Florida Petition To Secede Reaches 30,000 Signatures

The Florida secession movement through an online petition has exploded over the course of three days, now surpassing its goal, reaching 30,304 signatures as of Wednesday evening.

Patch first reported the Florida secession movement Monday when the petition on the White House's petition website had only 1,343 signatures and the story went viral to the point where 30,304 people have signed supporting the idea of secession, though it's not legally possible. The petition was created Nov. 10.

Overall, 20 petitions for similar secession requests were filed on the site, and Texas even reached 60,000 signatures for its petition, The Huffington Post reported.

More than 178 comments were posted on Patch's initial story and another 124 comments were posted in our What's Tampa Bay Saying column asking your thoughts about this viral petition.

Though the movement sparked after the recent re-election of President Barack Obama, the secession petition fad isn't new. Even for Florida.

North Lauderdale politicians wanted the Sunshine State to be broken up into North Florida and South Florida in 2008, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

That movement grew again in 2011, the Sun-Sentinel also reported. Sun-Sentinel columnist Michael Mayo took a comedic look at how North Florida and South Florida would compare:

We'd have the Swap Shop. They'd have Yeehaw Junction.

We'd have Donald Trump. They'd have Donald Duck.

We'd have the Keys. They'd have the Redneck Riviera.

We'd have Joe's Stone Crab. They'd have the original Hooters.

We'd have Big Sugar. They'd have Big Citrus.

We'd have the Dolphins and Hurricanes. They'd have the Gators and 'Noles.

We'd have the Everglades. They'd have Busch Gardens.

We'd have pill mills. They'd have pill mills — and meth labs.

We'd have casinos. They'd have school prayer.

We'd have corrupt politicians and Ponzi schemers. They'd have a governor who ran a company convicted of Medicare fraud.

We'd have same-sex weddings. They'd have a defense-of-marriage act.

A movement by Tea Party members in Texas grew in 2009, and gained the support of Gov. Rick Perry, Time reported back then.

Secession was put out of the realm of state rights after the Civil War, partially through the 14th Amendment, Slate reports, and a Supreme Court interpretation confirmed as much in 2010, according to Politico.com.

The legal argument was that the state would have to sue the U.S., and the U.S. government would have to be consented to be sued for a declaratory judgment, and in that case, the federal government would probably decline.

But as a secession movement in Arizona sparked due to a debate that the state was setting its own foreign policy, another 14th Amendment issue, Discovery.com looked at what other rights a state has.

And though a state couldn't legally break off its tie to the federal government through suit or secession, the state can break itself up into multiple smaller states, but it still requires Congressional approval. 

Texas has gone through such a discussion in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but all the movements failed, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

The majority of Patch commenters expressed how ridiculous the secession notion is. Here's what some of you had to say on Patch about the 2012 Florida petition:

David Conkle:

Perhaps, these whack jobs should look to history to help put their petition into perspective. At the beginning of the civil war South Carolina was the first state to secede from the union. Unfortunately, they paid the heaviest price also because when General Sherman marched through their state with his union forces the devastaion was brutal and complete. Who was it that said, "if we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it?" Conversely, "If you serve up a banquet of sour grapes, then all you and others are left with is a sour taste in their mouths." 

Carla Gibson:

Who wrote it? Probably some backwoods Florida redneck with a third grade education .. on the other hand because it's Florida it could be a college graduate. You would think that "someone" would have had enough brains to run a spell check! So typical of this pitiful state ..

OMG STOP ALREADY! ENOUGH! JUST STOP! Secession, really? REALLY? UNBELIEVABLE, just plain unbelievable. Tired.....sigh.... over it..... Florida as a nation? REALLY? ugh!!! We cannot count votes, how on earth could we ever be a nation????? Counting is easy 1, 2, 3,,4 and we cannot do that, but we can be a soverign nation? PLEASE!!!!!! STOP!

Ted LeVand:

Very nice way to celebrate Veterans Day. Tell all the veterans that risks their life for you that you do not want to be an American. Seeing most of you drive non-American cars anyway, why don't you just move to Japan

dave stettler

No the Country is still going in the wrong direction. You guys can't seem to understand we want less government, less taxes, less regulation, free markets, freedom, and to follow the Constitution and enforce it. We disagree with what you want to do and you disagree with what we want. So let's just split up, our differences are irreconcilable.