The Texas state Republican Party’s 2022 platform is not only hideously anti-LGBTQ, it also calls for the state to hold a referendum in 2023 on a possible secession from the United States.
A document from the party’s Platforms and Resolutions committee developed during its recent state conference in Houston, revealed the party’s intention to hold the secession vote.
In a section on state sovereignty, the party says the federal government has “impaired” Texas’ right to locally self-govern. The section says any federal laws that infringe upon states’ rights should “be ignored, opposed, refused, and nullified.”
“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 adds. The vote will let state residents “determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation.”
The call for “sovereignty” echoes claims made by far-right activists nationwide who claim that they shouldn’t be subject to taxation or other laws.
Just because the item appears on the party platform doesn’t necessarily mean that legislators will act on it. The last time a state seceded from the U.S., it led to a four-year-long Civil War.
The state’s platform also referred to homosexuality as “abnormal” and said that President Joe Biden didn’t legitimately win the 2020 presidential election. As such, the platform illustrates just how much the party has been transformed by the party’s far-right wing.