Denton GOP Endorses TEXIT: Could Texas Actually Leave the U.S.?

DALLAS — North Texas Republicans have just taken their flirtation with leaving the United States to a new level of heavy petting.

According to a report from the Denton Record-Chronicle, the once-farfetched conservative fever dream inched closer to reality on April 13, when members of the Denton County GOP approved a resolution supporting the Lone Star State's session from the federal government of the United States.

At this point, the resolution remains largely symbolic. The vote was in favor of House Bill 1359, a measure which grouses about an unaccountable and invasive federal bureaucracy. It's is seen by historians and legal minds alike as futile and a possibility that exists somewhere between implausible and impossible.

What isn't a surprise is that the Republican resolution was championed by Texas Nationalist Movement mouthpiece and Precinct Chair Tim Curtiss. (TEXIT is also a prominent feature of the Texas Nationalist Movement's website.)

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The original House bill was filed by Fredericksburg Republican and state representative Kyle Biedermann following Joe Biden's inauguration as president. No action has been taken on the measure after its referral to committee on March 5.

In the unlikely event that it passes, the bill would ask Texas voters, “Should the legislature of the State of Texas submit a plan for leaving the United States of America and establishing an independent republic?”

Putting aside that you'll have a better chance of seeing a Jackalope on your way to the store today, or that secession didn't work out so well a few generations back, let's mull it over: How would Texans fare in leaving the union?

As one Texan pointed out in a Dallas Morning News opinion piece on the topic, Texas has the 15th largest economy on the planet, as well as surpluses of oil and natural gas. "

By that measure, the federal government should be actively trying to keep Texas' star among the other 49 on Old Glory. Citing the Lone Star State's land mass, disproportionate control in plastics, paper and insurance businesses and self-reliance when it comes to food, he concludes, "There isn't a thing out there that we need and don't have."

Alas, most who's studied the actual possibility of secession say that it's no longer possible, given the results of the War Between the States. And by not possible, they mean illegal.

In 2016, Eric McDaniel the Associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, Eric McCaniel explained the problem to The Texas Tribune. “The Civil War played a very big role in establishing the power of the federal government and cementing that the federal government has the final say in these issues.”

The South's 1865 surrender at Appomattox has more or less ended the concept of legal secession, in the view of many American historians. That begs the question: If you vote to secede from a natio to start your own, would you recognize their authority to keep you against your will?

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