A Group of Texans Thinks It Can Get The State GOP To Endorse Secession

Gotta vote like it’s 1861.

The Texas Nationalist Movement is seeking signatures for a petition to get a non-binding vote onto the Republican primary ballot in March to see if “the state of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation,” according to a Tuesday report from the Texas Tribune.

The group, according to the San Antonio television station KSAT, has been around in some form for 20 years. The GOP primary ballot move is the most recent stunt by the fringe group to spark secession. In 2013, the Texas Nationalist Movement staged a rally at the capitol in Austin to make “a stand for liberation.”

The state Republican Party hasn’t been too worried.

“Historically the executive committee of the Republican Party has chosen what goes on [the ballot] and it’s party preference that it stays that way,” Texas GOP communications director Aaron Whitehead told the Tribune.

The Texas Nationalist Movement wants to obtain 75,000 signatures from registered voters by Dec. 1, the group said when the petition was announced in July.

“The end game for us is to have a binding referendum on Texas independence, much like the people of Scotland had in November of last year,” Patrick Miller, the president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, told the Tribune.

Miller said the group is seeking to use the party’s primary ballot because its pro-secession position has been “rebuffed.”

The group did not say how many signatures it has already collected.