With more than 28,600 signatures collected since Nov. 9, a White House website petition from an Arlington, Texas man has attracted enough support to trigger an automatic review by the Obama administration.
Petitions submitted through the Obama White House’s “We the People” program “require a response” from the administration after they have attracted 25,000 signatures.
The Daily Caller reported Monday morning that since the day after President Barack Obama’s re-election, citizens from 20 states had submitted petitions asking for peaceful separations from the United States. (RELATED: White House website deluged with secession petitions from 20 states)
By Monday afternoon that number had grown to 25.
Gov. Rick Perry’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TheDC. The White House has also not returned phone calls or responded to emails about whether the administration will give secession requests serious consideration.
In 2009 Perry told the Associated Press that Texans weren’t likely to turn a famous tourism slogan — “Texas: It’s like a whole other country” — into reality.
But “there’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said.
“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?”
Also in 2009, Perry told a group of bloggers that “when we [Texas] came into the nation in 1845, we were a republic, we were a stand-alone nation. And one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again.”
His recorded comments became fodder for left-wing commentators and columnists.
In addition to the Texas petition currently pending on the White House’s “We the People” Web page, other petitions represent citizens of 24 states.
Other than Texas, states with secession-related petitions pending in a public area of the White House’s website now include Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Three states — Georgia, Missouri and South Carolina — are each represented by two competing petitions.
In addition, TheDC has confirmed that citizens from Alaska, Pennsylvania and Connecticut have submitted petitions. Those efforts have not yet attracted 150 signatures, the minimum required for the White House to make them publicly available.
