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.
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 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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?
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.
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?
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
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...
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?
Oh yes please. The next hurricane that hits we won't have to pay for, and when they freeze or melt because their electrical grid collapses we can just watch.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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