Will Texas Secede from the USA?
"But that's against the rules, Billy!" cries Tim as he reaches for the monopoly board, trying to organize the scattered mess of plastic hotels and paper bills. Billy grabs the board and yanks it away from his older brother, "Too bad, I make my own rules now and I say it's fair. You're not the boss of me!"
This childish argument is obviously flawed and can only seem appropriate between kids, but to see this argument played out between two governments, one only has to travel to Catalonia, Spain. For several years, the majority of the citizens of Catalonia have been vying for political separation from Spain, much to the frustration of the Spanish government. Despite representing only sixteen percent of Spain's population, Catalonia is responsible for around twenty-five percent of its exports, which makes it invaluable to the Spanish economy. On November 9th of last year, the regional assembly, which is majority pro–independent, passed a motion starting the process towards independence for Catalonia. The Spanish Parliament responded by declaring it unconstitutional. The deciding moment for the Catalans came on September 27th, 2015, when elections for seats in Parliament gave pro-independence groups the chance to gain majority and secede. To the disappointment of many, the separatist parties fell just shy of their goal, securing forty-eight percent of the seats. Although it remains a region of Spain, Catalonia has been an example to the world of the possibility and obtainability of secession
You might ask, "What does this have to do with Texas?" In 2012, an online petition asking President Obama to allow Texas to secede gained 125,000 signatures in a mere couple of weeks. In the official White House response, it states that while the constitution gives people the right to change the national government through suffrage, it does not give them the right to "walk away from it." However, as shown above, Spain declaring the Catalan independence unconstitutional didn't stop them and won't in the future. What's stopping Texas from doing the same? If Texas were a sovereign nation, it would have the 12th largest economy and easily be able to provide for its own citizens. To answer this question, the constitution is the only major thing preventing Texas from having the opportunity to secede. However, I don't think Texas will leave overnight, but who knows? In a decade or two, we might see a forty-nine state USA.
