Here's Why the 'Texit' Secession Movement Is Celebrating This Month

The Texas Nationalist Movement has long dreamed about winning Lone Star independence. And, earlier this month, movement members celebrated a move that they believe will help make that dream a reality.

In a video posted to X, TNM President Daniel Miller and company dropped off more than 139,000 petition signatures at the Republican Party of Texas’ Austin headquarters. Miller says they’ve met the legal requirements to put the issue on the March GOP primary ballot.

Asked how it felt delivering the boxes of signatures, Miller replied in a word: “Heavy.”

“It felt good to get it across the finish line: to do what's legally required,” he said. “But you know, you also have to remember we're stepping out into unknown territory here with this petition effort, right? No one has ever used this provision before in law. We went into the campaign understanding … that we would probably have to fight it every step of the way.”

We’ve delivered all 139,000+ signatures to the @TexasGOP but the fight isn’t over yet.

pic.twitter.com/gLavyjmpfl

— Texas Nationalist Movement (TEXIT) (@TexasNatMov) December 15, 2023

A Texas-U.S. divorce isn’t universally loved, of course, and critics doubt that it’s even legally or constitutionally possible. Miller maintains that it is.

Here’s what you should know about the current state of the Texit movement.

Why Texas Should Be Free To Break Free from the U.S., According to TNM

The opposition sees Texit as a fringe issue, Miller said. But he argues that, if that’s the case, there shouldn’t be any pushback to letting voters decide their own state’s fate.

This summer, Miller’s organization created a campaign to force a referendum on the matter during next year’s primary. TNM recently announced that it had collected well over the minimum 97,709 signatures to do just that, as laid out in a provision of the state’s election code.

Come March, Miller says, GOP primary voters will get to answer the million-dollar question: “Should the State of Texas reassert its status as an independent nation?”

Reached for comment, a Republican Party of Texas spokesperson confirmed that RPT is verifying the 11 boxes of signatures dropped off by Miller’s organization. In 2022, GOP delegates adopted a platform stating that “Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto.”

You also might recall that earlier this year, then-state Rep. Bryan Slaton filed a Texit bill before he was ultimately expelled from the House.

Many of TNM’s supporters view the relationship between the U.S. and Texas as fundamentally broken. And Miller said the movement is always “moving in one direction”: toward growth.

“It really is a story about an increasing recognition by the people of Texas that the federal government is disconnected from their challenges, and that the best people to govern Texas are Texans,” Miller said.

He pointed to a SurveyUSA poll published last year that found 6 in 10 Texas respondents support the idea of their state “peacefully becoming an independent country.”

Miller doesn’t think that Texit would lose should the question get asked during the March primary. Ditto when and if it were to go to a final vote on a statewide ballot.

Much remains unclear as to how Tex-independence would look, but the signatures are a step in the right direction as far as Miller is concerned.

“Now we're at that stage of: ‘OK, now we're ready for the next step,’” he said. “We're ready to move on. We're ready to go out there and start having this conversation in a much bigger way.”

Miller is clearly aware that the Texit movement has its critics. He disagrees with their points and can deftly debate each one.

Many detractors will cite the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Texas v. White as proof of Texit’s impossibility. But TNM states on its website that the 1869 case’s “entire logic is based on the loose connection of the Articles of Confederation to the preamble of the Constitution.” Long story short, Miller doesn’t buy this argument.

One person who does, however, is Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. Like many other academics and legal experts, he says the Supreme Court’s ruling means that secession is “not a legal or constitutional possibility” and that the Union is “indissoluble.”

Jillson also noted, however, that the other states could effectively decide to let Texas go: “If we were to ask the other 49: ‘Would you be better off? Would it be quieter in your Union if we left?’ They just might say yes.”

The subject of secession is a perennial one in Texas politics, he said, adding that it’s a bit hard to gauge whether support for the idea is up or down. The latest development might just mean that someone “finally put some organizational effort to collect these signatures,” he said — not necessarily that the idea is gaining currency.

“But it's an opportunity for the Republican Party to show itself to be foolish,” Jillson continued. “I would hope that they wouldn’t take the opportunity and find a way not to add that issue on the ballot, because it's hard to see what benefit there might be to the Texas Republican Party in saying that our electorate stands for secession.”