The Texas Republican party has endorsed legislation that would allow state residents to vote whether to secede from the United States.
In a talkshow interview, the party chair, Allen West, argued that: “Texans have a right to voice their opinions on [this] critical issue.
“I don’t understand why anyone would feel that they need to prevent people from having a voice in something that is part of the Texas constitution,” the former Florida congressman said of the Texas Referendum Independence Act. “You cannot prevent the people from having a voice.”
UPDATE: Allen West, the chairman of the @TexasGOP, says Texans should be given an opportunity to vote to secede from the United States. https://t.co/euvDLBPoK9 pic.twitter.com/jb1BUhqLV7
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 5, 2021
West is the latest Republican to come out in support of declaring Texas an independent nation. Last month, thestate representative Kyle Biedermann confirmed that he will introduce the bill for a referendum as early as this week.
“Texit,” named after the British referendum to leave the European Union, refers to the process of Texas exiting the United States to become an independent, self-governing nation.
The endorsement drew intense backlash from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Many took aim directly at West as party chair, continuing a slew of criticism that has been levied at him since first he took on the role in July.
Back then, West was immediately criticized for changing the political organization’s slogan to “We are the Storm,” in what the New York Times called an “unusually visible example of the Republican party’s dalliance with QAnon”, the conspiracy theory.
This week’s endorsement also is not the first time the former Florida congressman has promoted secession.
Earlier he insisted that “law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution”, following a US supreme court ruling to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.
When corporate donors to the Texas Republican party were asked for responses, many companies stated that they had not made any recent political donations – some paused all corporate giving after the 6 January deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, the political news site Popular Information reported.
The ride-hailing company Lyft, which donated $5,000 to the Texas GOP in 2016, told the outlet that it had “no plans to donate to the party in the future”, adding that the company was “troubled by chairman West’s statements”.