Daniel Miller opens this Late Night Coffee Talk fresh off a border awareness rally near Portland, and he does not soften what he saw. He plays a video produced by the Goliad County Sheriff’s Office documenting a cartel-run human trafficking operation that reaches far past the Rio Grande. Migrants are tagged with colored wristbands, moved through safe houses, and held as indentured servants until they pay off their debt. Stolen trucks haul them north to Houston. Ranchers in South Texas have abandoned their land. Miller calls the federal government just as culpable as the cartels for leaving the welcome mat out, and he refuses to let Austin off the hook for the smoke and mirrors he says pass for border action under Governor Abbott.
From there he lays out the real heart of the night: the strategy behind the petition campaign. This is not a standalone vote. It is a pincer movement. Get the TEXIT question onto the March primary ballot to record the political will of Texas voters, and at the same time recruit primary challengers against every legislator who refused to sign HB 1359, the Texas Independence Referendum Act filed by Rep. Kyle Biederman. Miller is blunt about the lesson from Brexit: the UK voted to leave and then watched the same bureaucrats who never wanted to leave drag their feet. He does not intend to repeat that mistake in Texas.
He frames the moment as a once-in-a-generation opening. It is a redistricting year, so new maps weaken incumbents. Abbott faces serious primary challengers, which ties up his political machine. A TEXIT question on the ballot drives turnout past anything the consultants have modeled, and those voters will also find pro-TEXIT candidates down the ballot. Win the vote and flip the seats, Miller argues, and you can change the face of Texas politics in a single cycle. He also points north, where New Hampshire legislators just filed their own withdrawal amendment, running what he calls the Biederman play, an echo of the multi-state independence panel he joined at PorcFest.
Questions answered in this episode
- Will an independent Texas have a Navy?
- What actually happens after the spring vote, step by step?
- Can the independence petition be signed online, or does it have to be on paper?
- Where can people find the Goliad County Sheriff’s border trafficking video?
- How does the petition connect to the effort to recruit challengers against legislators who blocked HB 1359?
- How can supporters plug in right now, from circulating petitions to running for office?
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