Barbour on Texas secession banter
ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: After appearing at a series of anti-tax “tea party” rallies across the state, Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday asserted that the anti-Washington fervor among his constituents may at some point leave them pushing to secede from the United States.
Speaking to reporters, Perry, R-Texas, said he saw no reason why Texas should leave the union. But he pointed out that when Texas became a state in 1845, it did so with the understanding that it could end its ties with the U.S., if its constituents so chose.
“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said, according to the Associated Press. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”
Plus, as former Bush media adviser Mark McKinnon pointed out on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, what may sound like a clanker in the rest of the country may not seem odd in the Lone Star State.
“I think he looks really silly everywhere but in Texas. But in Texas, it’s brilliant primary politics, and I guarantee you those Republican primary voters are eatin’ that up,” McKinnon said.
Asked about the comments Thursday on a conference call with reporters, some of Perry’s fellow GOP governors echoed the concerns he raised.
Said Haley Barbour, R-Miss.: “When the federal government fires the president of General Motors and half the board of directors, I would say they are going to some new extremes. I don’t blame Rick for talking about the 10th Amendment.”
The Constitution’s 10th Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
ABC news
4/18/9
Magnolia Tribune
