Two bombshells landed in the week before this Coffee Talk, and Daniel Miller spends the opening making sure nobody mistakes them for a finish line. The Republican Party of Texas adopted two platform planks calling for a vote on Texas independence, passing by roughly 80 and 88 percent. Days later a poll showed 66 percent of likely Texas voters ready to leave the union, a super majority that holds even against a five point margin of error. His warning to supporters is blunt. This is the last mile of the marathon, and the worst thing you can do now is take your foot off the throttle and start showboating ten yards short of the goal line.
The heart of the episode is a coaching session. Miller argues that the numbers have flipped the burden of proof. Supporters have spent years on defense, over explaining and justifying TEXIT to every skeptic who lobs questions at them. With two thirds of voters already on side, he says, it is time to go on offense and make the naysayers explain why Texas should stay. If Texas were already an independent nation, knowing everything you now know about the federal government, would you vote to join? If not, why would you ever vote to stay?
He also takes a long swing at the legal objection that never dies. Critics keep invoking Texas v. White to claim secession is forbidden, so Miller walks through why he considers it a fatally flawed decision: an internally inconsistent opinion, a conflict of interest in Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, and a thin chain of logic that ties the whole perpetual union theory to a single source, the preamble of the Constitution. Then he delivers the argument supporters keep asking him about. In Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), the Supreme Court held that the federal government derives no substantive powers from the preamble. Sever that link, Miller argues, and the entire premise of Texas v. White collapses, leaving Article 1 Section 10, the Tenth Amendment, and Article 1 Section 2 of the Texas Constitution to settle the matter.
Questions answered in this episode
- Will tomorrow night’s catalyst campaign webinar be recorded for those who have a county organization meeting and cannot attend live?
- Is there a whip count of legislators who support the movement, given that emails to all 103 Republican members went unanswered?
- Under an independent Texas, what would happen to federal armed forces and bases in the state, such as Fort Hood?
- Why does claiming the over-65 property tax reduction require a notary?
- Should the movement start suing people who publicly accuse its supporters of treason and sedition, as raised in Mac Dunkin’s article on defamation?
- Would an independent Texas continue to honor its debts to other states, the federal government, and international governments?
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