Daniel Miller spent the opening of this Late Night Coffee Talk in a state he admitted was closer to disgust than anger. The target was the Texas House, which he and other long-time observers now rate the worst session they have seen, worse even than the Joe Straus years, because the rot is no longer confined to the speaker and his lieutenants. The rank and file, he argued, are the ones who keep the leadership in power, and this week they proved exactly who they are.
The flashpoint was the transactional gold bill, Representative Mark Dorazio’s measure to let Texas operate a sound, specie-backed currency and take a real step toward functioning like an independent nation. The bill carried more than 80 co-authors, over half the House. Then Representative Charlie Geren filed an 11th-hour amendment making the entire scheme contingent on a final and unappealable ruling from a federal court that Texas is even allowed to do this, and barring any Texas court from being the one to say so. Miller read the language on air and called it what it is: a poison pill that forces Texas to grovel to Washington for permission to exercise a right it already holds under Article 1, Section 10. All but 29 members voted for it.
His verdict was that this single vote is a clearer litmus test than even the independence referendum bill, because every member had to take a side and the side most of them took was surrender. He named the consequence plainly. These people are most vulnerable in the primaries, the next session is already being decided right now, and the fight is not in Austin but in the precincts and county groups back home. There is a sliver of good news, he noted: the bill still passed and now heads to the Senate, where the Geren language can be stripped out, which would mean the House members outed themselves for nothing.
Questions answered in this episode
- How do we keep people like Burrows and Phelan out of power, and is prison the answer for what they have done?
- Once the movement gets big enough to make headlines, how do we cope with major media denouncing us?
- Are there any organized Texas-style independence movements in Tennessee?
- Should we be watching Alberta ramp up its independence push after the recent Canadian election, and what about Quebec and Nuevo Leon?
- Can you collect digital signatures instead of wet-ink ones to win ballot access as an independent candidate?
- Will Governor Abbott’s new Regulatory Reform and Efficiency Act deliver the kind of savings DOGE has at the federal level?
Miller closed by pointing to a memo House members were circulating to argue for a statewide referendum on school choice, the same statewide-vote mechanism those members deny Texas when independence is on the table. He urged viewers to register their support at tnm.me/vote and download the TNM app to get past the throttling and censorship, and signed off as always with Sam Houston: Texas will again lift its head and stand among the nations.
Comments have moved. The real debate about Texas independence now happens with thousands of Texians in the app.
Get the TEXIAN app
