Tanya Robertson submits a ballot secession resolution to Texas State Republican Executive Committee/ Is this a gift to the Democratic party? UPDATE: SREC votes against ballot measure.

Tanya Robertson, member of the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) has submitted a secession ballot resolution to be put on the Republican primary ballot.

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/texas-independence-secession-republic-TNM-texian-6654896.php

The leadership  of the Texas Republican Party is against the resolution. I am thinking that Robertson submitted the resolution to force a vote. It is some factional battle in which the Texas Republican establishment members of the SREC will be forced to vote against it and then they can be targeted by Tea Party Republicans.

The Texas Nationalist Movement (TMN) is still collecting signatures. They claim that they have 75% of the signatures, that they are close as they explain at this link.

http://www.thetnm.org/petition_2015_we_are_close

Though the estimate of 75% includes what they estimate are signatures on lists in the field and not turned in. Perhaps a few petitions fell under the sofa or behind the desk. The new deadline is Dec. 15, 2015. So it seems that signatures are not coming in as fast as they thought. They need 68,000 some signatures to get on the Republican Primary Ballot. I would have thought they could have gotten these signatures easily, but  evidently even in Texas there aren't that many far right secessionists.

Maybe the movement is just a website mostly with a small membership.

I think the Democrats are waiting with great hopes that the petition is successful. How tempting it must be for a leading Democrat to condemn publicly the TMN and help them get the necessary signatures. A condemnation by Obama probably would get them the signatures in a couple days out of a reflexive opposition to any opinion Obama has.

Yet it would be so obvious a move that Democrats could be criticized for aiding and abetting a noxious movement inimical to the United States.

However, if either the petition or the SREC places a secession measure on the Texas Republican Party ballot it would be a great benefit to the Democrats.

Changing the international borders of the United States of America is a national issue. Suddenly every Congressional Representative, every U.S. Senator, every presidential candidate, every candidate for national office will have to have a position on Texas secession, the right of a state to secede, and what would be their policy if a state attempted to secede.

I suspect Donald Trump will be caught in a bind. He is the candidate of ignorant opinion, but even for him, Texas secession might give him pause, or maybe not.

Every Texas state elected official would suddenly have to have a position on the same questions. Even local officials would have to take a stand. Questions will come up about Texas secession at the start of the Civil War.

Democrats would speak out against it.

Opinion polls would be taken in Texas. I think there would be enough Texas Republicans that would say they are for it, even though they really aren't, just to express some anti-government or anti-Obama sentiment to amount to some significant percentage that would be for the ballot measure.

National opinion polls would be taken. After all it is a national issue. What policy do people support if a state does attempt to secede.

In Texas there are probably sections of the state which might want to proposed seceding from Texas to be part of the United States of America in the event of a Texas secession. Local groups everywhere would be passing resolutions for and against.

It could provoke a real backlash against the Republicans nationally. The excitement would enable every fringe and crack pot group.

The whole issue of the Confederacy would be drawn into it. Confederate monuments would be looked at differently when secession is no longer a dead issue, no longer settled long ago.

What I think will likely happen though is that the TNM will fall short in their petition drive, but they will have gotten a fairly good list of names to outreach to and to approach when they attempt this again. But also a defeat might make people give up on the movement and a tiny remnant will persist.

The SREC won't adopted Tanya Robertson's resolution, but she has probably earned the determined enmity of the Republican Party establishment which won't be happy until her political career is entirely ended.

Dec. 15th is a date to mark on your calendar.

UPDATE:

The SREC voted against the ballot measure this afternoon 12/5/2015.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/texas-gop-votes-not-to-put-secession-question-on-p/npczK/

The signature effort is still going and they have 6 days. The recent news coverage has probably been of help in getting signatures since they have gotten some publicity.

I think the national Republican party probably freaked out when the Resolution Committee voted for it. It would put Texas secession into the presidential campaigns as an issue.

Republicans were worried that it would make them a "laughingstock." hmmm.

Tanya Robertson has given the Republican Party a lot of heartburn. Perhaps her career can be ended.

I think though she did this to get ahead in politics, and probably knew that it would be defeated by the general vote.