Within hours of President Obama’s re-election, an online petition calling for the peaceful secession of the state of Louisiana from the union was started on Whitehouse.gov.
Since then, similar online petitions have been created for 32 additional states including Texas, California, Mississippi and Florida.
Except for Idaho, secession petitions have been created for every state that voted Republican in the 2012 presidential election.
In contrast, residents from the majority of states which voted for Obama in 2012 have yet to file such petitions, the exceptions being primarily swing states, such as Florida, Colorado and Ohio. Among the handful of solidly Democrat states that have filed secession petitions, California, New York and New Jersey are the largest.
In the case of the liberal-leaning state of Oregon, rather than request an outright break from the union and the formation of a new nation, as was the case in the majority of other secession petitions, Oregon’s petition requested to vote on and peacefully leave but remain an ally of the U.S.
The current onslaught of secession petitions have been filed directly with the White House via its website's “We the People” page, which allows citizens to reach the administration directly with an issue or a cause, so long as the petition receives enough online support.
In order to receive a reaction from the administration, petitions must obtain at least 25,000 signatures within 30 days of its creation.
To date, the petition requesting that the federal government allows Louisiana to peacefully secede from the union has received over 28,400 signatures. Texas’ secession petition has received over 70,000 signatures as of noon today.
According to Dallasnews.com, the administration says it will respond to the Texas secession petition, but has yet to say when.
This isn’t the first time in recent years in which residents calling for secession have gained some attention.
For years, left-wing activists in the liberal-leaning state of Vermont have been calling for a break with the U.S. through the Second Vermont Republic Party (SVRP), headed by former Duke University economics professor Thomas Naylor, 76. In his pitch to fellow Vermonters seeking their support for the SVRP, Naylor asked them to picture a state that was not “forced to participate in killing women and children in the Middle East.”
According to Time.com, a 2007 poll showed that the Second Vermont Republic Party received approximately 13 percent support among voters.
On the opposing end of the political spectrum, in the conservative-leaning state of Alaska, the Alaskan Independence Party (AIP) describes itself as a states' rights party that follows the Constitution of the United States and Alaska. Though it does not campaign for the secession of Alaska from the Union, it advocates for an in-state referendum in which Alaskan residents can vote on their state status and choose to either remain a state or become a separate independent country.
In the run-up to the 2008 presidential election, the party received national media attention when it was reported that Todd Palin, husband of former Alaskan governor and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, had been a registered member until 2002.