Petition for Texas to Secede from US Reaches Threshold for White House Response
Vignesh Ramachandran, MSNBC, November 12, 2012
An online petition that calls for the State of Texas to withdraw from the U.S. and create its own government on Monday reached the required signature threshold to receive an official response from The White House.
The petition on WhiteHouse.gov asks the Obama administration to “peacefully grant the State of Texas to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own new government.” The petition had surpassed 34,000 signatures as of Monday evening. It was created by a person self-identified only as “Micah H.” from Arlington, Texas.
The petition cites the nation’s economic woes as an issue and says that the condition of Texas’ budget and economy make it “practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union.”
Online petitions on WhiteHouse.gov that get sufficient support are reviewed by White House staff and “sent to the appropriate policy experts.” To be searchable on WhiteHouse.gov in the first place, petitions currently need to get 150 signatures within 30 days. To get an official response, petitions need 25,000 signatures within 30 days.
Similar petitions from other states have also been filed including: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee. However, unlike the petition from Texas, none of these states had reached the 25,000-signature threshold to get an official White House response as of Monday evening.
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Catherine Frazier, press secretary for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, told NBC News Monday that the governor “believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it.”
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[Editor’s Note: Petitions for secession can be seen and signed here. You must register at the White House site in order to sign a petition, but it can be done quickly. You need not be a resident of a state to sign it’s petition.]
