What is required for Texas to leave the union?

One thing, above everything else: a vote of the people of Texas. Independence is decided by Texans at the ballot box, through a referendum the Texas Legislature puts on it. That is the requirement. Everything else is detail.

The single decisive act is the referendum

Texas does not leave the union by lawsuit, by declaration, or by the stroke of any one official’s pen. It leaves because the people vote to leave. Under Article 1, Section 2 of the Texas Constitution, all political power is inherent in the people, and they have at all times the inalienable right to alter or reform their government as they think expedient. A statewide referendum is how that right gets exercised on a question this big. A decision that reshapes the future of every Texan cannot be made by some Texans. It has to be all of them.

What it does not require

It does not require permission from the other forty-nine states. It does not require an act of the United States Congress. It does not require three-quarters of the states to agree, and it does not require a supermajority of Texas voters. Those bars get thrown around to make independence sound impossible. None of them is real. The threshold is a simple majority, fifty percent plus one of the Texans who cast a ballot.

The vehicle already exists

The bill that puts the question on the ballot has a name and a history. It is the Texas Independence Referendum Act, first filed as House Bill 1359 in 2021 by Representative Kyle Biedermann, with Representative James White as joint author, and refiled in 2023 as House Bill 3596. The question the 2023 version carries is the one the movement has always carried: “Should the State of Texas reassert its status as an independent nation?” Texans answer yes or no.

The work splits into three stages

Getting out is a process, not a single moment. First, the Legislature passes the Act and the people vote. Second, on a yes, Texas and the United States negotiate the terms and Texas stands up the functions of a nation. Third, Texas takes its place as a self-governing country among the nations of the world. The vote is the starting gun. The rest is the race.

The path is legal, peaceful, and decided by the people

There are no secret clauses and no shortcuts. Where there is a legal path, it must be followed, and that path runs through the Texas Legislature and then through the people. That is the whole point. Independence won by a free and fair vote is independence the world can recognize and no one can credibly call illegitimate.

The bottom line

What it takes is a referendum, won by a simple majority. Pass the bill, win the vote, and the people of Texas have decided. That is the requirement, and it is entirely within Texans’ own hands.