Republicans in Texas formally rejected the election results in 2020 and declared Biden an illegitimate president. In its latest platform document, the Texas GOP has suggested that it might secede from the US. In the document, the state GOP called for a referendum on secession in 2023.
The resolution, which was approved by delegates — nearly 5,000, the party said — in a voice vote, claims the 2020 election violated the Constitution. Multiple secretaries of state “illegally circumvented their state legislatures in conducting their elections in multiple ways,” it reads, and “substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas” warped the results in Biden’s favor.
Republicans in Texas voted in a state-wide convention on a party platform that also calls homosexuality an abnormal lifestyle choice.
The Texas GOP is also pushing for a referendum on seceding from the US — a split that could lead to the state becoming an independent nation. The state GOP outlined its intention to press for such a referendum in a document from its Platforms and Resolutions committee, wherein it specified its demand that the state holds a vote on the matter. The document was produced in connection with the Texas Republican Party’s convention in Houston, during which it also voted “overwhelmingly” to reject the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
The document, which contains a section on state sovereignty, calls for the state to hold a vote and outlines the Texas Republican Party’s opinion that the federal government has “impaired” its right to locally self-govern.
Per the document, the Texas GOP proposed that any “federally mandated legislation that infringes upon the 10th Amendment rights of Texas should be ignored, opposed, refused, and nullified.“
“We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States,” reads the resolution in the party’s document detailing its new resolutions and platform points.
“Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto,” the document reads.
On top of its call for secession, the Texas GOP also asked for state lawmakers to look into prosecuting election fraud.
“We urge the passage of a constitutional amendment that gives the Texas Attorney General concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute election fraud along with the county District Attorneys,” the GOP’s platform document read.
While the Texas GOP has not outlined when exactly such a vote might take place, this is not the first occasion that the idea of secession has been floated. In November, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said the state might secede if the situation in the US becomes “hopeless.”
“We’re not there yet, and if there comes a point where it’s hopeless, then I think we take NASA, we take the military, we take the oil,” Cruz said.
And, Kirby added, “with the exception of a small number of folks there in Texas, the American people recognize that and understand that.”
“The Texas Republican Party is raising record funds for election integrity, and we’ve made election integrity a top priority to ensure Texas never goes the way of Pennsylvania, Georgia or Arizona,” Republican Party of Texas Chairman Matt Rinaldi said in a prepared statement Monday. “We refuse to let Democrats rig the elections in 2022 or 2024.”
In addition to the resolution rejecting the election’s certified results, convention delegates approved more than 270 platform planks, including two on an issue as old as the state itself: secession.
“Pursuant to Article 1, Section 1, of the Texas Constitution, the federal government has impaired our right of local self-government,” the platform plank reads. “Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should” hold a vote for Texans to decide.