Charles Schumer gave Texans another strong reason for Texas independence this week. When Texas joined the union in 1845 It joined a nation which was governed by a republican form of government consisting of three separate, but equal branches. Schumer admitted this week that is no longer true.
Many of us have long thought this, but Schumer is probably the highest-ranking politician in American history to admit it in public. As our elementary civics classes taught us, The United States government was composed of three separate branches of government which were considered to be separate but equal. We were taught that this meant no branch had control over the other branches. Schumer, a member of the legislative branch, stood in front of the Supreme Court building and made direct threats to the judiciary. He declared that the judicial branch is subservient to and must take orders from the legislative branch.
Many people believe his threats were threats of physical violence against the court. Assuming for a moment that you believe these were not physical threats, the only option is that they were threats that the legislative branch would initiate impeachment proceedings against the judges if they did not rule the way he demanded. His words indicate that if the judges do not conform to his demands they will be removed. That is not how the power of impeachment was designed. It was meant to be used for only the most egregious misdeeds by a public official. It was never intended to be used merely because a legislator did not get his or her way. Using this logic if the judiciary is now subject to the control of and every decision must be approved by the legislature, they no longer are autonomous. They are no longer separate and certainly no longer equal. Schumer essentially declared the republic that Texas agreed to partner with no longer existed.
If these were threats made by some random blogger like me or a radical street protester, they simply would have been an exercise in American First Amendment rights. They would have been quite easy to ignore. These threats, however, were made by someone with an extremely high level of power within the American government. These threats indicate how he conducts himself day-to-day and shines a light into his heart and mind indicating how he thinks the government is and should be.
In the December 2019 edition of the magazine The Atlantic, Graeme Wood in describing Texans quotes journalist John Bainbridge who “wrote that Texans were ‘Super-Americans’ exhibiting American traits in abundance – like other Americans, only more so.” Mr. Wood strikes upon an idea that Schumer backs up. America is no longer America. Schumer finally dared to admit what everybody else knows. Texans have adopted the original American ideals and concepts of self-government and have embraced them in ways that the rest of America has long abandoned.
In 1845 Texans decided that they wanted to live under the American form of government as it existed at the time. The United States government has now admitted that they are no longer following the documents which Texas agreed to follow upon joining. Texas needs to be free to pursue those American, in fact now Texan ideals. We should be permitted to live the American system and the only way to do that is to once again be a free and independent Republic of Texas.