Less than a week after a New Orleans suburbanite petitioned the WPetitions from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas residents have accrued at least 25,000 signatures, the number the Obama administration says it will reward with a staff review of online proposals. (RELATED: Will Texas secede? Petition triggers White House review)
The Texas petition leads all others by a wide margin. Shortly before midnight Tuesday, it had attracted more than 92,400 signatures. But a spokesperson for Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday afternoon that he does not support the idea of his state striking out on its own.
“Gov. Perry believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it. But he also shares the frustrations many Americans have with our federal government,” according to a statement from the governor’s office.
A backlash Monday night saw requests filed with the White House to strip citizenship rights from Americans who signed petitions to help states secede. (RELATED: Anti-secession forces fight back with White House deportation petitions)
And in a similar nose-thumbing aimed at Texas’ conservative majority, progressives from the liberal state capital of Austin responded Monday with a petition to secede from their state if Texas as a whole should decide to leave the Union.
White House to allow Louisiana to secede from the United States, petitions from seven states have collected enough signatures to trigger a promised review from the Obama administration.
Late Tuesday a second group of Texans, this one from Houston, lodged their own White House petition. Secession-minded Texans, they wrote, “are mentally deficient and do not want them representing us. We would like more education in our state to eradicate their disease.”
Houstonian “Kimberly F” — The White House does not provide last names — submitted the petition. She told TheDC in an email that ”[w]e need both sides presented, or we all look like a bunch of fools.”
A group from El Paso, too, wants no part of an independent Texas. “Allow the city of El Paso to secede from the state of Texas,” their petition reads. “El Paso is tired of being a second class city within Texas.”
But smaller petitions like hers are a political side show of a political side show. One effort, aimed at Missourians, called for a nationwide catered pizza party to celebrate when the Show Me State left the U.S. (RELATED: Pizza party! White House petition silliness gets cheesy)
States whose active petitions have not yet reached the 25,000 signature threshold include Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
By 6:00 a.m. EST Wednesday, more than 675,000 digital signatures appeared on 69 separate secession petitions covering all 50 states, according to a Daily Caller analysis of requests lodged with the White House’s “We the People” online petition system.
A petition from Vermont, where talk of secession is a regular feature of political life, was the final entry.
