Let the People Decide: Why TEXIT Runs Through a Referendum, Not a Decree

Daniel Miller opened this Late Night Coffee Talk mid-stride, midway through the first week of early voting and nursing a sore back after a stool on wheels sent him to the floor at a candidate forum in Irving. The campaign noise was loud, but the substance of the night was the one that always anchors this show. What does Texas independence actually require, and who gets to make the call.

The center of gravity was a sharp question about whether the Texas Nationalist Movement has a protocol for a unilateral declaration of independence, and when Texas would ever need one. Miller’s answer was a flat case against the UDI route. Pointing to Kosovo, he argued that a declaration issued by a legislative body, even one ratified by a vote, gets read as an act of politicians rather than an act of the people, which is exactly what wrecks international recognition. Article 1, Section 2 of the Texas Constitution places political power in the people themselves, and Miller’s read is that this inalienable right should not be delegated to a convention or a congress. Reserve it to the people, let them vote, then send representatives to carry out what the people decided. That, he noted, is why nearly every independent state of the last 70 years has gone the referendum route.

From there the conversation turned to what an independent Texas would change in its own founding document, and to the property tax, which Miller called an immoral institution that you abolish rather than reform. He walked through the field of competing abolition plans and tied the whole night back to a single conviction. The decision on Texas is not his to make. It belongs to the people, and the job in front of supporters is to wake their neighbors up to a right they already hold.

Questions answered in this episode

• Does the TNM have a protocol for a unilateral declaration of independence, and in what scenario would Texas ever need one?
• Why is a referendum of the people a stronger path to independence than a declaration issued by a legislature or convention?
• In an independent Texas, what changes would Miller want made to the Texas Constitution, and is a parliamentary system on the table?
• Could the state revisit a deadwood-style cleanup to strip anachronistic language out of the 1876 constitution?
• What is the detailed plan to eliminate property taxes, and how do the Medina, Bennett, James White, and Texas Public Policy Foundation proposals compare?
• If a candidate clears 50 percent plus one vote in the primary, is there still a runoff?
• Would Miller keep hosting these live question-and-answer sessions if he were elected?
• What boots does he wear, and what is the story behind them?