Texas Independence Day in Austin: A Bill on the Brink, an Academic Ally, and the Long Game

Daniel Miller broadcast this Late Night Coffee Talk not from his usual studio but from the road in Austin, on the eve of Texas Independence Day. The trip had a purpose. The morning would bring a sit-down with State Representative Bryan Slaton over the Texas Independence Referendum Act, the bill TNM has been pushing to get filed. Miller asked supporters to stand down on the phone calls to Slaton’s office. The pressure campaign was always meant to encourage, never to attack, and with a meeting set he expected real progress. He hinted at the possibility of an announcement coming out of it.

Much of the night belonged to Dr. Matt Qvortrup, the scholar Miller calls Dr. Q. Author of a guide to building new countries and a consultant to sixteen independence movements worldwide, Qvortrup studied TNM and concluded that its strategy, tactics, and path already check every box. He was in Texas to speak at the University of Texas, a development Miller treated as significant given how often UT academics have dismissed the movement. Miller also teased that Qvortrup may end up in Texas on a semi-permanent academic basis.

The rest ranged across the week ahead and the state of play in the Capitol. Miller walked through a string of Texas Independence Day events, from a Walburg celebration to ticketed appearances with Dr. Q in New Braunfels and Garland. He argued that culture comes before politics, that a Newsweek feature shows the idea has escaped the establishment’s control, and that the Texas House leadership under Speaker Phelan has been stalling, with short work weeks and a calendars committee he called the place where good bills go to die.