Some Texas Republicans want to secede from union over Trump loss

Party strategist said afterwards that ‘there is no chance’ the Lone Star State breaks away, amid GOP denial over election defeat

A senior Republican in Texas has suggested the state secedes from the union after the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit that wanted to overturn the presidential election result, without basis.

Texas had led the widely derided legal challenge which was signed by seventeen other states, and over a hundred Republican lawmakers in congress, who called on the Supreme Court to overturn Joe Biden’s election win over Donald Trump in four battleground states, and so the election outcome.

Writing in the court ruling on Friday, the Supreme Court said Texas and its attorney general, Ken Paxton, lacked the legitimacy to overturn election results in other states.

The decision dealt another blow to Mr Trump’s attempts to overturn November’s election, which he and Republican allies have claimed was rigged against him - without any basis.  

Speaking after that decision on Friday, Texas Republican Party chairman Allen West said the state should enter into a pact with so-called other “law-abiding states” and leave the union altogether.

"The Supreme Court, in tossing the Texas lawsuit that was joined by seventeen states and 106 US congressman, has decreed that a state can take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law resulting in damaging effects on other states that abide by the law, while the guilty state suffers no consequences," said Mr West.

"This decision establishes a precedent that says states can violate the US constitution and not be held accountable," the Republican went on. "This decision will have far-reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic."

Repeating comments recently made by Kyle Biedermann, a Texas Republican in the House of Representatives who said he would introduce legislation to allow Texas to secede, Mr West suggested that “law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution".

The remarks were an apparent nod to Republicans in other states who have also defended president Trump’s attacks on the election process in the weeks since the presidential election.

Susan Del Percio, a Republican strategist and senior adviser to the Lincoln Project, argued that despite those suggestions, the party had a bigger problem and that Texas would not secede.

“There is no chance that Texas will secede from the United States. Just as with Paxton’s Supreme Court ploy, the law is not on Texas’ side. Secession is simply not legal, and Biedermann should know that,” Ms Del Percio argued in an op-ed for NBC News on Monday.

“Even as the Texas GOP attempts to pledge its undying loyalty to Trump, the reality is that Texas will eventually go blue,“ she then added, in acknowledgement that Democrats could pick-up the state at another election.

Ben Schatz, the Democratic senator for Hawaii, said Mr West’s statement revealed that those the Texas Republican Party had lost its mind, in a post to Twitter.

“The Texas Republican Party is officially in favor of leaving the Union. They have lost their minds,” wrote Mr Schatz. “Biden will be President, but these people are deadly serious about secession and sedition.  

President-elect Biden is set to be confirmed as the election winner by the Electoral College on Monday, in a vote that will cement his victory over the incumbent, Mr Trump.