President Donald Trump's move comes after Gov. JB Pritzker said earlier this week the Department of Homeland Security requested deployment of 100 military troops to Illinois “for the protection of ICE personnel and facilities.”
Blue states need to cease operation of their national guard units. Transfer all personnel to the state guards. The national guard units can be activated by the president; the state guards can’t.
What exactly do you call a situation where state militias are using force to prevent armed federal employees dressed in military-style uniforms from attacking the people?
That’s not what I suggested at all. I specifically suggested disbanding the national guard units all together and just moving them to the state guard units. You could even let them keep their own command structure. Just basically shuffling state-level personnel around so that the president can’t take control of it.
First of all, the method would vary depending on each state constitution: by legislature or amendment. By my read, Oregon would be by legislature and Illinois by constitutional amendment.
From Illinois’ constitution:
The Governor is commander-in-chief of the organized militia, except when they are in the service of the United States. He may call them out to enforce the laws, suppress insurrection or repel invasion.
If a state tried it, it would immediately be challenged in the courts. National Guard units are both federal and state entities, meaning there are federal statutes around National Guard units.
States also get training, equipment funding, and operational support for their National Guard units from the federal government. If they reorganized them into a state guard, the equipment that was purchased with grants would have to remain with their National Guard. So even if it got through the state and federal challenges, they’d need to buy new equipment too. Guess who’s suddenly unwilling to sell them equipment?
National Guard units also hypothetically have easier access to disaster funds. Although that doesn’t really matter under Trump, it may matter in the future.
The other side of the coin is the incentive to the Guardsmen themselves. They have education and retirement benefits. If they were reorganized, the state would probably have to make up the difference, if they could even legally do that.
Bottom line is attempting to reorganize into state militias is a multi-year effort that will be both extremely expensive and likely to fail due to judicial review.
Now, most of the other things you discussed would be major hurdles. It also would be seen as an escalation that Illinois was planning for a clash with National Troops.
It probably could be done under the pretense that the state guard needs more capacity to handle state emergencies while it’s national guard troops have been federalized.
What’s been interesting is that the “mission” the Federal Government has been tasking these units with are designed to pass the smell test. “Protect federal buildings and federal agents.” It’s a guise that makes the individuals objection to their mission orders harder to be considered illegal. It’s not “arrest protestors” or “detain illegals.”
Blue states need to cease operation of their national guard units. Transfer all personnel to the state guards. The national guard units can be activated by the president; the state guards can’t.
I will note that there is a huge financial incentive to not do that. Instead, they’re challenging the federal deployments in court, with some success
Well I’m sorry we had to democracy die. Doing otherwise would have been too expensive.
Actually launching a civil war is really really bad. I expect to see it done only after everything else fails
Yeah, better to just let the armed goons do whatever they want.
Where did you get this odd civil war idea?
What exactly do you call a situation where state militias are using force to prevent armed federal employees dressed in military-style uniforms from attacking the people?
That’s not what I suggested at all. I specifically suggested disbanding the national guard units all together and just moving them to the state guard units. You could even let them keep their own command structure. Just basically shuffling state-level personnel around so that the president can’t take control of it.
Anything but civil.
First of all, the method would vary depending on each state constitution: by legislature or amendment. By my read, Oregon would be by legislature and Illinois by constitutional amendment.
From Illinois’ constitution:
If a state tried it, it would immediately be challenged in the courts. National Guard units are both federal and state entities, meaning there are federal statutes around National Guard units.
States also get training, equipment funding, and operational support for their National Guard units from the federal government. If they reorganized them into a state guard, the equipment that was purchased with grants would have to remain with their National Guard. So even if it got through the state and federal challenges, they’d need to buy new equipment too. Guess who’s suddenly unwilling to sell them equipment?
National Guard units also hypothetically have easier access to disaster funds. Although that doesn’t really matter under Trump, it may matter in the future.
The other side of the coin is the incentive to the Guardsmen themselves. They have education and retirement benefits. If they were reorganized, the state would probably have to make up the difference, if they could even legally do that.
Bottom line is attempting to reorganize into state militias is a multi-year effort that will be both extremely expensive and likely to fail due to judicial review.
Illinois already has a state guard in its constitution that would be able to be activated by the governor.
https://www.ilga.gov/Legislation/ILCS/Articles?ActID=317&ChapterID=5
Now, most of the other things you discussed would be major hurdles. It also would be seen as an escalation that Illinois was planning for a clash with National Troops.
It probably could be done under the pretense that the state guard needs more capacity to handle state emergencies while it’s national guard troops have been federalized.
What’s been interesting is that the “mission” the Federal Government has been tasking these units with are designed to pass the smell test. “Protect federal buildings and federal agents.” It’s a guise that makes the individuals objection to their mission orders harder to be considered illegal. It’s not “arrest protestors” or “detain illegals.”