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The Texas and United States flag billow in the wind at the Texas State Capitol in Austin.
Republican activists who signed a pledge saying they want Texas to secede from the U.S. now control the state party’s top two elected positions.
At its convention in San Antonio last Friday, the Texas GOP elected Abraham George and D’rinda Randell as the party’s respective chair and vice. George will replace outgoing party Chairman Matt Rinaldi, whose two-year tenure saw a collapse in fundraising and staffing for the party as he edged it further and further right.
The pro-secessionist Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM) also picked up a grievance against Rinaldi after he successfully blocked a question about Texas leaving the U.S. from being posed to voters on the party’s March primary ballot.
“Last year, the [Republican Party of Texas] disenfranchised voters by neglecting the will of the people, and now we are effectively changing the party as a whole,” TNM president Daniel Miller said in a statement. “What the political establishment once called ‘fringe’ is mainstream. Texans are sick and tired of broken promises from public officials, and it was only a matter of time before we saw more Texas-First candidates take office.”
Both George and Randell are signers of the “Texas-First” pledge. By signing, the pair agreed to hold a referendum on Texas independence if one is called and secede from the U.S. if the question wins in a referendum.
Of course, Texas is unlikely to divorce the United States anytime soon, and mainstream political thinkers say it has no legal authority to do.
Despite the TNM delivering nearly 140,000 verified signatures to Gov. Greg Abbott’s office in February to demand a vote on the matter, a recent poll found that 67% of Texans, if given the option, would opt to remain part of the Union.
Abbott also denounced the movement during a 60 Minutes interview in March, calling the notion that he wished to leave the Union “false narratives,” much to the displeasure of TEXIT backers.
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