Open Letter to Governor-Elect Gina Hinojosa and Lieutenant Governor-Elect Vikki Goodwin

Governor-Elect Hinojosa and Lieutenant Governor-Elect Goodwin,

I’m writing about something the state’s next governor and lieutenant governor have each said for years, on the House floor, on the campaign trail and online, and about a question that belongs to every Texan regardless of party. The Texas Nationalist Movement endorses no candidates and takes no side between the parties, so this letter is not about who won on Tuesday. It’s about what the winners have promised.

Governor-Elect Hinojosa, on election night you spoke to Governor Abbott’s voters as well as your own, and to the Texans who “felt so betrayed by a broken politics that you did not vote at all.” Too many Texans, the speech said, have come to experience “government as something that is done to you, not with you or for you or by you.” Then came the line of the night: “Your government belongs to you.” A moment later: “As your governor, I will never forget it.”

The idea wasn’t new. In January 2017, as a freshman member of the Texas House, you said, “I believe that all communities have an inalienable right to self-govern, and that means local control, people deciding for themselves solutions to local challenges.” In February 2025, when a school-choice advocate claimed that Texas only allows ballot referendums on constitutional amendments, you answered with the record. The Legislature passed S.B. 86 in a 1987 called session and sent a statewide referendum to the voters by ordinary statute: “It was NOT a constitutional amendment. Let Texans Vote.” A week later, to the governor’s press office: “If you are so sure... Let Texans vote on vouchers. What are you afraid of?” On August 12 of this year, after the state’s new THC rules took effect, you wrote, “When I’m governor, I’ll let the people vote.” The campaign’s petition, still posted on its website, promises that “Gina will fight to give the people of Texas a direct right to vote on the future of THC.”

Lieutenant Governor-Elect Goodwin, you have made the same argument just as often. “Shouldn’t we let the people have a say?” you wrote in September 2025. “Whether it’s casinos, THC/marijuana legalization, school vouchers, etc., we should let people vote on these issues.” That same month, to Casino.org: “We need to listen to the voters of Texas.” In April of this year: “As Lt. Governor, I will put the people back in charge.”

The House record says the same thing. On April 16, 2025, Representative James Talarico offered an amendment to send the voucher bill to a statewide referendum in November 2025. The House tabled it, 86 to 62, on Record Vote 244, and Representatives Hinojosa and Goodwin were among the 62 who voted against tabling it. In fact, Texas’s next governor and lieutenant governor have already cast a recorded vote on the side of letting Texans decide a major question of state policy at the ballot box, by statute.

I agree with every one of those statements, and so does the Texas Constitution. Article 1, Section 2 reads:

“All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit. The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.”

The men who wrote that in 1876 chose the same word Governor-Elect Hinojosa chose in 2017: inalienable. A right that can’t be given away also can’t be withheld by a committee chair.

If Texans can be trusted to decide on vouchers, casinos and THC, it is hard to see why they can’t be trusted to decide whether Texas governs itself. Yet that is the one question Austin has refused to put to them. The Texas Nationalist Movement has asked for a vote on Texas independence since 2005, and our bill takes the route Governor-Elect Hinojosa described in 2025, a statewide referendum set by ordinary statute. In 2021, HB 1359 was referred to the House State Affairs Committee, chaired by Chris Paddie, under Speaker Dade Phelan, and it died there without a hearing. In 2023, HB 3596 went to the same committee, now chaired by Todd Hunter, under the same Speaker, and it died the same way. Neither of you made those decisions. However, starting in January, both of the offices won on Tuesday will shape what happens to the next bill.

In February 2025, when Governor-Elect Hinojosa asked Governor Abbott’s office what it was afraid of, I replied to her post with three words: “Now do TEXIT.” I’m asking again, more formally. I know the governor-elect has called TEXIT supporters “extremists” in the past. We disagree, but this letter doesn’t ask either of you to agree with us about independence. It asks whether Texans get to decide.

As of today, the Texas Nationalist Movement has more than 700,000 registered supporters. In the unofficial count, 16 of the 18 statewide races on Tuesday’s ballot were decided by fewer votes than that, including the lieutenant governor’s race, which was decided by 598,929. Those supporters vote in both parties and on every line of the ballot. Each of them signed up with a movement whose first goal is letting Texans decide this question for themselves.

There are two ways to answer this letter, and either one would tell Texans where their new governor and lieutenant governor stand. The first is to sign the Texas First Pledge. It’s four sentences long, and here they are in full:

• I pledge to place the interests of Texas and Texans before any other nation, state, political entity, organization, or individual.
• I further pledge to uphold the right of Texans under Article 1 Section 2 of the Texas Constitution “to alter, reform or abolish their government.”
• If it is within the powers of my office, I will vote for legislation and resolutions to call for a vote on Texas reasserting its status as an independent nation in every term that I am elected until such a referendum is held.
• If a majority of the people of Texas vote in support of Texas reasserting its status as an independent nation, I pledge to work toward a fair and expedient separation of Texas from the federal government placing the interests of Texans first.

The pledge was written for officeholders at every level, which is why the third sentence begins “If it is within the powers of my office.” It is posted at taketexasback.com (taketexasback.com) for anyone to read and sign.

The second is to answer one question in public: should Texans get a vote on independence, yes or no? Saying yes doesn’t require supporting independence. It only requires applying to independence the rule both campaigns applied to vouchers, casinos and THC.

I’m also asking for something smaller and more immediate. The 90th Legislature convenes on January 12, 2027, and a referendum bill will be filed. As drafted, it sets the vote for November 2027. I’m asking both of you to say publicly that the bill deserves a public hearing and a vote in committee. Lieutenant Governor-Elect Goodwin, as presiding officer of the Senate, I’m asking you to refer it to a committee that will actually hear it. A hearing commits no one to anything except listening to Texans, which is what both campaigns promised.

On Texas Independence Day this year, Governor-Elect Hinojosa wrote, “Because Texans bow down to no one.” On election night she said it again: “Texas will bow down to no one.” If that’s true, then the question of who governs Texas belongs to Texans, and so does the vote.

We will publish any answer in full, whatever it is, and my office is ready to meet with either transition team at any time before January 12.

Respectfully,

Daniel Miller, President, Texas Nationalist Movement

The signed letter is at thetnm.org/downloads/open-letter-hinojosa-goodwin.pdf.