texas was the only one doing that.
- It's the only state I've heard of doing it. Were there others? Source?

One of the top questions asked by Texas residents during their last succession vote was if social security checks were still going to be delivered. I hope they do vote to leave, I want to see the realization sink in and the chaos that ensues.

lmao literal FAFO
It’s like people don’t learn from history and, in these cases, people don’t pay attention to world history/current politics. This would be “Texit” and it would be called that because it rhymes with another vote where the realization of what was happening sunk in after the fact.
- I hate this timeline but at least I got to see that the #1 internet search in the UK the next day was "What is Brexit?"
- It also rhymes with "tax it." Lol

A Texas independence would not only violate the Constitution, it would sink the GOP in the remaining states due to the loss of Texas' electoral votes, thus ensuring a Republican president would never be elected again. This is the biggest reason Texas will never secede, regardless of the state's conservative nativism.

it would sink the GOP in the remaining states due to the loss of Texas’ electoral votes, thus ensuring a Republican president would never be elected again
So you're saying we should forget the constitution just this once?
I thought this about roe too. Conservatives are really into catching the tire and not knowing what to do afterwards nowadays...
- I think part of the reason for this is that the old guard GOP that used Roe and similar issues as the "carrot on a stick" or car to chase, used to have the power to keep it from happening, so they could keep campaigning on it. But the "younger" GOP bought the BS for all those years and now they have the power to catch the car, not realizing it was always just a voter motivational tool, never a real plan. They just saw the old guard GOP as "swamp" that wasn't doing what they campaigned on, and rode the Trump wave into power for themselves, and are there to catch all the carrots.
But they’re republicans. They’ll demand to vote anyway because of some stupid made-up rule like, “Well, we’re touching the rest of the US, so we get to vote!” A /notheonion statement by Cruz if I ever heard one.
I'm always baffled by how people point out succession as illegal as if it's expected or common otherwise that bits of a country can break away whenever they feel like it.
Would an independent Texas care if there was never a Republican president of a country they had left? Or would the see it as just rewards for those that those to stay there?
- Without ideological allies running the US, Texas would be very isolated, like Britain after Brexit.
TIL I support succeeding from the US (as long as I can still move there afterwards)

They do this every couple years. It goes nowhere, never will. It's just for show so shitheads can get support from other shitheads

Please, for Christ's sake, just leave. Have the plebiscite. Take it to Congress. Let them release you on the condition that all Americans in Texas be allowed to emigrate, fully compensated, and all wannabe Texans are allowed to immigrate, fully compensated, for the next 6 months.

Oh, and we keep the military equipment. I'm sure their 'well-regulated militia' will be enough for them.

We'll leave it there for convenience when we invade since they will be an unstable oil rich nation in need of freedom.
- Ugh, no, let them stay out. We don't need a Resource Trap country to try nation-building on, pretty sure we already tried that one.
- Sounds like a good way to start getting us off that oil teat to be honest.
~~Also we'll build a wall at the Texas-US borders, but not because we think it'll be effective, just because it'll be hilarious~~

ITT: A bunch of people who don't realize Texas is nearly purple, but gerrymandered to hell. There are millions of us who are blue.

Are you looking for credit for almost being a state governed by sane politicians? Almost doesn't count for much against fascism.
Texas is certainly not the only state with this problem but you're also not the only state that's close to giving Republicans the boot. Until it happens the rest of the country has every right to talk trash on the ridiculous bullshit that passes for political discourse there.
- People who say stuff like this don't understand how anything works. Sure, talk trash about policies, the GOP and politicians. But it's shitty and counterproductive to say the progressive voters of Texas didn't try hard enough. Why don't the people of North Korea raise up and oust the regime? Would you say it's because North Koreans don't want it bad enough and so they deserve whatever they get?
- Are you looking for credit for almost being a state governed by sane politicians? Almost doesn’t count for much against fascism.
  Democrats care about people, unless those people are in red states.
Wasn't talking about you. Just the idiots proposing it.

Y'know, if Texas secedes, we won't have to change the flag and remove a star if we make Puerto Rico a state. Just sayin'.

Let's make Puerto Rico a state regardless. And D.C.
- Agreed! Oh jfc, I keep forgetting D.C. isn't a state.

I'd love to see that happen.

Do you think the US would leave it's army and it's nukes in a different country just like that? Texas has a fun economy

Then the Republican party would lose a large red state, we would finally be rid of Republican presidents and houses, no more extremist bullshit to deal with.

The US would flourish again and go truly MAGA as it no longer had to deal with the Republican shit.

Texas has shit infrastructure that they don't manage well enough to keep up, it would be a hoot

Texas is home to some of the largest military installations on the planet (Fort Bliss and Fort Cavazos) - the federal economic footprint these (and Lackland, and JSB Carswell and a dozen others) bring to their local economies is massive. Hell, the defense industry footprint in texas is ridiculously large (existing and future helos & fixed wing f22/f35 production) - removing them from Texas would crater their economy.
I tend to look at this like another grift to skin more funds from the stupids.
- Yeah, nobody currently in charge would be stoopid enough to do this, but then again each subsequent Republican generation becomes dumber and starts doing the things the previous generation only threatened for money and power. I see them dumb enough to try this 10 years down the road
- Joint Base San Antonio is essentially three bases that almost surround most of San Antonio.
  As if the feds are just going to walk away from that AND NASA? No way.

New year new secession bill to fail big whoop.

These people killed hundreds because they couldn't keep the lights on. This state would die from people fleeing before the ink dried on the bill even if it passed...

Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

The United States absolutely would not allow Texas to secede.

This is an absurd escalation that is nothing more than theater.

Doesn’t matter, the point is to divide the society.
The irony being the elected officials would be the strongest opponents. Can you imagine Rafeal Cruz willing giving up his power so his constituents could pay less taxes?

I'm not sure Texas is thinking this through. We'd build a wall and make them pay for it...

Texas is one of the few financially functional red states so that wouldn’t be a concern. No clue whether they’d maintain their finances if they seceded.
- How financially functional do you think they'll be when they lose all the trade agreements of the US and the ability to freely trade with the other states?

don't let the door hit you in your racist ass. good luck with that whole electricity thing, we're proud to welcome refugee from The Christian Republic of Trumpistan

Texas was a slave state & fought for the Confederacy. They mustn't secede now for the same reason as back then- they will absolutely terrorize & abuse every minority person they can in that would-be despotic shithole.
If you're going to say "good riddance", look every woman, poor, black, and lgbt person there in the eye as you do, because those are the people you're throwing to the wolves.

Best of luck, turds.

Those idiots can't handle independence.

In tours at the Capitol they brag about how they tried it and they "figured out" that it was a "better deal" for Texas to join the union.
They also brag about building their capitol building "for free" by selling a bunch of unusable territory to a rancher and then regaining it when they gave up or something.
I don't remember the details but the vibe was hilarious.

if I had the money to leave here I would

If you have the money to live there, you have the money to leave.
- I think that's a very naive opinion. Moving is expensive. Even if you don't have much, coming up with deposits for rent and utilities can be very difficult for the 60 percent of Americans living pay check to pay check.

3rd time is the charm!

How about you take everything south of the Mason Dixon line as well...

We here in California would rather not.

Good luck with that. Yes, one of the major ports in the US is there, lots of military, oil and gas, etc. However, leaving the US, particularly with the local gov having a hard-on for dictatorial bullshit, would basically immediately prove a danger to the US as it could threaten security by (a) having all the left-over military assets but also (b) they could theoretically invite Russia or someone to build a base in Texas and the US will be having none of that. Succession almost certainly means war almost immediately.

I doubt the DoD would just let those assets remain in Texas if the state chooses to secede. They'd likely take it all back, and position it strategically to protect against a now hostile foreign nation.
... at least, that's what I'm hoping for as a piece of "military property".
Please, JFC, don't leave us here!
- They'd probably just air drop in, arrest Abbot and the rest of the central government, and declare martial law in Austin. With luck, they'd lock them up and put an appointed governor in his place. There's very little precedent here, so some kind of antebellum south repetition would be likely.
  tl;dr, the feds would go full anti terrorist on the idiots in charge of the state.
- The US military would definitely repossess any of their property by force. Anyone who is fighting back is engaging in treason and can receive the death penalty either on the spot or after they are captured. Any resistance is basically a declaration of war. They can never secede peacefully.
Also like you said, all that millitary, oil, and gas
They would be overrun in a day.

Don't wait. Fuck off right now!

My reaction: when Michael Scott finds out that Toby is back, but the exact opposite.

Probably gonna go the same way as what happened with Catalonia, if it gets that far.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Daniel Miller and members of the Texas National Movement delivered 139,456 signatures to the Republican Party headquarters in Austin.

This refers to the most recent Republican gubernatorial primary in 2022 when 1,954,172 votes were cast, electing incumbent State Governor Greg Abbott.

The State Republican Executive Committee was due to decide ballot propositions for March 2024 earlier this month.

Texas has previous when it comes to the idea of secession and it is often mentioned whenever Republican voters become upset over what they see as too much interference from the federal government, usually when there is a Democrat in the Oval Office.

Former Governor Rick Perry joked in 2009 when Barack Obama was president that Texas might consider secession, but also said "we've got a great union."

The Texas Independence Referendum Act, often referred to as "TEXIT," was introduced by then-state representative Bryan Slaton in March this year, but did not get out of its committee stage.

The original article contains 497 words, the summary contains 156 words. Saved 69%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!