SAN ANTONIO - Texas Republican activists dealt a potentially fatal blow to the secession crusade here on Friday before making history in unintended fashion with a vote to relegate gun rights to a second-tier priority for the state party next year in Austin.
With 5,000 delegates or more taking voice votes on the floor in the cavernous
confines of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, the Republicans killed a proposed addition to the legislative priorities report with a call for a referendum on the re-establishment of Texas an independent nation. The vote wasn't close.
The Texas Nationalist Movement
may have been blindsided by the vote after boasting about its influence in the Alamo City this week,
"The TNM is taking over the Republican Party of Texas Convention," the group declared in a post on Thursday night after a TEXIT pep rally here. "We are here and we are making an IMPACT to ensure the RPT listens to the will of the voters who want TEXIT now!"
Secession advocates appeared to have significant momentum heading into the primary election season in 2024 - with some three dozen candidates for the Texas House signing a TMN pledge to push for an election on a break from the United States.
While most of the pledge takers lost in the March 5 primary election, the TNM celebrated a significant victory when Janis Holt of Silsbee beat an incumbent with substantial help from Governor Greg Abbott. The governor hasn't said whether he agrees with Holt's position on secession.
Secessionists moved at the convention to amend a formal legislative priority on federal overreach with a pitch for a vote on Texas reasserting independence. State GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi ruled that the number of delegates who voted against the secession provision prevailed "overwhelmingly" in the fight on priorities for Texas lawmakers in 2025.
The party set a ceiling of 15 items in the legislative priorities report that delegates expect to approve this weekend. Having hit the cap in the permanent report to the convention, a group of delegates proposed to delete a provision on school choice and educational freedom from the document so it could be replaced with a bullet point on securing Second Amendment rights in Texas.
Some delegates decried the proposed switch as a stealth attack on school vouchers with gun rights as cover. Texas GOP leaders and lawmakers have passed the nation's least restrictive regulations on gun owners and buyers. But advocates argue that state law could be improved considerably in terms of strengthening gun rights for individuals.
The motion to make gun rights a formal party priority for the Legislature at the expense of school choice failed by a substantial margin.
more to come ...
