It sounded as if he’d called for secession
Allen West, chairman of the Texas Republican Party, can’t understand how anyone got the notion into their heads that he was advocating last week for Texas’ secession from the United States.
The misunderstanding came after indicted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s audacious failed attempt to invalidate election results in four states won by President-elect Joe Biden because of changes in election procedures that weren’t approved by the legislatures of those states. Other states that made changes in similar fashion but were won by President Donald Trump — like Texas — weren’t included in Paxton’s suit.
When the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously slapped down Paxton and his political stunt masquerading as jurisprudence, West issued this statement, our emphasis added:
“The Supreme Court, in tossing the Texas lawsuit that was joined by seventeen states and 106 US congressmen, has 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 US constitution and not be held accountable. 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.”
His statement was widely interpreted and criticized by Democrats and Republicans as suggesting Texas do what it did nearly 160 years ago and secede from United States. In an interview Monday, West denied that interpretation, saying, “I am still trying to find where I said anything about ‘secession.’”
Maybe we can help with this conundrum.
It’s true West never used the word “secession” in his statement. But his suggestion about law-abiding states bonding together to form a Union sure sounds like what Confederate states did in 1861 when they bonded together, seceded from the Union and started the Civil War.
The Confederacy’s action, and West’s reaction, were both motivated by ignoble purposes: the defense of slavery, by one; opposition to election results, by the other.
Whatever West was proposing, let’s not forget he was supporting Paxton’s and Trump’s goal to invalidate a fair election, which Trump lost by more than 7 million votes, and, in turn, the Electoral College. He says he wants a Union of states that will abide by the Constitution while he’s in allegiance with the most brazen, unconstitutional attempt to change the results of an election in American history.
While denying he was suggesting secession, West stood by his original statement that the Supreme Court was wrong in ruling against Paxton’s lawsuit. In his denial statement, he said:
“The Texas lawsuit that was rejected by the highest court in the land, charged with interpreting our law, articulated a clear choice. Either we are a nation of laws that establishes how we are to be governed, or we are a nation where ideologues pick and choose what is applicable to them, to the detriment of those who follow the law.”
What does this even mean? West and Paxton are the ideologues who sought to overturn the decision of the American people and to disenfranchise voters and states who didn’t vote for Trump. Who is really picking and choosing laws applicable to them?
This nation went through a violent secession in which about 750,000 lives were lost, a 19th-century Civil War whose repercussions continue to be felt in the 21st century.
Perhaps West wasn’t calling for secession, but what he suggested was, recklessly, close enough.