Texas Republican Congressman John Culberson apparently hasn’t read the U.S. Constitution, because he thinks Texas can split into five separate states whenever it wants, changing the political balance in the U.S. Senate "overnight."
The First Amendment may guarantee Culberson the right to say whatever he pleases, but Article IV, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution pretty much negates every aspect of his loony threat:
New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.
So unless Culberson somehow thinks that Texas is above the U.S. Constitution (which he probably does), then he’s spouting nonsense on the level of Rick Perry.
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Partial transcript of Culberson’s remarks:
CULBERSON: As you and I mentioned once before when I saw you at Ford’s Theater, Texas reserved the right to split into as many as five states. Now, no Texan wants to see Texas divide up into smaller states. But Chris, we are — we could, if Texas chose to do so, add six new rock-ribbed conservative Senators to the Senate overnight by dividing into five states.