Less than a week after a New Orleans man petitioned the White House to allow Louisiana to secede from the United States, petitions from seven states have now collected enough signatures to trigger a review from the Obama administration, the Daily Caller reports.
By 6:00 am Wednesday, petitions covering all 50 states had received more than 675,000 signatures. Vermont was the last state to file a petition.
Petitions from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas had received at least 25,000 signatures. At that amount, the Obama administration said the petitions would be rewarded with a staff review.
The Texas petition attracted over 94,700 signatures shortly before 9:00 am. A spokesperson for Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday afternoon that he does not support the idea of his state seceding from the US.
“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,” the statement read.
Progressives from the liberal state capital, Austin, responded with their own petition to secede from Texas if the state should leave the Union. Another petition from Houston read that secession-minded Texans are “are mentally deficient and [we] do not want them representing us. We would like more education in our state to eradicate their disease.”
El Paso also filed a petition to secede from Texas, saying, “El Paso is tired of being a second class city within Texas.”
The other 43 states have not yet reached the 25,000 signature threshold. There is a 30-day window for petitions to reach that goal.
Fourteen states have two competing petitions to secede. The extra petitions from Missouri and South Carolina could add up to enough signatures for a response if they were combined with the earlier petitions.
A Darlington, South Carolina man proposed that the Obama administration “allow the states that have asked to secede to do so and form their own NEW nation together.”
