Texas House Panel's Land Grab Expedition
Purely for Show Until NM Dems Say It's Not

Capitol Inside
April 6, 2026

You couldn't tell if Lubbock State Rep. Carl Tepper was really bad at April fools humor or trying to be serious last week when he raised the specter of Texas buying a swath of eastern New Mexico where conservatives like himself can't stand the Democrats who run the show in Santa Fe.

Seizing on a new role in a special panel's pursuit of a westward expansion of Texas, Tepper claimed in a Dallas television interview that Speaker Dustin Burrows means business with the push to acquire at least two counties in the Land of Enchantment for membership in the Lone Star State.

“Speaker Burrows is a very serious operator. It's not a joke," Tepper insisted. "He's serious about it. The legislators in New Mexico are serious about it. Again, Texas did not initiate, the secession and the annexation, of these counties, legislators in New Mexico initiated it. We've been in contact with them. They're serious about it. We're serious about it."

The annexation plan is a Burrows brainchild that he assigned to a Select Committee on Governmental Oversight that he created last month with Tepper on the 13-member roster. But the proposal appears to be 100 percent for show - and then some - with no chance of becoming reality for countless reasons that should be obvious to the Hub City lawmakers who've lived an hour or so from New Mexico most of their lives. Here are the 10 most glaring examples.

1. No Say. The Democrats who control New Mexico don't just hold all of the cards on this. They own the deck. The NM land grab that the West Texans envision is definitely not a serious proposal until they say it is. And they say it's a joke.

2. No Benefits. The only people who might have anything to gain from the secession of counties to Texas would be those who've been too lazy to move here on their own after complaining the most about blue state rule. The oil companies that operate on the eastern side of New Mexico could pay a lower severance tax to the state in Texas. But they've chosen to invest money that they could have poured into Texas in New Mexico instead with full knowledge of the tax laws and regulations in both places.

3. Economic Spinoffs Backlash. Can you imagine how much it would cost the public and private sectors if all the maps with the United States had to be replaced because the shifting of the Texas-New Mexico border rendered them obsolete and worthless? The Republicans who want to grow Texas by shrinking New Mexico apparently haven't taken the time to contemplate the devils in the details that they seem to think they need a special committee probe to uncover. The Texas boundaries have been in place for more than 176 years and aren't going to change just to please malcontents in a separate state. That train left the station in 1850 - and it was past the point of no return long ago.

4. Jobs and Freedom Killer. The secession of Lea County to Texas would destroy the most bustling local economy in rural New Mexico by forcing the Zia Park casino and three dozen marijuana dispensaries in Hobbs or more to shut down overnight because they would no longer be legal in the Lone Star State. Thousands of people would be out of work in the Hobbs - the fourth biggest city in New Mexico and the state's third largest in terms of the revenues from the sale of premium THC products since the legalization of weed for adult use four years ago. Hobbs has become a major tourist destination during that time as the closest place to most Texas cities where grade-A cannabis is available. The rapid proliferation of the recreational marijuana industry has been an economic godsend for cities in New Mexico near the Texas border from Clovis to Portales to the tiny hamlet of Eunice less than 40 miles from Andrews in West Texas.

5. Greed. “They're poor and we're rich,” Tepper said when asked why Texas should try to annex counties on the eastern edge of New Mexico. The Texas Republicans - ironically - take the opposite view on people who are moving here - or trying to do - across the southern border. But Tepper might be shocked to learn that the percentage of people below the poverty line in the state of New Mexico was lower in 2024 than it was in the city of Lubbock that year - according to U.S. Census estimates that year. The median income in New Mexico was slightly more than $64,000 in 2024 when it was less than $60,000 in the South Plains college town that Tepper and Burrows call home. Lea County in New Mexico had the same exact percentage of residents living in poverty as Lubbock County in the same Census update two years ago at 15.7 percent. But the median income in Lea County was $4,000 more than it was in Lubbock County at the time. While it's true that New Mexico is regarded as a poorer state than Texas, the luring of people from New Mexico isn't doing a thing for the folks who are already here.

6. Partisan Politics. “Don't know if there's a political benefit," Tepper said about the NM annexation plan. "I think it would probably be the Republican Party, where other counties are. So disenchanted with the governing, of the governor of the government and the governor in Santa Fe. They feel like they're not being treated fairly. They feel like they're being overtaxed, overregulated.” Tepper's empathy is monumental. But he still hasn't said what this would do for the people who elected him to be their representative in Austin. That's probably because the simple answer is nothing. Nada.

7. Everyone Isn't for Sale. Tepper's brainstorm on cutting a deal to overcome all the aformentioned obstacles to the secession-annexation proposal acknowledges that Democrats in Santa Fe are driving this train. “You never know what situation they might be in, and, everything seems to have a price in this world,” Tepper said. “Texas, you know, has the ability to extend its power beyond our borders and you never know if there's a deal to be cut with New Mexico, and if there is, uh, look, we're just the committee that's been formed to look at this. I don't think it's an outlandish possibility.” That begs the question - how much would it take to buy him and other GOP lawmakers off?

8. Help isn't Coming. There's an easy reason why neither Governor Greg Abbott or Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick haven't boarded the NM secession bandwagon so they can share in the glory a credit as well. They know that annexation proposal is whatever the Democrats in New Mexico say it is. And that's dead on arrival until proven otherwise.

more to come ...