{"id":240210,"date":"2026-04-08T10:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/240210\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T10:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:30:18","slug":"texas-talk-of-swallowing-eastern-new-mexico-is-an-old-impulse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/240210\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas talk of swallowing eastern New Mexico is an old impulse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the speaker of the Texas House recently outlined his priorities<\/a> for the next legislative session, he mentioned tax relief, the development of data centers and a notion that sent many eyebrows skyward.<\/p>\n

Dustin Burrows, a Republican from Lubbock, directed the chamber\u2019s governmental oversight committee to study the legal and economic implications of Texas absorbing one or more counties in eastern New Mexico.<\/p>\n

The \u201cconversation,\u201d Burrows told the Dallas Morning News<\/a>, \u201cis ultimately about culture, opportunity and the right to choose a path that reflects the shared values of the Permian and Delaware basins,\u201d a vast desert expanse awash in oil and natural gas.<\/p>\n

Apparently, Texas lawmakers have time and money to burn.<\/p>\n

The notion of the swaggering state swallowing a chunk of its resistant neighbor is completely far-fetched. Just four states have been carved from the territory of others: Kentucky, Maine, Vermont and West Virginia. And it\u2019s been quite a spell since the last time that happened. West Virginia split off from Confederate Virginia in 1863.<\/p>\n

Realistically, there is no end of hurdles \u2014 legal, political, practical \u2014 that would have to be surmounted for a partial Texas-New Mexico merger to occur. Both states would need to agree \u2014 New Mexico is a hard no<\/a> \u2014 and Congress would also have to approve.<\/p>\n

But the impulse to bust up, break away and move on is as old as America itself and, at the same time, as fresh as the latest provocation to pass the lips of the nation\u2019s frothing commander-in-chief<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalexit,\u201d the idea of California breaking away<\/a> from the U.S. and becoming its own nation, took root during President Trump\u2019s turbulent first reign <\/a>and gained renewed support as soon as he returned to power<\/a>. Texas toyed with the idea of secession<\/a> when Barack Obama<\/a> was president.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe driver,\u201d said Syracuse University professor Ryan Griffiths, an author and expert on secession<\/a>, \u201cis politics and polarization.\u201d<\/p>\n

The notion being if you don\u2019t like it, then leave.<\/p>\n

Or, at least, make noise about doing so.<\/p>\n

Eastern New Mexico \u2014 dry, desolate \u2014 looks and feels very much like an appendage of West Texas. Its residents have long been estranged from the rest of their state and, especially, the Democratic leadership in Santa Fe, the state capital. That is not to say, however, the slightest inch of New Mexico territory will be going anywhere anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, two Republican state lawmakers introduced a measure to give voters a say on whether they wanted their counties to break away \u2014 or, as one of the legislators put it, \u201cGet the hell out of New Mexico.\u201d The constitutional amendment died without a hearing.<\/p>\n

When Burrows renewed talk of a takeover, Javier Martinez, speaker of the New Mexico House, responded without equivocation. \u201cOver my dead body,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But the notion has garnered Burrows plenty of attention in the Lone Star State, a place with no lack of self-regard<\/a>. And it certainly hasn\u2019t hurt his standing with Texas\u2019 arch-conservative Republican base, which has sometimes viewed Burrows with suspicion.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople in Texas have a lot of fun with the idea that Texas … is entitled to secede and that maybe it can restore lost lands in New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado and beyond,\u201d said Cal Jillson, a longtime student of Texas politics at Southern Methodist University. \u201cIt [appeals to] the conservative base, but also to everyone who loves to chuckle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Serious or not, secession \u2014 or independence, as some prefer to call it \u2014 has long been the dream of dissenters, of the discontented and those who feel put upon or politically unrepresented. America, after all, was birthed by divorcing itself from Britain and King George III.<\/p>\n

For the longest time, residents in the ruddy north of blue California have agitated for a breakaway state<\/a> called Jefferson. In recent years unhappy conservatives in eastern Oregon have spoken of splitting from their Democratic state and becoming a part of Republican Idaho. (Lawmakers in Boise passed a measure in 2023 inviting Oregon to the negotiating table; Oregon has so far declined to show.)<\/p>\n

Since 2020, voters in 33 rural Illinois counties have voted to separate from their state and its Democratic leadership, a move welcomed in a measure passed by the Republican-run Indiana Legislature and signed by the state\u2019s GOP governor, Mike Braun. (Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker dismissed the 2025 legislation as \u201ca stunt.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Which, indeed, it appeared to be.<\/p>\n

But Richard Kreitner said there is a certain logic behind secession movements, as governments from Washington to the statehouse are seen as increasingly unresponsive and dysfunctional.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs people become more disenfranchised … more disillusioned from the political process, you\u2019re going to start looking outside of the political process, the political structure, the constitutional structure, for a possible solution,\u201d said Kreitner, who hosts a history podcast<\/a>, \u201cThink Back,\u201d and has also written a book on secession. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to do that in a country founded with a secessionist manifesto, the Declaration of Independence, at some point people are going to start thinking about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legitimate grievance grounded in serious concern <\/a>is certainly worthy of attention. But exploiting that discontent to draw notice or score cheap political points \u2014 as Burrows seems to be doing in Texas \u2014 is something altogether different.<\/p>\n

The chance of New Mexico ceding a part of itself to Texas is precisely zero, meaning the legislative study is less about \u201cculture\u201d and \u201copportunity\u201d than the speaker and fellow Republicans evidently looking to troll their blue-state neighbor.<\/p>\n

There are better, more productive ways for lawmakers to spend their time.<\/p>\n

And their taxpayers\u2019 dime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the speaker of the Texas House recently outlined his priorities for the next legislative session, he mentioned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[92163,92159,92164,51784,46258,92161,391,7678,7977,92160,92165,8510,27,29,92162,28,16820],"class_list":{"0":"post-240210","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-burrows","9":"tag-eastern-new-mexico","10":"tag-eastern-oregon","11":"tag-idea","12":"tag-measure","13":"tag-notion","14":"tag-people","15":"tag-president-trump","16":"tag-resident","17":"tag-secession","18":"tag-speaker","19":"tag-state","20":"tag-texas","21":"tag-texas-headlines","22":"tag-texas-lawmaker","23":"tag-texas-news","24":"tag-time"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}