Texas pondering

[dvandom]

It has become fashionable in Texas politics to play the secession card, claiming (falsely) that the treaty that brought Texas into the union has an opt-out clause that would let them withdraw at any time. redneckgaijin has commented on how stupid a move that would be (and will likely need to correct me on the next bit in a few places), even if it wasn't the sort of thing that leads to a shooting war.

But, from what I've heard, the treaty does give Texas the option of splitting into several smaller states at a later date, should they vote to do so. I'm pretty sure they could work out a way to do this that ensured all the new Senators would be Republicans, plus it would inflate the Texan electoral college representation significantly. Sure, it would be expensive, but it's the sort of (potentially short-sighted) power grab I'm surprised none of these secessionists have proposed. Split into five pieces, and "Greater Texas" has ten Senate seats, at least until the regional stresses break up the voting bloc (i.e. the border states and the non-border states would probably disagree on some things). The House seats would probably not change significantly, they might pick up a seat or two on rounding errors if they finesse things right.

Of course, it wouldn't really look like anything BUT a naked power grab, so it might be hard to sell to the sane segment of the Texan population, which I have been assured is not the Empty Set.

Comments

[zqadams.livejournal.com]

(Full disclosure: I voted for Perry the first time he ran for governor, but have not since, nor would I do so this year. In the last race, I was independent.)

The secessionists are idiots and, while splitting up into four states might be a decent short-term power grab, it would probably end up butchering the state economy (which has so far been fairly recession-proof, compared to much of the rest of the country.)

The thing that really interests me, mentioned by somebody somewhere, is the idea of the state attempting to block local implementation of things on 10th Amendment grounds. It would almost certainly fail, of course, as of the current Supreme Court nobody but Scalia and Thomas will make a ruling that would tear down seventy years of government welfare programs. But I'd argue that the public debate would be worth having--I don't think Social Security, for instance, is a bad program but I think that implementing it without a Constitutional amendment was a bad precedent that has led to too much power creep.