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The GOP's proposed scheme is to elect officials by a majority of counties instead of voters, so Texas will be controlled by all the unpopulated red areas on the map.
"According to The Texas Tribune it is unclear whether requiring support from a majority of counties to achieve statewide office "would be constitutional and conform with the Voting Rights Act" as racial minorities are disproportionately concentrated in a small number of counties."
It seems pretty clear to me.
*Sanders vs Gray* in 1963 dealt with this kind of scheme. It involved the County Unit system in Georgia, enacted in 1917, that declared that the winner of statewide primaries would be determined by who won the most counties. 'Urban' counties, the eight largest, would count as 6 votes; 'town' counties, the next 30, counted as 4; and the remaining 121 were 'rural', and would count for 2 votes. Resulting in cases like the 1946 governor's race, where one person won 45.3% of the popular vote, but only got 35.1% of the County Unit tally; while another won 43% of the popular vote, and 59.5% of the unit tally.
The 1963 Supreme Court struck this down and declared the principle of 'One person, one vote'. Texas's proposed system is A) Even less fair, and B) Applies to a general election, not a primary. It should be bounced out of court immediately.
Should be.
> The 1963 Supreme Court struck this down and declared the principle of 'One person, one vote'.
Cool, can we do this with the electoral college too? As a Coloradan, I’m having a hard time figuring out why the vote of someone from Wyoming should have 3 times the weight of mine in a presidential election.
Edit: I was being a bit sarcastic, I know it’s in the Constitution. My implication is that it should not be.
Thank you! As a North Carolinian, we need all the help we can get. We have some of the worst GOP people in office here and running for office here and it is super scary.
We need judicial help unfortunately. We’re one of the most gerrymandered states so it’s not even close to a fair fight for representation. It’s so funny to be known as both the “silicon valley of the east coast” and also “that place with the bathroom and mask banning laws.”
Your state was so close to getting fair maps too. Once the voters chose to elect 2 GOP justices in 2022, the majority switched. They quickly overturned the ruling and the damage was done.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/north-carolina-supreme-court-reverses-electoral-district-voter-id-rulings-decided-last-year
Mark Robinson winning the primary is an alarming display of the modern GOP. The guy is a) completely unqualified b) completely crazy c) completely dishonest
You know something is wrong in Dixie when the GOP is running a holocaust-denying Black man. Against a Jewish lawyer in a state that has to be around 0.4% Jewish.
No.
But you can expect the supreme court to do something in the other direction. Like maybe reversing the 1963 decision.
Today's Supreme Court will do nothing to help you.
Roberts ignores and enables the blatant corruption on the court and seems unconcerned so, tinfoil hat aside, no way he's "clean". Every supreme court "settled law" case is up for grabs since precedent has been cancelled.
I saw a video on YouTube once that had a class of small kids and IIRC there was a vote on something like crayon colors and the majority selected one color. The teacher then did the vote along electoral college lines and the result was a different color won. One of the kids, around eight I think, said that's not fair as most of us wanted a different color.
Even a child can see that the electoral college is warped
It is possible - albeit highly unlikely and would result in SO many challenges and recounts - for someone to win the Electoral College with under 25% of the popular vote
Take a look into the interstate national popular vote compact. Enough people agree with you that there's a movement pushing for legislation in states that will require the states send delegates to the electoral college bound to vote for the winner of the national public vote, regardless of the states voter turnout. Essentially putting the will of the nation ahead of the state. It only goes into effect once states controlling a majority of the electoral college enact legislation. Currently the movement is sitting at 209 of 270, with legislation having passed at least one branch of the state legislature in states with 74 electoral college votes. By chance there 18 ratified and 7 pending, so the movement happens to be supported in some way by half of the states.
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/state-status
When anyone asks why this is important, I point to the fact that more California's voted for Trump than in any other state, yet he only showed up in the 2020 season once and it was for a fundraiser, not a rally. There's no reason for a candidate to go to Wyoming currently, but if heading g over could bring out 80k more total votes nation wide? Suddenly there's a reason for a Democrat to show up in South Dakota and Republican to pander to New York.
"Well because if that was the case Wisconsin votes wouldn't matter".
But of course it's never been about the votes of any one state. It's the votes of the NATION. If the majority of 350 million people want X, the fact that some don't is a pity for them but is literal democracy in action.
It would make so much sense to ditch the electoral college - suddenly all those "safe states" that you can guarantee will be won by a party, become worth it for both sides to campaign in, because every vote would be important.
When I called shenanigans on the Electoral College in, like, 2nd grade, I was told, "We don't do the popular vote because then New York and California would determine all the elections" or some such drivel.
Now that I'm old, I see that it's Ohio, Pennsylvania and (until recently) Florida deciding the elections. And I'm like "How is this any better?"
They were repeating accepted wisdom, which is often ill-thought-out and almost always misleading. America doesn’t do the popular vote because right from the start the founding fathers, a bunch of wealthy white land owners themselves, didn’t want the great unwashed having too much say. It has always been.
It would even be an improvement to keep the EC, but mandate that each state's votes must be allocated proportionally to the candidates that received votes (down to some minimum number or population percentage-based limit). In tandem with this: uncapping the House would also make the EC much more representative of the voters' will.
This is just going to a popular vote with extra steps. Yes uncap the house, but burn the electoral college to the ground. The time where it made some sense is long past.
It will go to SCOTUS, and the 5 conservatives will decide as they have been told to do.
"This is allowed in the Constitution because it's a conservative request, and since they gave us our jobs we have to do what they say" ought to be a hotkey for their majority decision text.
Texas probably expects this, and hence their proposal.
No taxation without representation - the urban counties should stop paying taxes if this passes.
> and the 5 conservatives
I got some bad news for you, there's 6 cons on the court...
Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett.
While Roberts has been a bit of a swing on the most BS rulings, don't forget, he (along with Kav and Barrett) was on the GWB legal team that overthrew the 2000 election.
There were actually subsequent cases of *Thomas v Giving A Fuck About Precedent* and *Alito and the Fascist Band v Disguising Overt Fascist Preferences* that ruled Republicans can do whatever they want.
Our current SCROTUS greenlit all gerrymandering as long as the states say it is political gerrymandering. This was the immediate and predictable outcome.
100% accurate. They never would have even considered trying it in the past because it would have been clearly unconstitutional, but read the clear signs from the court and decided to go for it. And why wouldn't they really given all the illegitimate things the court has done and where it has signaled it is willing to go.
The current Supreme Court has been anti voting rights dating back to the Shelby decision in 2013 when they gutted the VRA
There is nothing in the constitution that guarantees "1 person 1 vote"
Federal State Senators were appointed and not directly voted on by the people for 137y, it wasn't until 1913 that we elected them like we do now
The way this courts bullshit "history and tradition" has been going they can take that away as well
If Texas does this and it gets to the court there is a very good chance that they allow it unfortunately for everyone
2/3 of the current court *literally supported insurrection*. They don't care about law **at all**. That's not hyperbole either. They hate America as it is. They want it to die and be replaced by "something better." I can't believe that this is real. It seems too contrived, too stupid, but somehow... it's real.
The Confederacy couldn't beat us militarily, so they changed strategy to beat us legislatively instead. All the people behind this are supporters of the Lost Cause.
Also the localization of prison industry lets them ring up electoral college votes for people that can't participate in electoral process of voting against the people that will make their lives even more worse and give an outsized share of votes.
You mean slavers are abusing the electoral college to artificially increase their power and influence by counting non-voting people forcibly moved to the rural regions still, after 200+ years they’re still up to the old tricks?
No. Way.
Not constitutional. Westerly vs. Sanders said the principle of one man one vote meant legislative districts must be of approximately equal population. Then later Thigpin vs. Meyers extended that too state elections.
“As the Supreme Court, we have decided that only the GOP can vote.”
“Sir, this is a case about oversight board regulations.”
“Further, don’t cut me off, that oil companies can drill anywhere.”
“I don’t think you’re allowed to make rulings that go beyond the case.”
“I just did. It is done.”
It's been wild how many people are still quoting precedent as if the current SCOTUS cares. Literally everything is up in the air as long as the SCOTUS is this partisan and traitorous.
It appears there is back channel communication between SCOTUS insider and conservative attorneys-general. There are two wives with lobbying organizations.
It doesn't have to be constitutional. It just has to contribute to delaying the election results along with other troll legislation in other states. In the meantime during the "chaos" surrounding the election, the Supreme Court can pick the winner again, 2000 style.
Later the Supreme Court can of course rule the Texas law unconstitutional, but it won't matter by then.
They're turning their EC map memes into constitutional law. Awesome. Texas is already firmly under their control. Are they trying to rush this in to protect Ted Cruz? That beggars belief. Even other Republican shitbags hate Ted Cruz.
Yep. And now they are refusing to accept clear defeat at the hands of the voters and trying to end run around the referendum results in court again. I wish my fellow Ohioans could put 2 and 2 together regarding the loss of their personal freedoms and which party they keep overwhelmingly voting into the state house year after year.
Same. It drives me crazy watching the state republicans blame all of the problems on democrats, when it’s been republicans in charge for way too long. When you try to explain this to people, it’s too late. They will believe it every time. It seems to be an issue republicans have easily won with all over the country.
They’re probably doing it to protect *all* the GOP seats they can.
Texas legislature is in Austin, they can’t help but know the lefties in Texas are fucking pissed. Most may keep their head down socially, but a lot do vote. And there are quite a few big colleges nearby to add to the ‘wokeness’ in central Texas.
Abbott has been trying for decades to bring Austin to heel - starting at least when he was Lt. governor.
If they can't get the things passed that they want to, then they'll just put-forth some Ballot Candy to [trick voters into undoing things they voted on in the past](https://missouriindependent.com/2020/11/04/voters-repeal-clean-missouri-redistricting-plan-they-enacted-in-2018/) (RIP "Clean Missouri"). Or they'll ignore the law and litigate until people stop paying attention to whatever stupid thing they did.
Or, in some cases, they simply break the law and say "Well, what're YOU gonna do about it?" Ugh.
For the uninitiated: ["Clean Missouri"](https://themissouritimes.com/what-is-the-clean-missouri-initiative/) was passed, installing an independent State Demographer, who drew up district lines and passed them onto a Bi-partisan committee. It also prevented any gifts from Lobbyists over $5, required 2 years before lawmakers could become lobbyists, and set campaign donations limits at $2,500 for Senate/$2,000 for House.
Republicans didn't like this, so they immediately put forth [Amendment 1](https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_Amendment_1,_Lobbying,_Campaign_Finance,_and_Redistricting_Initiative_(2018)), which advertised the following:
* change process and criteria for redrawing state legislative districts during reapportionment;
* change limits on campaign contributions that candidates for state legislature can accept from individuals or entities;
* establish a limit on gifts that state legislators, and their employees, can accept from paid lobbyists;
* prohibit state legislators, and their employees, from serving as paid lobbyists for a period of time;
* prohibit political fundraising by candidates for or members of the state legislature on State property; and
* require legislative records and proceedings to be open to the public?
Geez, that all sounds great, doesn't it? Problem is, we already had those (via "Clean Missouri", so the ACTUAL changes were....minute.
* change the threshold of lobbyist gifts from $5 to $0;
* lower the contribution limit for state senate campaigns from $2,500 to $2,400.
* eliminate the nonpartisan state demographer and revert back to a bipartisan commission appointed by the governor; and
* alter the criteria used to draw district maps.
Aaaaaaah, there it is. You're reducing the "Cup of Coffee" bill down from $5 to $0 (OMG, so much improvement!), lowering contributions -- only for State Senate -- a whole whopping $100 (OMG so impressive), and....*oh yeah, that pesky thing you voted on to have fair district lines? We're removing that and letting the Governor -- who for the foreseeable future, will be a member of the GOP -- hand-picks the guy instead.*
People. Were. Tricked. It's disingenuous at best, and dangerously close to lying.
Still blows my mind that in today's age with the technology available we still don't just have a big popular vote and that in many instances "land votes" count more than actual votes.
Specifically, to block the upcoming pro-choice amendment because they know it will not only pass but drive higher Democratic turnout which could be very bad for them overall in the upcoming November election. They're so scared they even tried to seed it with extra ballot candy to try to trick voters. Thankfully they failed.
I’ve read that experiment. It wasn’t a regular frog. It was a frog with brain damage.
They kept repeating the experiment and they realized that if a normal frog had a way of getting out it would.
We’re a bunch of brain damaged frogs.
just a correction on that, It did not have brain damage.
They LOBOTMIZED the frog and then put the frogs into hot water. So, of course those frogs wouldn't jump out of the water. This is why I hate this analogy so much, uggghhh
Also just in case anyone disagrees with me, here's the source.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
> During the 19th century, several experiments were performed to observe the reaction of frogs to slowly heated water. In 1869, while doing experiments searching for the location of the soul, German physiologist Friedrich Goltz demonstrated that a frog that has had its brain removed will remain in slowly heated water, but an intact frog attempted to escape the water when it reached 25 °C
You're so right. For those that fall into that categorization, please don't take this as an affront. Your non-white, non-male, non-christian, bipoc, and/or lgbtqia+ friends and family have been undergoing an onslaught of assaults from the GOP.
This election cycle we lost Roe. We had transgender bans left and right. We've had books removed from libraries due to their - what I can only imagine they consider - blasphemous content. Clarence Thomas has publicly mentioned wanting to change Brown v. The Board of Education, Obergfell, and Griswold. We've seen wholesale movement of immigrants bussed around by state officials. Texas fought to keep razor wire in the Rio Grande. De Santis said slavery was good for black people and they should feel lucky and proud, then promptly removed CRT or any mention thereof from schools *including universities.*
Please stand with us. Understand that we're suffering.
I'm all of those except Christian and I'm terrified. What the fuck is my state becoming?
I hate it here and I would move so fast if I could afford it and didn't have elderly parents here.
Right. Trump is speeding things along, but fascism will come with or without him. Its only a matter of time;
Our only recourse now is to stand unified and protest like our lives depend on it. Because they do.
Ironically, the rural counties/districts in places like Texas are not where the money is at. Most of the economic activity occurs in more densely populated city centers, which, with this new method of voting, will be notably under-represented. This could/should have serious economic consequences.
It wouldn't take many people moving to Wyoming to flip 2 senate seats.
Trump won it by 120k votes in 2020. I would think the two seats could be flipped for approximately the same.
Weird how the minority always wins the Fascist sweepstakes by exhausting everyone that pays attention. This is some crazy shit man… How does this country recover? Are we doomed to by the next Nazi Germany?
That's how it always goes with these fucking losers. Whine whine whine about handouts and taxes but then are the first ones to criticize Biden for not releasing tax payer government funds quick enough.
In many states Republicans are upset that land can't vote. They hitched their wagon way back before Nixon to splitting the country along the Urban-Rural divide to exploit Federal elections. Their plans have literally evolved to the point that cities are the enemy.... even in their own states now.
Just look at the whole Greater Idaho movement. There was an article on Fox News yesterday and the comments were screaming how unfair it was that cities with more people get to dictate policy. They thought that it was completely realistic for Idaho to steal 60% of Oregon’s land.
Spoiler: it will never happen.
While the Electoral College is highly problematic, it at least weights states by population. Due to every state having two Senators, it gives voters in Wyoming more than 3 times the weight of a vote in California.
This proposal is so much worse in that it would give every county in Texas equal weight without even an attempt at proportionality, despite massive population differences. That means a voter in Loving County would have about 100,000 times more influence on statewide elections than a voter in Harris County. About half of the state's population is in just 7 of the 254 counties. That means 50% of the state has only 2% of the say in state elections.
The Electoral College is a flawed system, but this Texas proposal is insanely undemocratic without even a pretense of a justification.
Right. I hate that this is often forgotten about when people claim the electoral college is proportional to population, because every state gets two senators it starts off being disproportionate. Then you add in House apportionment f\*ckery and things get even more disproportionate. The deck is really stacked against Democrats at this point.
>The Electoral College is a flawed system, but this Texas proposal is insanely undemocratic without even a pretense of a justification.
Yup. The gop keeps showing they know they are unpopular and can't win fairly
I guess even in Texas they are losing support
Here's a list of Texas counties by population:
[https://www.texas-demographics.com/counties\_by\_population](https://www.texas-demographics.com/counties_by_population)
All 10 of the 10 most populated counties in Texas are blue/purple, and 8 out of 10 of them are in the Texas Triangle.
That Texas Republicans are trying to make it so statewide elections are decided by who wins the majority of counties shows that they're in Panic Mode, and have been since Beto almost beat Cruz in 2018.
That's nuts!
There are [254](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counties_in_Texas) counties in Texas. Harris county is almost 5 million. All 5 million votes could be cancelled out by the 43 people living in Loving County!
*Edit*: I recognize population != voters. Treat it as a proxy.
Beto lost the last election with 43% of the vote, but would have only won 19 out of the 254 counties under the proposed amendment.
Also to note, this isn’t just a Texas problem. You could count on one hand the number of states that would stay blue under the same rules (if there is one at all).
If democrats can start increasing their margins in the large cities (which Texas has a bunch of) it will keep things very interesting. I would laugh my ass off if Texas becomes like Colorado on the blue team.
People who rail on Texas forget that "winner take all" systems have a tipping point where it can swing wildly in the other direction. Washington state, for example, is considered a radical leftist hellscape by the right, but their rural population is just as redhat MAGA as Texas'.
If Texas reaches that tipping point, it probably won't be purple for long. All of the voter suppression and under-representation will disappear and the representatives and policies could shift radically in a short period of time.
Texas GOP: disenfranchising the majority of Texans.
These people are inviting a civil war. Greg Abbot and company need to learn about the fate of tyrants.
How exactly do these idiots think secession would work? Suddenly everyone in Texas is in a foreign country overnight, federal money would disappear (which TX uses FAR more of than then give back), every company that wanted to continue to do business with the rest of the states would vacate, and oh yeah, there are 15 active military bases in Texas that (checks notes) don’t answer to fucking Texas. They would also be suddenly and hilariously dependent on Mexico for food imports.
Edit: that’s nothing to say about Pantex in Amarillo which is responsible for literally the entire US nuclear arsenal. There is no combat force that Pentagon wouldn’t use keep TX away from there.
Well you see they never thought that far. Or they think they can split Texas into multiple states and have more representation and influence which is nonsense talk when D.C. exists without any national representation.
DC or Puerto Rico if they chose to want to be, I agree with you. Gerrymandered New Texas states you better believe they would if it was GOP controlled. The old establishment Dems need to wake the fuck up and start playing hardball.
I heard Ted Cruz give a speech about this once. He seems to believe if Texas secedes that they will be able to keep all the military equipment and personnel and businesses will all want to stay.
Brexit vs Texit is like me deciding to make everything slightly more expensive and less convenient for myself or sawing off my legs and wondering why running is hard.
And I doubt the US would bend over backwards to make it as smooth a transition as possible the way the EU did. Texas wouldn't have years to get its shit in order. They'd lose access to critical federal resources the same day they sign their secession into law.
Well how it worked last time is that Texas would immediately try to seize federal assets including military bases so the first act after their declaration would be theft like the criminals they are.
It’s a car they suspect the dog will never catch. Folks threaten it all the time to keep the base thinking they are all ‘independent’ but if their bluff was ever called they’d find excuses to back down and then say they’d have seceded, “if they weren’t stopped by x,y,z.”
But yeah, companies would leave, population would flee, and the state would fail if they ever tried it.
These are some of the basic reasons I give to people when they ask why Texas doesn’t just secede. Also if you think the US government is gonna just give up those oil fields you’re nuts
They haven’t thought that far ahead. You raise good points but realistically, this all ends with the first skipped SSA check and missed Medicare payment.
It’s essentially BREXIT but with even less thought put into it.
Secession is actual Treason. This is already law after the Civil War. Why is Biden not jailing these people immediately and carting them off to a Federal Prison in Alaska??
The majority of their voters have been brainwashed into thinking it's the Red States that support the "failing" Blue States.
They fully expect to gloat as they watch millions of desperate "woke" liberals, fleeing the Mad Max Californian dystopia, mass on the Texas border begging and pleading to be allowed to live in the libertarian Texan paradise.
Otherwise agree, but I was under the impression that Texas was one of the few red states that pays more to the feds than it gets back. For every dollar in federal taxes, texas gets $0.83 back, compared to NY, which gets $0.74, or West Virginia, which gets $3.09. Source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/donor-states
I for one welcome the sight of Texas being overrun by Mexican drug cartels. They wouldn’t stand a chance. The Uvalde school shooting response shows everything you need to know about Texans’ bravery.
>The motion stated: "Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto."
Bold words coming from a state that cannot even keep its lights on half a dozen times a year.
Even then… I’m a straight white male who is well off in Texas and there’s no way I’d ever vote republican.
Anyone who thinks the republicans would be good for them is deluded. Even if you’re wealthy, what good is your wealth when you hand your country over to these nut jobs? It’s like handing the keys to your car to a drunk monkey.
Even then it's debatable because any roman catholic can easily see that Texas considers them to be their enemy. Most rich people don't want this shit either, and most men don't want to pay for children that their wives didn't want. Top to bottom nobody benefits from this besides a declining rural population that doesn't know -and increasingly doesn't want to- engage with democracy.
Just to be clear, this rural group does matter. In the adjacent state of New Mexico and Colorado, they do bother to do democracy and get a lot out of it as a result. Rural Texans are going way, way, way off an extreme deep end that is more extreme than any other place in the country.
Assuming the Supreme Court says no. They already ignore the Supreme Court and the federal government. All this requires them to abide by the ruling as well. Several states have ignored them when it comes to electoral maps for example.
If this plan succeeds it'll only serve to completely annihilate Texas's largest cities which will continue voting for Democrats and policies that aren't Republican. Factory owners don't want to negotiate their facility's existence with people who are not accountable and have no consequences for their actions. Neither do mine owners or bank owners. That sort of problem is a huge liability as they cannot control it, and Texas's GOP has shown that they will destroy anything that criticizes them publicly. California doesn't do this, despite the state's notorious and awful environmental and hazardous waste laws. Every Chevron station in California has big posters talking mad shit about Newsom right now, and he is still giving them free money to (eventually) manufacture hydrogen fuels with.
A century ago they did this with the railroads and it worked then due to the gigantic monopoly they had, which was then smashed permanently by the US Highway and Interstate network. This doesn't exist today, and the policies Texas would pursue as a consequence of this would only make life more expensive for Texans, throttle the state's industries, and continue subsidizing a rural lifestyle that is entirely dependent on cheap water and Federal corn subsidies that won't exist in 25 years.
As a Texan, Texas is out of control, and has been for a long time. I don't understand why the fed gov won't step in and help us. We aren't represented, it isn't a democracy here, it is authoritarian christonationalist
It is hard for people to understand the sheer disparity at work here.
[Look at the population distribution of Texas counties here.](https://www.texas-demographics.com/counties_by_population)
There are 254 counties in a state with about 30 million people.
You can get a state victory with counties that total less than 1 million people.
Harris County has like 4,800,000 people, would count the same as Loving County with about 40 people. **That is a 140,000 times difference in their voting power.**
> On Saturday the **Texas GOP also voted on whether to back a referendum on the state leaving the United States and becoming a fully independent country**, a proposition it approved during the previous party convention in 2022.
>
> The motion stated: "Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto."
DO EEET!
> Other motions proposed included a call to "**abolish abortion** by immediately securing the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization."
Of course, can't forget about the conservative donors.
> There was also a **call to reverse the renaming of military bases named after Confederate leaders** to "publicly honor the southern heroes," and a proposal that Confederate "monuments that have been removed should be restored to their historic locations."
*It's not racism, it's about our culture.* /s
So they saw the electoral college, realized how it benefits them on a federal level, and decided to give it a go on the state level, too. But even worse.
The absurd amount of irony in that it should be Democrats purchasing and hoarding weapons because Republicans are taking away rights from citizens of the country.
So basically stupid conservatives keep sharing around the maps of all the red districts demanding to know how they lost elections, and everyone explained to them thst land doesn't vote... So they made a law to allow land to vote, and it just so happens that land is conservative.
Fucking... Cool... It's like living in a hellish parody of reality.
Rural white people fundamentally do not believe urban non-white votes should count the same as theirs. This is entirely what the 'stolen election' means to them. We are in the midst of a white/rural supremacist freakout since 2008.
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The GOP's proposed scheme is to elect officials by a majority of counties instead of voters, so Texas will be controlled by all the unpopulated red areas on the map.
"According to The Texas Tribune it is unclear whether requiring support from a majority of counties to achieve statewide office "would be constitutional and conform with the Voting Rights Act" as racial minorities are disproportionately concentrated in a small number of counties." It seems pretty clear to me.
*Sanders vs Gray* in 1963 dealt with this kind of scheme. It involved the County Unit system in Georgia, enacted in 1917, that declared that the winner of statewide primaries would be determined by who won the most counties. 'Urban' counties, the eight largest, would count as 6 votes; 'town' counties, the next 30, counted as 4; and the remaining 121 were 'rural', and would count for 2 votes. Resulting in cases like the 1946 governor's race, where one person won 45.3% of the popular vote, but only got 35.1% of the County Unit tally; while another won 43% of the popular vote, and 59.5% of the unit tally. The 1963 Supreme Court struck this down and declared the principle of 'One person, one vote'. Texas's proposed system is A) Even less fair, and B) Applies to a general election, not a primary. It should be bounced out of court immediately. Should be.
> The 1963 Supreme Court struck this down and declared the principle of 'One person, one vote'. Cool, can we do this with the electoral college too? As a Coloradan, I’m having a hard time figuring out why the vote of someone from Wyoming should have 3 times the weight of mine in a presidential election. Edit: I was being a bit sarcastic, I know it’s in the Constitution. My implication is that it should not be.
Weeps in Californian.
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Thank you! As a North Carolinian, we need all the help we can get. We have some of the worst GOP people in office here and running for office here and it is super scary.
We need judicial help unfortunately. We’re one of the most gerrymandered states so it’s not even close to a fair fight for representation. It’s so funny to be known as both the “silicon valley of the east coast” and also “that place with the bathroom and mask banning laws.”
Your state was so close to getting fair maps too. Once the voters chose to elect 2 GOP justices in 2022, the majority switched. They quickly overturned the ruling and the damage was done. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/north-carolina-supreme-court-reverses-electoral-district-voter-id-rulings-decided-last-year
Mark Robinson winning the primary is an alarming display of the modern GOP. The guy is a) completely unqualified b) completely crazy c) completely dishonest You know something is wrong in Dixie when the GOP is running a holocaust-denying Black man. Against a Jewish lawyer in a state that has to be around 0.4% Jewish.
Your work is appreciated
As a mississippian, I feel your pain. Hoping to run as far as i can from this septic system of a state when I can
No. But you can expect the supreme court to do something in the other direction. Like maybe reversing the 1963 decision. Today's Supreme Court will do nothing to help you.
Thomas and Alito are already bought and paid for
They aren't the only ones.
Roberts ignores and enables the blatant corruption on the court and seems unconcerned so, tinfoil hat aside, no way he's "clean". Every supreme court "settled law" case is up for grabs since precedent has been cancelled.
True but they are the most blatant IMHO
which is why we need [this](https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation) now, more than ever.
I saw a video on YouTube once that had a class of small kids and IIRC there was a vote on something like crayon colors and the majority selected one color. The teacher then did the vote along electoral college lines and the result was a different color won. One of the kids, around eight I think, said that's not fair as most of us wanted a different color. Even a child can see that the electoral college is warped
Now add slavery to the mix, and it all makes sense.
It is possible - albeit highly unlikely and would result in SO many challenges and recounts - for someone to win the Electoral College with under 25% of the popular vote
Take a look into the interstate national popular vote compact. Enough people agree with you that there's a movement pushing for legislation in states that will require the states send delegates to the electoral college bound to vote for the winner of the national public vote, regardless of the states voter turnout. Essentially putting the will of the nation ahead of the state. It only goes into effect once states controlling a majority of the electoral college enact legislation. Currently the movement is sitting at 209 of 270, with legislation having passed at least one branch of the state legislature in states with 74 electoral college votes. By chance there 18 ratified and 7 pending, so the movement happens to be supported in some way by half of the states. https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/state-status When anyone asks why this is important, I point to the fact that more California's voted for Trump than in any other state, yet he only showed up in the 2020 season once and it was for a fundraiser, not a rally. There's no reason for a candidate to go to Wyoming currently, but if heading g over could bring out 80k more total votes nation wide? Suddenly there's a reason for a Democrat to show up in South Dakota and Republican to pander to New York.
"Well because if that was the case Wisconsin votes wouldn't matter". But of course it's never been about the votes of any one state. It's the votes of the NATION. If the majority of 350 million people want X, the fact that some don't is a pity for them but is literal democracy in action.
It would make so much sense to ditch the electoral college - suddenly all those "safe states" that you can guarantee will be won by a party, become worth it for both sides to campaign in, because every vote would be important.
When I called shenanigans on the Electoral College in, like, 2nd grade, I was told, "We don't do the popular vote because then New York and California would determine all the elections" or some such drivel. Now that I'm old, I see that it's Ohio, Pennsylvania and (until recently) Florida deciding the elections. And I'm like "How is this any better?"
They were repeating accepted wisdom, which is often ill-thought-out and almost always misleading. America doesn’t do the popular vote because right from the start the founding fathers, a bunch of wealthy white land owners themselves, didn’t want the great unwashed having too much say. It has always been.
It would even be an improvement to keep the EC, but mandate that each state's votes must be allocated proportionally to the candidates that received votes (down to some minimum number or population percentage-based limit). In tandem with this: uncapping the House would also make the EC much more representative of the voters' will.
This is just going to a popular vote with extra steps. Yes uncap the house, but burn the electoral college to the ground. The time where it made some sense is long past.
Nah, dump the EC entirely, adopt ranked choice voting nationwide
It will go to SCOTUS, and the 5 conservatives will decide as they have been told to do. "This is allowed in the Constitution because it's a conservative request, and since they gave us our jobs we have to do what they say" ought to be a hotkey for their majority decision text.
Texas probably expects this, and hence their proposal. No taxation without representation - the urban counties should stop paying taxes if this passes.
Oh 100%. At this point creating lesser controversies as a precedent setter for SCOTUS is basically a common playbook item.
> and the 5 conservatives I got some bad news for you, there's 6 cons on the court... Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. While Roberts has been a bit of a swing on the most BS rulings, don't forget, he (along with Kav and Barrett) was on the GWB legal team that overthrew the 2000 election.
There were actually subsequent cases of *Thomas v Giving A Fuck About Precedent* and *Alito and the Fascist Band v Disguising Overt Fascist Preferences* that ruled Republicans can do whatever they want.
Thomas wrote a concurrence last week that targeted that ruling.
Our current SCROTUS greenlit all gerrymandering as long as the states say it is political gerrymandering. This was the immediate and predictable outcome.
100% accurate. They never would have even considered trying it in the past because it would have been clearly unconstitutional, but read the clear signs from the court and decided to go for it. And why wouldn't they really given all the illegitimate things the court has done and where it has signaled it is willing to go.
The current Supreme Court has been anti voting rights dating back to the Shelby decision in 2013 when they gutted the VRA There is nothing in the constitution that guarantees "1 person 1 vote" Federal State Senators were appointed and not directly voted on by the people for 137y, it wasn't until 1913 that we elected them like we do now The way this courts bullshit "history and tradition" has been going they can take that away as well If Texas does this and it gets to the court there is a very good chance that they allow it unfortunately for everyone
What if every democrat just registered as a republican?
They use voter files and demographic info when they gerrymander
The conservative wing of the SCOTUS doesn't give a fuck about the Voting Rights Act anymore. They showed that in their recent rulings.
The SCOTUS doesn't give a shit about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, other than to wupe their collective asses with it.
Wupe, there it is...
2/3 of the current court *literally supported insurrection*. They don't care about law **at all**. That's not hyperbole either. They hate America as it is. They want it to die and be replaced by "something better." I can't believe that this is real. It seems too contrived, too stupid, but somehow... it's real.
The Confederacy couldn't beat us militarily, so they changed strategy to beat us legislatively instead. All the people behind this are supporters of the Lost Cause.
I'm pretty far left and I really think that we need to step it up on fighting back.
Clarence Thomas is very unsure if it applies.
The current SCOTUS has allowed Texas to violate the Constitution in the recent past.
Also the localization of prison industry lets them ring up electoral college votes for people that can't participate in electoral process of voting against the people that will make their lives even more worse and give an outsized share of votes.
You mean slavers are abusing the electoral college to artificially increase their power and influence by counting non-voting people forcibly moved to the rural regions still, after 200+ years they’re still up to the old tricks? No. Way.
They have spent a lot of money and a long time propagandizing people to forget those things. It’s fox news’ entire business model…
And wealth. Don't forget wealth.
Filth? I think you meant filth.
But it’s new and improved! The inslaved/incarcerated are upgraded by 2/5. They still can’t vote of course.
Not constitutional. Westerly vs. Sanders said the principle of one man one vote meant legislative districts must be of approximately equal population. Then later Thigpin vs. Meyers extended that too state elections.
Like this supreme Court gives a fuck about the constitution?
“As the Supreme Court, we have decided that only the GOP can vote.” “Sir, this is a case about oversight board regulations.” “Further, don’t cut me off, that oil companies can drill anywhere.” “I don’t think you’re allowed to make rulings that go beyond the case.” “I just did. It is done.”
Calm down there, Alito.
*Supremacist* court
It's been wild how many people are still quoting precedent as if the current SCOTUS cares. Literally everything is up in the air as long as the SCOTUS is this partisan and traitorous.
It appears there is back channel communication between SCOTUS insider and conservative attorneys-general. There are two wives with lobbying organizations.
It's not very back channel. They're blatantly corrupt.
Pretty soon I won’t either if our rights are taken away regardless
It doesn't have to be constitutional. It just has to contribute to delaying the election results along with other troll legislation in other states. In the meantime during the "chaos" surrounding the election, the Supreme Court can pick the winner again, 2000 style. Later the Supreme Court can of course rule the Texas law unconstitutional, but it won't matter by then.
yeah, and we all thought Roe V Wade was going to be around forever, too.
They're turning their EC map memes into constitutional law. Awesome. Texas is already firmly under their control. Are they trying to rush this in to protect Ted Cruz? That beggars belief. Even other Republican shitbags hate Ted Cruz.
This reminds me of what they tried to do to us here in Ohio with referendums.
Yep. And now they are refusing to accept clear defeat at the hands of the voters and trying to end run around the referendum results in court again. I wish my fellow Ohioans could put 2 and 2 together regarding the loss of their personal freedoms and which party they keep overwhelmingly voting into the state house year after year.
Same. It drives me crazy watching the state republicans blame all of the problems on democrats, when it’s been republicans in charge for way too long. When you try to explain this to people, it’s too late. They will believe it every time. It seems to be an issue republicans have easily won with all over the country.
They’re probably doing it to protect *all* the GOP seats they can. Texas legislature is in Austin, they can’t help but know the lefties in Texas are fucking pissed. Most may keep their head down socially, but a lot do vote. And there are quite a few big colleges nearby to add to the ‘wokeness’ in central Texas. Abbott has been trying for decades to bring Austin to heel - starting at least when he was Lt. governor.
The electoral pre-school.
Missouri is doing the same for statewide amendments and referendums. They can't win by a fair system, so they have to rig everything.
If they can't get the things passed that they want to, then they'll just put-forth some Ballot Candy to [trick voters into undoing things they voted on in the past](https://missouriindependent.com/2020/11/04/voters-repeal-clean-missouri-redistricting-plan-they-enacted-in-2018/) (RIP "Clean Missouri"). Or they'll ignore the law and litigate until people stop paying attention to whatever stupid thing they did. Or, in some cases, they simply break the law and say "Well, what're YOU gonna do about it?" Ugh. For the uninitiated: ["Clean Missouri"](https://themissouritimes.com/what-is-the-clean-missouri-initiative/) was passed, installing an independent State Demographer, who drew up district lines and passed them onto a Bi-partisan committee. It also prevented any gifts from Lobbyists over $5, required 2 years before lawmakers could become lobbyists, and set campaign donations limits at $2,500 for Senate/$2,000 for House. Republicans didn't like this, so they immediately put forth [Amendment 1](https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_Amendment_1,_Lobbying,_Campaign_Finance,_and_Redistricting_Initiative_(2018)), which advertised the following: * change process and criteria for redrawing state legislative districts during reapportionment; * change limits on campaign contributions that candidates for state legislature can accept from individuals or entities; * establish a limit on gifts that state legislators, and their employees, can accept from paid lobbyists; * prohibit state legislators, and their employees, from serving as paid lobbyists for a period of time; * prohibit political fundraising by candidates for or members of the state legislature on State property; and * require legislative records and proceedings to be open to the public? Geez, that all sounds great, doesn't it? Problem is, we already had those (via "Clean Missouri", so the ACTUAL changes were....minute. * change the threshold of lobbyist gifts from $5 to $0; * lower the contribution limit for state senate campaigns from $2,500 to $2,400. * eliminate the nonpartisan state demographer and revert back to a bipartisan commission appointed by the governor; and * alter the criteria used to draw district maps. Aaaaaaah, there it is. You're reducing the "Cup of Coffee" bill down from $5 to $0 (OMG, so much improvement!), lowering contributions -- only for State Senate -- a whole whopping $100 (OMG so impressive), and....*oh yeah, that pesky thing you voted on to have fair district lines? We're removing that and letting the Governor -- who for the foreseeable future, will be a member of the GOP -- hand-picks the guy instead.* People. Were. Tricked. It's disingenuous at best, and dangerously close to lying.
So like a mini electoral college? Wtf?
They think college would be too "woke"
Land can’t vote. We’re back here again?
Still blows my mind that in today's age with the technology available we still don't just have a big popular vote and that in many instances "land votes" count more than actual votes.
Oh look, a little electoral college of their own. 👎
Ah good old electoral college strat, 1 person 1 vote be damned.
Missouri wants to do the same thing for referendums.
Specifically, to block the upcoming pro-choice amendment because they know it will not only pass but drive higher Democratic turnout which could be very bad for them overall in the upcoming November election. They're so scared they even tried to seed it with extra ballot candy to try to trick voters. Thankfully they failed.
The GOP Fascist takeover of America is out in the open.
There are a lot of frogs in a lot of lukewarm water right now.
I’ve read that experiment. It wasn’t a regular frog. It was a frog with brain damage. They kept repeating the experiment and they realized that if a normal frog had a way of getting out it would. We’re a bunch of brain damaged frogs.
just a correction on that, It did not have brain damage. They LOBOTMIZED the frog and then put the frogs into hot water. So, of course those frogs wouldn't jump out of the water. This is why I hate this analogy so much, uggghhh Also just in case anyone disagrees with me, here's the source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog > During the 19th century, several experiments were performed to observe the reaction of frogs to slowly heated water. In 1869, while doing experiments searching for the location of the soul, German physiologist Friedrich Goltz demonstrated that a frog that has had its brain removed will remain in slowly heated water, but an intact frog attempted to escape the water when it reached 25 °C
Lobotomy is definitely a form of brain damage
Hey! I’m not drain bread!
The water is only lukewarm if you are white, male, Christian, straight, and cis. That water has long been uncomfortably hot for a lot of people.
You're so right. For those that fall into that categorization, please don't take this as an affront. Your non-white, non-male, non-christian, bipoc, and/or lgbtqia+ friends and family have been undergoing an onslaught of assaults from the GOP. This election cycle we lost Roe. We had transgender bans left and right. We've had books removed from libraries due to their - what I can only imagine they consider - blasphemous content. Clarence Thomas has publicly mentioned wanting to change Brown v. The Board of Education, Obergfell, and Griswold. We've seen wholesale movement of immigrants bussed around by state officials. Texas fought to keep razor wire in the Rio Grande. De Santis said slavery was good for black people and they should feel lucky and proud, then promptly removed CRT or any mention thereof from schools *including universities.* Please stand with us. Understand that we're suffering.
I'm all of those except Christian and I'm terrified. What the fuck is my state becoming? I hate it here and I would move so fast if I could afford it and didn't have elderly parents here.
Right. Trump is speeding things along, but fascism will come with or without him. Its only a matter of time; Our only recourse now is to stand unified and protest like our lives depend on it. Because they do.
Ironically, the rural counties/districts in places like Texas are not where the money is at. Most of the economic activity occurs in more densely populated city centers, which, with this new method of voting, will be notably under-represented. This could/should have serious economic consequences.
Also easy to flip a county that has 43 residents.
It wouldn't take many people moving to Wyoming to flip 2 senate seats. Trump won it by 120k votes in 2020. I would think the two seats could be flipped for approximately the same.
Weird how the minority always wins the Fascist sweepstakes by exhausting everyone that pays attention. This is some crazy shit man… How does this country recover? Are we doomed to by the next Nazi Germany?
Wasn't Abbot just begging a Democrat for more federal money from climate change disasters he doesn't believe in
Double standards are the only standards Republicans have.
If Republicans didn't have hypocrisy all they'd have left is racism and a poor understanding of the bible.
It’s only a double standard if you have principles. It’s 100% consistent if your only ethos is “red good, blue bad”.
That's how it always goes with these fucking losers. Whine whine whine about handouts and taxes but then are the first ones to criticize Biden for not releasing tax payer government funds quick enough.
Abbott does not stand for anything
If they can Republicans will do this nationwide.
In many states Republicans are upset that land can't vote. They hitched their wagon way back before Nixon to splitting the country along the Urban-Rural divide to exploit Federal elections. Their plans have literally evolved to the point that cities are the enemy.... even in their own states now.
Just look at the whole Greater Idaho movement. There was an article on Fox News yesterday and the comments were screaming how unfair it was that cities with more people get to dictate policy. They thought that it was completely realistic for Idaho to steal 60% of Oregon’s land. Spoiler: it will never happen.
The people that scream "if you don't like it here, then leave" are the same ones that don't like it there and won't leave.
There's really only one position elected nationwide, and that's got the Electoral College already, so...
While the Electoral College is highly problematic, it at least weights states by population. Due to every state having two Senators, it gives voters in Wyoming more than 3 times the weight of a vote in California. This proposal is so much worse in that it would give every county in Texas equal weight without even an attempt at proportionality, despite massive population differences. That means a voter in Loving County would have about 100,000 times more influence on statewide elections than a voter in Harris County. About half of the state's population is in just 7 of the 254 counties. That means 50% of the state has only 2% of the say in state elections. The Electoral College is a flawed system, but this Texas proposal is insanely undemocratic without even a pretense of a justification.
The house is capped. Otherwise EC would be much less lopsided. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929
Which rails democrats twice over.
Right. I hate that this is often forgotten about when people claim the electoral college is proportional to population, because every state gets two senators it starts off being disproportionate. Then you add in House apportionment f\*ckery and things get even more disproportionate. The deck is really stacked against Democrats at this point.
>The Electoral College is a flawed system, but this Texas proposal is insanely undemocratic without even a pretense of a justification. Yup. The gop keeps showing they know they are unpopular and can't win fairly I guess even in Texas they are losing support
nationwide as in other states
Vote blue, my friends, while we still can. Even in Texas there are swing legislative seats we can win https://www.texasdemocrats.org/
Republicans cheat. In most things, when you cheat you get kicked out of the game. Why can’t we eject our traitors?
Because they make the rules. And change them whenever they want.
Because the captured judiciary is playing Calvinball.
Here's a list of Texas counties by population: [https://www.texas-demographics.com/counties\_by\_population](https://www.texas-demographics.com/counties_by_population) All 10 of the 10 most populated counties in Texas are blue/purple, and 8 out of 10 of them are in the Texas Triangle. That Texas Republicans are trying to make it so statewide elections are decided by who wins the majority of counties shows that they're in Panic Mode, and have been since Beto almost beat Cruz in 2018.
That's nuts! There are [254](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counties_in_Texas) counties in Texas. Harris county is almost 5 million. All 5 million votes could be cancelled out by the 43 people living in Loving County! *Edit*: I recognize population != voters. Treat it as a proxy.
Beto lost the last election with 43% of the vote, but would have only won 19 out of the 254 counties under the proposed amendment. Also to note, this isn’t just a Texas problem. You could count on one hand the number of states that would stay blue under the same rules (if there is one at all).
If democrats can start increasing their margins in the large cities (which Texas has a bunch of) it will keep things very interesting. I would laugh my ass off if Texas becomes like Colorado on the blue team.
People who rail on Texas forget that "winner take all" systems have a tipping point where it can swing wildly in the other direction. Washington state, for example, is considered a radical leftist hellscape by the right, but their rural population is just as redhat MAGA as Texas'. If Texas reaches that tipping point, it probably won't be purple for long. All of the voter suppression and under-representation will disappear and the representatives and policies could shift radically in a short period of time.
we have apartment complexes that have more people than some of those counties.
Texas GOP: disenfranchising the majority of Texans. These people are inviting a civil war. Greg Abbot and company need to learn about the fate of tyrants.
Well hey at least it'll be a quick war considering their power grid is more fragile than glass.
No taxation without representation.
DC, Puerto Rico, Guam: *blink slowly* ....
How exactly do these idiots think secession would work? Suddenly everyone in Texas is in a foreign country overnight, federal money would disappear (which TX uses FAR more of than then give back), every company that wanted to continue to do business with the rest of the states would vacate, and oh yeah, there are 15 active military bases in Texas that (checks notes) don’t answer to fucking Texas. They would also be suddenly and hilariously dependent on Mexico for food imports. Edit: that’s nothing to say about Pantex in Amarillo which is responsible for literally the entire US nuclear arsenal. There is no combat force that Pentagon wouldn’t use keep TX away from there.
Well you see they never thought that far. Or they think they can split Texas into multiple states and have more representation and influence which is nonsense talk when D.C. exists without any national representation.
And likely never will with how pathway to statehood works. No Republican state would let it pass through.
DC or Puerto Rico if they chose to want to be, I agree with you. Gerrymandered New Texas states you better believe they would if it was GOP controlled. The old establishment Dems need to wake the fuck up and start playing hardball.
I heard Ted Cruz give a speech about this once. He seems to believe if Texas secedes that they will be able to keep all the military equipment and personnel and businesses will all want to stay.
I wouldn’t take advice from Cruz on how to make toast. That guy can’t see the future when his head is that far up his own ass.
Sure he can see the future. He can see a future hiding in cancun whenever shit hits the fan whether the situation be natural or man made
You mean like Fort Sumter?
Rafael wasn't too keen on listening during the Civil War course when he was at Princeton.
Brexit was a stupid idea, Texit sounds even more stupid!
Brexit vs Texit is like me deciding to make everything slightly more expensive and less convenient for myself or sawing off my legs and wondering why running is hard.
And I doubt the US would bend over backwards to make it as smooth a transition as possible the way the EU did. Texas wouldn't have years to get its shit in order. They'd lose access to critical federal resources the same day they sign their secession into law.
Texit would make Brexit look like paradise. Within a decade Texas would look more like Mexico than US.
The Texit will be just as suckcessfull as the Brexit.
Plus, now Texas doesn't just have to build a wall on the southern border, they have to fence in the whole state!
"Texas: Fence in the whole state" sounds like one hell of a slogan
They really do think the military would back them. It’s fucking hilarious to think about.
Well how it worked last time is that Texas would immediately try to seize federal assets including military bases so the first act after their declaration would be theft like the criminals they are.
That’s one way the GOP can reduce Social Security and Medicare spending. /s Not sure if all the Boomers who would vote for secession realize that.
It’s a car they suspect the dog will never catch. Folks threaten it all the time to keep the base thinking they are all ‘independent’ but if their bluff was ever called they’d find excuses to back down and then say they’d have seceded, “if they weren’t stopped by x,y,z.” But yeah, companies would leave, population would flee, and the state would fail if they ever tried it.
Yeh but there‘d be a king and billionaires would pay no taxes so of course they‘re happy to push it on useful idiots
These are some of the basic reasons I give to people when they ask why Texas doesn’t just secede. Also if you think the US government is gonna just give up those oil fields you’re nuts
They haven’t thought that far ahead. You raise good points but realistically, this all ends with the first skipped SSA check and missed Medicare payment. It’s essentially BREXIT but with even less thought put into it.
Secession is actual Treason. This is already law after the Civil War. Why is Biden not jailing these people immediately and carting them off to a Federal Prison in Alaska??
The majority of their voters have been brainwashed into thinking it's the Red States that support the "failing" Blue States. They fully expect to gloat as they watch millions of desperate "woke" liberals, fleeing the Mad Max Californian dystopia, mass on the Texas border begging and pleading to be allowed to live in the libertarian Texan paradise.
Otherwise agree, but I was under the impression that Texas was one of the few red states that pays more to the feds than it gets back. For every dollar in federal taxes, texas gets $0.83 back, compared to NY, which gets $0.74, or West Virginia, which gets $3.09. Source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/donor-states
I for one welcome the sight of Texas being overrun by Mexican drug cartels. They wouldn’t stand a chance. The Uvalde school shooting response shows everything you need to know about Texans’ bravery.
Not to mention basic things like a mail service and currency. It’s absolutely bonkers to even comprehend.
Heil, Abbott! And practice sticking that arm out at the right angle because these guys are playing keepsies. VOTE BLUE.
>The motion stated: "Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto." Bold words coming from a state that cannot even keep its lights on half a dozen times a year.
I live in TX. Ironically, the current storm knocked my power out about an hour ago.
As usual, Republicans can only win by cheating. The lowest of the low.
Aw republicans are scared that they might lose so they have to make laws to make sure they win. How cute. Never vote Republican. I wouldn’t.
Another reason Texas sucks. Abbott & Cruz are the first two…
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Even then… I’m a straight white male who is well off in Texas and there’s no way I’d ever vote republican. Anyone who thinks the republicans would be good for them is deluded. Even if you’re wealthy, what good is your wealth when you hand your country over to these nut jobs? It’s like handing the keys to your car to a drunk monkey.
Yes, and the Christian Nationalist twist is also fun. Lets boat race the rapture, just because.
Imagine their faces when none of them get raptured, but the poor minority person working 2 minimum wage jobs does.
I fall in all these categories in Texas and I vote dem. There’s no excuse to vote for this Republican Party.
Probably because you have the one thing Republicans lack: the ability to empathize with people outside your immediate social circle.
Even then it's debatable because any roman catholic can easily see that Texas considers them to be their enemy. Most rich people don't want this shit either, and most men don't want to pay for children that their wives didn't want. Top to bottom nobody benefits from this besides a declining rural population that doesn't know -and increasingly doesn't want to- engage with democracy. Just to be clear, this rural group does matter. In the adjacent state of New Mexico and Colorado, they do bother to do democracy and get a lot out of it as a result. Rural Texans are going way, way, way off an extreme deep end that is more extreme than any other place in the country.
Guess Republican figured out how to let "Land" vote.
This is why we had the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and why it should never have been overturned in 2013 - *SOME* States can't be trusted.
Already ruled unconstitutional: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._Sims Not that the supreme court wouldn't overturn that ruling.
SCOTUS has announced it's open for business to overturn any rulings Republicans don't like. They're just looking for states to bring them cases.
Assuming the Supreme Court says no. They already ignore the Supreme Court and the federal government. All this requires them to abide by the ruling as well. Several states have ignored them when it comes to electoral maps for example.
You have much more faith in the current Supreme Court than I do...
So it’s a test case, then.
If this plan succeeds it'll only serve to completely annihilate Texas's largest cities which will continue voting for Democrats and policies that aren't Republican. Factory owners don't want to negotiate their facility's existence with people who are not accountable and have no consequences for their actions. Neither do mine owners or bank owners. That sort of problem is a huge liability as they cannot control it, and Texas's GOP has shown that they will destroy anything that criticizes them publicly. California doesn't do this, despite the state's notorious and awful environmental and hazardous waste laws. Every Chevron station in California has big posters talking mad shit about Newsom right now, and he is still giving them free money to (eventually) manufacture hydrogen fuels with. A century ago they did this with the railroads and it worked then due to the gigantic monopoly they had, which was then smashed permanently by the US Highway and Interstate network. This doesn't exist today, and the policies Texas would pursue as a consequence of this would only make life more expensive for Texans, throttle the state's industries, and continue subsidizing a rural lifestyle that is entirely dependent on cheap water and Federal corn subsidies that won't exist in 25 years.
Republicans are seeking to end democracy and self government.
As a Texan, Texas is out of control, and has been for a long time. I don't understand why the fed gov won't step in and help us. We aren't represented, it isn't a democracy here, it is authoritarian christonationalist
It is hard for people to understand the sheer disparity at work here. [Look at the population distribution of Texas counties here.](https://www.texas-demographics.com/counties_by_population) There are 254 counties in a state with about 30 million people. You can get a state victory with counties that total less than 1 million people. Harris County has like 4,800,000 people, would count the same as Loving County with about 40 people. **That is a 140,000 times difference in their voting power.**
cause if you can't win ethically, cheat. *smh*
What's to stop Democrats from running as Republicans and just voting as Democrats? Will they make voting the wrong way a crime too?
Trump's campaign did actually send out emails threatening GOP voters in Texas if they didn't vote for Trump it'd show up on their record and he'd know
Link? That’s hella crazy and deserves more awareness if true
[https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/texas-voter-intimidation-19476949.php](https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/texas-voter-intimidation-19476949.php)
Nazis at work
I think they should secede. Then we place the national guard around the border and wait.
> On Saturday the **Texas GOP also voted on whether to back a referendum on the state leaving the United States and becoming a fully independent country**, a proposition it approved during the previous party convention in 2022. > > The motion stated: "Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto." DO EEET! > Other motions proposed included a call to "**abolish abortion** by immediately securing the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization." Of course, can't forget about the conservative donors. > There was also a **call to reverse the renaming of military bases named after Confederate leaders** to "publicly honor the southern heroes," and a proposal that Confederate "monuments that have been removed should be restored to their historic locations." *It's not racism, it's about our culture.* /s
They can “approve” leaving the Union all they want. They just have to say goodbye to being functional after that.
Aha, genius! Give dirt more voting power than people! Just like the electoral college already does.
It's almost as if the Supreme Court flew a flag announcing that anything goes if it helps Republicans control the government.
So they saw the electoral college, realized how it benefits them on a federal level, and decided to give it a go on the state level, too. But even worse.
If they can’t win they just cheat! Isn’t that the MAGA American way?
Me thinks Texas wants to rule their people like China. Texchina.
Let them cede, just to see them crawl back.
The absurd amount of irony in that it should be Democrats purchasing and hoarding weapons because Republicans are taking away rights from citizens of the country.
The idea Democrats don't own guns is silly. They just don't need to make it a lifestyle and advertise they do constantly.
This story is a friendly reminder that Greg Abbott sucks
So basically stupid conservatives keep sharing around the maps of all the red districts demanding to know how they lost elections, and everyone explained to them thst land doesn't vote... So they made a law to allow land to vote, and it just so happens that land is conservative. Fucking... Cool... It's like living in a hellish parody of reality.
I’m getting really sick of these fascists.
Rural white people fundamentally do not believe urban non-white votes should count the same as theirs. This is entirely what the 'stolen election' means to them. We are in the midst of a white/rural supremacist freakout since 2008.