After the Supreme Court refused to hear Texas’s attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election in four battleground states, the Texas GOP floated an idea more radical than the original lawsuit: secession.
“The Supreme Court, in tossing the Texas lawsuit that was joined by seventeen states and 106 U.S. congressmen, have decreed that a state can take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law. Resulting in damaging effects on other states that abide by the law, while the guilty state suffers no consequences. This decision establishes a precedent that says states can violate the U.S. constitution and not be held accountable,” the Texas GOP said in a statement.
“This decision will have far reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic. Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution,” the statement continues.
The Supreme Court was right to toss Texas’s lawsuit for several reasons, the most important being that Texas did not have legal standing to sue four other states over election laws that they passed when those election laws did not directly affect Texas’s government or its citizens. To put it plainly, Texas did not have the right to hold Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin “accountable.” The Constitution affords those states the right to conduct their elections as they see fit, and any disputes that arise from this process must be settled at the political level where election laws are made.
This is the constitutional process at work. And to suggest that it should be abandoned, or that Texas should “bond together” with other Republican-led states — presumably, the 18 other states that joined Texas’s lawsuit — to form a different union is madness. This is one nation, made up of different states, which are made up of very different people. But no matter what, these states are united under one Constitution and bound to one set of rules.
It is highly unlikely any state or political party would act upon this nonsense. But even the mere suggestion that we should consider a move towards separation should be shut down, because this isn’t just about our political disagreements or differing values. Threatening to disband the union has serious implications for our national security, economic well-being, cultural stability, and constitutional order. And as such, it should not be taken lightly.
