Texas Nationalist Movement Releases White Paper on New Mexico Counties, Urges Texans to Testify Before September 30 Hearing

The Texas Nationalist Movement today released "The Line Moves by Consent," a 45-page white paper on whether one or more New Mexico counties could become part of Texas. The House Select Committee on Governmental Oversight takes up that question at 9 a.m. on September 30 in room E2.026 of the Capitol Extension. TNM President Daniel Miller is submitting written testimony with the white paper through the House's electronic comment system, and TNM is asking every supporter who lives in Texas to do the same.

Nobody in those counties has asked. The idea came from two New Mexico legislators, whose House Joint Resolution 10 would have had New Mexico consent "to the secession of three or more contiguous counties." It died in committee. TNM found no resolution from the Lea, Eddy, or Roosevelt county commissions asking to join Texas, and no poll of the people who live there. In April, the chair of the Roosevelt County Commission said the idea hadn't been discussed.

A county can't move itself. It is a legal subdivision of its state, and New Mexico wrote its boundary into Article I of its constitution, so letting a county go would take a statewide vote of New Mexicans. On the Texas side, transition laws for three new counties run straight into the Texas Constitution's ban on local and special laws. TNM's answer is a constitutional amendment, which puts the final decision to Texas voters.

Santa Fe has already said no. Lea and Eddy counties hold about 94 percent of New Mexico's taxable oil and gas property, and at Texas rates their production would pay Texas about $2.8 billion a year in production taxes. Texas would also take on about 156,000 residents, 30,000 public school students, federal installations whose statutes name New Mexico, and a Pecos River Compact that would have to be renegotiated.

TNM seeks no territory for Texas and takes no position on whether any county should move. It does take a position on who decides. The white paper asks the Legislature to state Texas's terms before anyone negotiates, and it includes a model concurrent resolution that does:

• a majority vote of the residents of each county
• New Mexico's consent under its own constitution
• a compact that settles everything that moves with the ground, and everything that does not
• approval by the Texas Legislature and by the voters of Texas

On the federal question, TNM asks the Committee to keep its finding narrow. No court has ever held that Congress must consent before one state cedes territory to another, though states have sought that consent in every transfer TNM found. Whatever the Committee concludes, the Compact Clause governs agreements between states. It says nothing about what the people of a state decide about their own government.

County secession is not Texas independence

HJR 10's sponsors picked the right word. A county that leaves its state carries off ground inside that state's boundaries. That is secession, and it would be secession if a Texas county tried it. Texas is a different case. Its people voted it into the union on October 13, 1845, by 7,664 to 430, and ending a membership carves nothing off anybody.

Scholars of self-determination draw the same line. A remedial right to separate exists only as a last resort against grave injustice, and it is the most the counties could claim. A primary right belongs to a people because the decision is theirs. The people of Texas hold it "at all times" under Article I, Section 2 of the Texas Constitution. Scotland, Quebec, and the United Kingdom each voted on their status without first proving they were oppressed.

"This hearing has put self-determination on this House's agenda," Miller said. "That principle doesn't stop at the state line. If it's good enough for 156,000 New Mexicans with the weaker claim, it's good enough for the people of Texas, who hold the stronger one. Texans chose their membership in this union by vote in 1845. Whether it continues is theirs to decide. Next session, send them the question."

Submit testimony

Texas residents can file a comment on the Texas-New Mexico Boundary item without going to Austin. The House accepts electronic comments until the hearing adjourns on September 30, at comments.house.texas.gov/home?c=c075. The House publishes each comment with the name, organization, and city of the person who filed it.

TNM is asking supporters to tell the Committee one thing. If it is willing to consider letting three New Mexico counties vote on leaving New Mexico, it should let the people of Texas vote on reasserting Texas's status as an independent nation.

Texans who would rather testify in person can register at the Capitol on the day of the hearing. Registration for public testimony closes at noon.

The white paper is at thetnm.org/downloads/new-mexico-boundary-white-paper.pdf.