There Might Be More Than Just Candidates on the Republican Primary Ballot in Texas

A citizen group in Texas is trying to put a non-binding secession vote on the March 2016 Republican primary ballot, an initiative the group's leader says is reflective of the major differences between the Lone Star State and Washington, D.C.

“Texas and Washington, D.C., are on very different paths, and the people of Texas obviously recognize that," Texas Nationalist Movement President Daniel Miller said, according to the Texas Tribune.

"The Texas Nationalist Movement message has been one not of reaction to grievance but one of a future we can build as an independent nation," Miller added, pointing to the "complete disconnect" between Texans and government officials in Washington, D.C.

Image source: State of Texas

"The people of Texas don't have anything against the United States," Miller explained to Reuters late last month. "They are just tired of being governed by bureaucrats we didn't elect pushing programs we don't want."

The Republican Party of Texas isn't supporting the group's initiative, and the party has historically had final say over which items make it on the primary ballot and which are left off.

But Miller doesn't seem worried about the party's opposition, pointing to a provision in the state's constitution that gives Texans the right to "alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.”

"We are living in the era of the right of political self-determination," Miller said.

While it may be a long shot, it wouldn't be the first time that Texas has seceded from the union. The Lone Star State did so once before in 1861 but was readmitted just eight years later in 1869.

T. Gerald Treece, a South Texas College of Law professor, told Reuters that Texas when was readmitted to the union after the Civil War, it vowed to never secede again. But Treece added, secession could still be achieved another way.

"You have to have the Texas Legislature initiate a request, and then you have to have the U.S. Congress approve it, and then it could happen," Treece explained.

(H/T: Daily Mail)

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