POLITICS
SECESSION CAMPAIGNERS HAVE PUSHED TO GET A FREEDOM REFERENDUM ON THE BALLOT IN THE Lone Star State. IS THE RETURN TO BEING A REPUBLIC A PIPE DREAM OR IS IT COMING DOWN THE PIPE?
DANIEL MILLER REMEMBERS AS though it were yesterday when he concluded Texas should leave the United States: Saturday, August 24, 1996, at approximately 2 p.m., in the hall of a hotel in the eastern Texan city of Tyler. Such was the impact of that moment that the technology consultant compares it to the "line in the sand" that lore recalls was drawn by his fellow Texan, William Travis, at the Alamo, shortly before it was stormed by Mexican troops in 1836. That legendary siege led to the Republic of Texas, an independent state for nine years before joining the American Union in 1845. Miller, now 50 and the president of the Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM), is hoping to reverse that transition.
Yet despite increased support, the movement has faced several recent setbacks, not least failing to get a referendum vote on Texan secession on the upcoming Republican primary ballot. Critics have also labeled the independence crusade a fantasy that has no chance of success, at least peacefully. But this has not deterred Miller, who remains convinced of his campaign's eventual success.
Miller said: “I think the trajectory the federal government is on, the trajectory that Texas is on, I think we are headed in that direction so whether by conscious decision or collapse of the federal system in its inability to meet its basic requirements, I think Texas becomes an independent nation definitely inside of 30 years.”
Fight for a Referendum
BY ANY MEASURE TEXAN NATIONAL ists have had a busy couple of years. In December the TNM delivered what it claimed was a 139,456-strong petition to the Republican Party of Texas in Austin. This called for an advisory referendum on Texan independence to be included on the March 2024 primary ballot.
According to the Texas election code, the minimum number of signatures needed for a referendum to be considered is “five percent of the total vote received by all candidates for governor in the party’s most recent gubernatorial general primary election.” The most recent Republican gubernatorial primary was in 2022, when 1,954,172 votes were cast, electing incumbent State Governor Greg Abbott. A total of 97,709 signatures are therefore needed for a referendum to be considered. However, the Texas GOP rejected the petition, with chair Matt Rinaldi claiming it had been submitted late, and that even if this hadn’t been the case, “the vast majority of petition signatures were inv
