It may not have made many national headlines, but the TEXIT movement has been actively seeking a nonbinding referendum on the Texas Republican primary. One hundred thousand signatures were needed for the Texas Republican Party to consider the proposal. Movement leader Daniel Miller said in 2023 he accumulated 170,097 signatures, but many were disqualified. Ultimately, Miller turned in 139,456 signatures in mid-December 2023.[2] The Texas Republican Party then considered adding the proposal to their primary. They chose not to.
Recent history has had a string of support for Texas secession. Richard McLaron, leading an organization called Republic of Texas, was arrested in 1997 after taking hostages and declaring Texas never legally joined the United States. In 2021, House Bill 1359, titled “An act related to proposing a referendum to the people of the State of Texas on the question of whether this state should leave the United States of America and establish an independent republic,” was introduced in the state legislature, referred to the State Affairs Committee, and was quickly ignored.[3] The sitting Texas Commissioner on Agriculture has signed the Texas First Pledge to “vote for legislation and resolutions to call for a vote on Texas reasserting its status as an independent nation.”[4]
There is a lot of Civil War era history to unpack related to TEXIT. In fact, several actions were undertaken as the Civil War ended to permanently settle this issue:
First the war. Texas representatives, though notably not then-Governor Sam Houston, signed an ordinance of secession. A referendum later certified it with 46,000 Texans voting for secession while less than 15,000 voted against it. It must be remembered though that those were only registered Anglo men in the state.[5] Ultimately, the Confederacy’s loss in the conflict settled the issue of secession in the United States by force.