Texas Independence Campaigners Could Be Barred From Office

The Kendall County Democratic Party (KCDP) in Texas passed a resolution on March 8 calling for changes to the state electoral code to ban advocates of Texan independence from appearing on the ballot “for a state or county office” in the Lone Star State.

The motion will be put before the KCDP county convention for final approval on March 23. If it is approved, the resolution will go to the Texas Democratic Party’s state convention in June, where it could be approved as party policy.

Texan secessionists have responded to the resolution with dismay, with one leading campaigner telling Newsweek it shows a “distaste for democracy” and desire to “suppress the voice of every Texan.”

Tensions between Texas and U.S. authorities have surged this year. The Supreme Court ruled on January 22 that federal agents can remove razor wire placed along the Texas-Mexico border on the orders of state Gov. Greg Abbott.

In response to the ruling, Abbott said Texas was facing an “invasion” and invoked the state’s “constitutional authority to defend and protect itself.” This has sparked growing interest in whether Texas could become an independent nation, as it was between declaring independence from Mexico in 1836 and joining the United States in 1845.

The March 8 resolution specifically calls for the Texas legislature to alter the state’s election code so that candidates for office are obligated in their candidate application to state that they will not “directly or indirectly support or advocate in favor of any effort on the part of the state of Texas to secede, separate or otherwise withdraw from the United States.”

Any potential candidate who does back Texan independence, dubbed “Texit” by some campaigners, is automatically “not qualified to appear on any ballot for a state or county office,” the motion reads.

In a statement provided to The Boerne Star, a local newspaper, KCDP chair Laura Bray said: “KCDP and the Texas Democratic Party want to affirm our commitment to the Constitution and laws of the United States.

“Candidates who file to run for office swear an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Anyone who advocates for secession violates that oath and should therefore be disqualified for running for office in Texas, plain and simple.”

However, Daniel Miller, president of the pro-independence Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM), told Newsweek the proposal is anti-democratic.

He said: “This resolution flies in the face of the Texas Constitution and our Bill of Rights, further proving that the machine of the Texas Democratic Party isn’t content to suppress pro-Texit voices of dissent within their own party. They want to impose their distaste for democracy and suppress the voice of every Texan. It’s a meaningless resolution from a meaningless party that couldn’t even make a quorum at their state convention two years ago.”

In July 2022, the Texas Democratic Party Convention in Dallas ended without approving a policy platform as not enough delegates were in attendance to achieve a quorum.

Newsweek reached out to the KCDP via the online contact form on their website at 6:15 a.m. ET on Tuesday. This article will be updated if they decide to comment.

In March, seven Republican candidates hoping to stand for the state legislature, who had signed the TNM’s “Texas First” pledge vowing to support an independence referendum, won their primary battles. It means they will stand in November’s election. Another five candidates, also from the GOP, advanced to run-off elections.

Signatories to the “Texas First” pledge promise to “vote for legislation and resolutions to call for a vote on Texas reasserting its status as an independent nation in every term that I am elected until such a referendum is held.”

Should the referendum result in majority support for independence, they also vow to “work toward a fair and expedient separation of Texas from the federal government.”

A Redfield & Wilton Strategies survey conducted exclusively for Newsweek in February round 23 percent of Texans would vote for the state to become “an independent country” in a hypothetical referendum, against 67 percent who want to remain “a state within the United States,” with the remainder answering “don’t know.”

However, the survey also found that 44 percent of Texans are either more likely or significantly more likely to support independence due to the ongoing migrant situation along the Mexican border, compared to 16 percent who said this made them less likely to support secession and 35 percent who said it made no difference.

The survey asked 814 eligible voters in Texas from February 1 to 3 a variety of political questions.