Texas GOP rejects secession ballot initiative

Also rejects moving convention from Dallas because of LGBT protections

The Associated Press reported that the Texas Republican Party has rejected a proposed, non- binding ballot initiative that would have let its 2016 primary voters mull secession.

“State Republican Executive Committee members used a voice vote during their meeting in Austin on Saturday to defeat an effort to put whether Texas should leave the United States on the March 1 ballot.

“It would have read: ‘If the federal government continues to disregard the Constitution’ and Texas sovereignty, the state ‘should reassert the prior status as an independent nation.’”

Reaction, both from members of the State Republican Executive Committee which rejected the proposed addition to the GOP primary ballot, and from political observers, was swift.

“Tanya Robertson, the SREC member who introduced the proposal, argued at the executive committee meeting in Austin that the measure would have been ‘harmless,’ allowing voters to register an ‘opinion only,’” according to The Texas Tribune. “She also suggested the ballot language would have helped ‘get out the vote’ among some Texas Republicans who have been sitting out recent elections.”

“Opponents of the proposal argued it would have been an unproductive way for Texans to register their dissatisfaction with the federal government, however strongly they feel. One of the opponents, SREC member Mike Goldman, said he was ‘sorry we are even having the conversation’ about secession.”

Texas Democratic Party Executive Director Crystal Kay Perkins said in a statement:

“While Democrats put forth solutions that are going to improve the daily lives of Texas families, Republicans were considering whether or not to put an un-American, unpatriotic Texas secession proposal on their ballot.

“At the very least the Republican party bosses still believe they are Americans. We’ll never know if their fringe primary base would have voted for secession. They didn’t get the opportunity.

“What remains clear is that the Tea Party has taken over the Republican Party. Every hardworking Texan should be worried that fringe issues are now the hot topic in the same party that controls state government. Rest in Peace, GOP.”

The Texas Nationalist Movement [TNM], which bills itself as “the largest independence movement in the United States, in a statement on their website, said, “The TNM has shown that there is massive support for Texas independence. Two years ago getting this resolution introduced into the SREC [the State Republican Executive Committee] would have been inconceivable. Getting through the Resolution Committee by such an overwhelming vote would have seemed impossible. And no one could have ever imagined being a witness to a livestreamed debate on the issue. But all of those things have happened.

“Their victory celebration, however, should be short-lived. While they were able to use threats, intimidation and parliamentary tactics to defeat this resolution, they have not defeated us. The horse is out of the barn. Texans now know that there are actual leaders inside the state’s dominant political party that support Texas independence. Texans now know that Texas independence is not only possible, it is coming. Texans now know that people who want independence can not only impact the process, but we can dominate the process.”

Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Bud Kennedy, in a column titled Republicans reject Texas secession and Lone Star loons, derided the proposal, saying, “Since 1861, Texas secession has always been a farcical idea promoted by liars, self-important patriots and greedy merchandise peddlers.

“This year, it just happens to be a particularly self-destructive idea for Republicans, which must be why the Tea Party party-wreckers brought it up.”

Kennedy concluded by writing, “Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is partly responsible for all this. In 2009, he talked about how Texas legally can divide into five states — true — and ‘they’re not going to allow 10 new Texas senators. That’s how you secede.’

“Some Lone Star loons took that and turned it into a plan for a new ‘Southern Christian nation.’

“Look away.”

The SREC also rejected a proposal to take the state party convention away from Dallas, because the city recently increased its protections for LGBT residents. The proposal was made by Jared Woodfill, who led the recent fight to defeat Houston’s proposed LGBT protection ordinance. Woodfill is a candidate for GOP Party Chair. In a Tweet by Scott Braddock of The Quorum Report, Woodfill’s unhappiness over the defeat of his favorite causes – secession and anti-gay rhetoric - was revealed: “they killed everything I care about,” according to Towleroad.com.

The Gayly – December 6, 2015 @ 1:10 p.m.