The Texas Supreme Court has refused to take up a case filed against the state Republican Party after it rejected a petition calling for a vote on Texas independence to be included on its March primary ballot.
The case was brought by the Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM), a group campaigning for the state to leave the United States and become a fully independent country. On Wednesday, the TNM's petition, with 139,456 signatures, was denied outright, sparking an angry response from secessionist campaigners.
Texan nationalists have received a number of major boosts over the past few years, with the Texas GOP backing calls for a referendum on whether the state "should reassert its status as an independent nation" at its June 2022 convention.
In a statement provided to Newsweek Texas Republican Party Chair Matt Rinaldi welcomed the decision, saying: "We are thankful the Texas Supreme Court swiftly rejected the Texas Nationalist Movement's petition to allow electronic signatures gathered on the internet to be used for petitions, voter registrations, and mail-in ballots. As we said, and as it took the Supreme Court less than a day to determine, the Republican Party of Texas complied with clear Texas law in rejecting TNM's internet petition."
A file photo of the Texas state flag. The Texas Supreme Court has rejected a case filed by Texan nationalists after their independence petition was turned down by the state Republican Party.TIM WARNER/GETTY
Texas state Representative Bryan Slaton introduced legislation in March 2023 that would have triggered a referendum on "whether or not the State should investigate the possibility of Texas independence," though it failed to move past the committee stage.
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Last month, TNM President Daniel Miller delivered a petition calling for a "TEXIT" referendum to the state GOP headquarters in Austin, well over the 97,709 signatures required to get a vote added to the primary ballot.
Rinaldi rejected the petition, claiming "the vast majority of petition signatures were invalid." He said some were missing essential information such as "residence address, county of registration, and date of birth/voter registration number." Other names were invalid, while only 8,300 of the signatures had been submitted by hand, rather than electronically, which Rinaldi claimed was a requirement. The Texas GOP also said the delivery of the petition was "untimely," with it being received on the deadline, as opposed to the day before.
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In response, the TNM on Wednesday announced it had filed an emergency petition to the state Supreme Court vowing to "fight for your right of self-government." Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Paul M. Davis, a member of the TNM legal team, wrote: "Rinaldi didn't think we could get this filed because of his strategic delay. But a ragtag heroic group of paralegals, law clerks, and myself got it done and filed even though none of us had any appellate procedure experience to speak of because we needed to fight for the 140,000 Texans who have a lawful right for the #TEXIT referendum to appear on the Republican primary ballot."
But the legal bid was rejected almost immediately, with a court saying: "Today the Supreme Court of Texas denied the petition for writ of mandamus in the above-referenced case."
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Rinaldi shared Davis' initial post on X alongside the court decision, adding: "He should really check his inbox."
Davis later posted: "Well, we did everything we could but the Supreme Court of Texas screwed us. Didn't even want to look at the petition TNM submitted to Rinaldi to see if what we said was true. Just 'nope.' No explanation. No nothing.
"This is what the Texas GOP Republican establishment thinks of Texans. You don't have the right to petition your government. You're the 'wrong type' of voter according to Matt Rinaldi. The establishment won today, but we are not going away."
Joshua Blank, an expert in state politics at the University of Texas at Austin and research director of the Texas Politics Project, told Newsweek last month that he could see "no plausible scenario in which Texas could peacefully extract itself from the United States."
Update 1/12/24 at 3:10 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with a statement from the Texas Republican Party chair.
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