- Texas Republicans want to hold a referendum next year to decide whether or not the state should secede from the U.S.
- Matter came to a head at the state party convention this weekend
- The Texas GOP also voted to ratify a resolution that declared President Joe Biden ‘was not legitimately elected’
- Highlights from the convention saw a rebuking of Sen. John Cornyn for engaging in gun reform talks and voting in favor of the repealing of the Voting Rights Act
- Donald Trump comfortably won the state of Texas during the 2020 presidential election by more than 600,000 votes
- In addition to declaring homosexuality to be ‘abnormal’ the party also voted against ‘all efforts to validate transgender identity’
Texas Republicans want to hold a referendum next year to decide whether or not the state should secede from the U.S.
The party charges the state has taken its right to self-govern and calls for secession.
The demand was part of the party platform Republicans voted on at their state convention this weekend, where they also formally rejected President Joe Biden‘s election in 2020 as legitimate.
Under a section titled ‘State Sovereignty,’ the platform states: ‘Pursuant to Article 1, Section 1, of the Texas Constitution, the federal government has impaired our right of local self-government. Therefore, federally mandated legislation that infringes upon the 10th Amendment rights of Texas should be ignored, opposed, refused, and nullified.
‘Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto.’
Texas has long pushed an independent movement, called ‘Texit.’
After the area declared independence from Mexico in 1836, it was a sovereign state for nine years before it was annexed by the United States in 1845. There have been multiple secession movement since then.
Legally Texas cannot secede from the union. There has been a myth that it can because of the way it was annexed but the Congressional order of annexation merely stated Texas could – at a future date – divide itself into five states. It says nothing about leaving the union.
State Republicans held their annual gathering at the George R. Brown Convention Center from Thursday until Saturday, and the secession issue was one of many voted upon, including a provision to reject Biden’s presidential win.
That resolution said: ‘We believe that the 2020 election violated Article 1 and 2 of the US Constitution, that various secretaries of state illegally circumvented their state legislatures in conducting their elections in multiple ways, including by allowing ballots to be received after November 3 2020.’
The resolution went on to say that ‘substantial election fraud’ in cities helped Biden win.
It concluded: ‘We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States.’
Republicans were also urged to show up en masse to vote in the November midterms to minimize the effect of any future election fraud.
The other notable moments at the convention saw the Texas Republicans publicly rebuke Senator John Cornyn for engaging in bipartisan gun control talks, voted in favor of repealing the Voting Rights Act and voted on a measure demanding that schoolchildren ‘learn about the humanity of the preborn child.’
The party’s embrace of unfounded electoral fraud allegations in a bedrock Republican state came as a bipartisan congressional committee seeks to definitively and publicly debunk the false idea that Biden did not win the election.
The platform will be sent to the state capital Austin to be certified officially by the state Republican party.