The Petition Crossed the Line: What Happens to the TEXIT Ballot Question Now

For the first time in Texas history, a citizen petition has gathered enough verified signatures to force a question onto a party’s primary ballot under Section 17.208 of the Election Code. Daniel Miller opens this late night coffee talk with the news that broke over the weekend. The TEXIT petition cleared the statutory minimum of 97,709 signatures, and the raw count kept climbing past 103,000. No organization had ever met that threshold before. This is the TNM’s fourth run at it since 2015, and it is the one that landed.

Daniel walks through what the petition actually is and what it is not. It is not a final vote to secede. It places a single question on the March 2024 Republican primary ballot asking whether Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation. He frames it the way international scholars frame the Scottish and Brexit votes, as an advisory referendum that is politically binding even when it carries no legal compulsion, because all political power is inherent in the people. TEXIT is the process, he repeats, not the goal. Independence is the goal.

He is candid about the road ahead. The TNM offered the State Republican Executive Committee a chance to place the question itself as a ballot proposition, and the vote failed by only five or six votes with no roll call taken. The petitions are being prepped at multiple sites because the team does not trust the opposition to let the handoff happen cleanly. December 11 is the statutory deadline to deliver them to Republican Party of Texas headquarters in downtown Austin. After that, the decision to certify rests solely with chairman Matt Rinaldi. The TNM has retained the country’s top ballot access attorney and is ready to litigate if it has to. He points viewers to the legal fund at defendtexit.com.

Questions answered in this episode

• What can supporters do about SREC members who will not back the grassroots right to vote on independence?
• Why was there no roll call vote on the resolution at the executive committee meeting?
• How can people in other states, like a viewer in Pennsylvania, actually help the effort?
• Can someone other than Kyle Biedermann carry the Texas Independence Referendum Act in the legislature, given that some reps dismiss his bills?
• How would TEXIT change the government already in place, and how does it happen without war?
• What does Texas do about border security and immigration, both before and after independence?
• If successful separatist referendums are always bipartisan, how do the partisan remarks at the SREC fit the long range strategy?
• What is Daniel’s read on RPT chairman Matt Rinaldi?
• What is the real reason people oppose putting the question on the ballot?
• How many state senators can actually be counted on to vote for the referendum?
• Did the petition gather enough signatures to reach the Democratic primary ballot as well?

Daniel closes on the bigger arc. A strong affirmative vote in March, paired with a slate of Texas First pledge candidates winning seats on heavier primary turnout, is the next step toward getting a binding referendum through the legislature. Not the final step. The next one. He signs off with Sam Houston’s line that Texas will again lift its head and stand among the nations, and asks whether viewers will stand with her.