A little-noticed change in federal law packs an important change in who is in charge the next time a state is devastated by a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina.
To the dismay of the nation’s governors, the White House now will be empowered to go over a governor’s head and call up National Guard troops to aid a state in time of natural disasters or other public emergencies. Up to now, governors were the sole commanders in chief of citizen soldiers in local Guard units during emergencies within the state.
A conflict over who should control Guard units arose in the days after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. President Bush sought to federalize control of Guardsmen in Louisiana in the chaos after the hurricane, but Gov. Kathleen Blanco (D) refused to relinquish command.
Over objections from all 50 governors, Congress in October tweaked the 200-year-old Insurrection Act to empower the hand of the president in future stateside emergencies. In a letter to Congress, the governors called the change "a dramatic expansion of federal authority during natural disasters that could cause confusion in the command-and-control of the National Guard and interfere with states' ability to respond to natural disasters within their borders."
The change adds to tensions between governors and the White House after more than four years of heavy federal deployment of state-based Guard forces to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, four out of five guardsmen have been sent overseas in the largest deployment of the National Guard since World War II. Shortage of the Guard’s military equipment – such as helicopters to drop hay to snow-stranded cattle in Colorado – also is a nagging issue as much of units’ heavy equipment is left overseas and unavailable in case of a natural disaster at home.
A bipartisan majority of both chambers of Congress adopted the change as part of the 439-page, $538 billion 2007 Defense Authorization Bill signed into law last October.
The nation's governors through the National Governors Association (NGA) successfully lobbied to defeat a broader proposal to give the president power to federalize Guard troops without invoking the Insurrection Act. But the passage that became law also "disappointed" governors because it expands federal power and could cause confusion between state and federal authorities trying to respond to an emergency situation, said David Quam, an NGA homeland security advisor.
"Governors need to be focused on assisting their citizens during an emergency instead of looking over their shoulders to see if the federal government is going to step in," Quam said.
Under the U.S. Constitution, each state's National Guard unit is controlled by the governor in time of peace but can be called up for federal duty by the president. The National Guard employs 444,000 part-time soldiers between its two branches: the Army and Air National Guards.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 forbids U.S. troops from being deployed on American soil for law enforcement. The one exception is provided by the Insurrection Act of 1807, which lets the president use the military only for the purpose of putting down rebellions or enforcing constitutional rights if state authorities fail to do so. Under that law, the president can declare an insurrection and call in the armed forces. The act has been invoked only a handful of times in the past 50 years, including in 1957 to desegregate schools and in 1992 during riots in south central Los Angeles after the acquittal of police accused of beating Rodney King.
Congress changed the Insurrection Act to list "natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident" as conditions under which the president can deploy U.S. armed forces and federalize state Guard troops if he determines that "authorities of the state or possession are incapable of maintaining public order."
Backers of the new rules, including U.S. Sens. John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said the changes were needed to clarify the role of the armed forces in responding to serious domestic emergencies.
Mark Smith, spokesperson for the Louisiana Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said local and state emergency responders know what their communities need during a crisis better than officials in Washington.
"The president should not be able to step in and take control of the National Guard without a governor's consent. The Guard belongs to the states, has always belonged to the states and should remain a function of the states," Smith said.
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By Kris Christensen on Dec 7, 2008 12:19:59 AM
Shame on President Bush on allowing such a thing to happen. I expected more. It goes against everthing we believe in in terms of keeping the size of the federal government small. Do we really think the federal government will do a better job locally in hard times. It appears to me that this whole thing went way under the radar for the national media to pick up and report. That too concerns me. When they ignor something of this magnitude, it is not a good sign. I want our local leaders in charge and held accountable. I suspect the vast majority of both party's agree.
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governors regaining control of nat'l guard
By Phillip Shapiro on Feb 11, 2008 4:19:30 PM
That law giving the President authority to call out the Nat'l Guard for local emergencies must be repealed. It is nothing but a power grab by the President. Who best can respond to emergencies withing a state than its govenor!! That authority must be taken back from the president and returned to the governors!!!!
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Govenor's upset over loss of control of national guard after Katrina debacle
By warren gaston on Jan 17, 2007 2:34:08 PM
If the governors of their respective states actually were working for their constituents, this would never have happened. It was absolutely conscienceless the way the governor of Louisiana treated the people of New Orleans. She had no plan of response to Katrina even with a weeks worth of notice. She deserved to be impeached and jailed for malfeasance of office. Instead the government was kind to her and simply took the matter to the next higher level.
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Nat'l Guard!!
By Charles Legare on Jan 17, 2007 10:06:34 AM
The Governors should fight this change with every tool available to them. The Bush administration has proven time and time again they cannot be trusted, not only in Iraq, but in a multitude of other ways. The congress until recently ( and i'm still leery now) was a rubber stamp for the Bush bunch, and literally "Gave" away the "Outhouse" in fear of being labeled non-patriotic.
It's time for the people of the US to stand up before we are totally stripped of all our freedoms of Liberty and Justice. This "War against Terror", which so far is totally un-defined, has taken the citizens of the US back 200 plus years. With the words "My job is to protect the American people" Bushy Boy has stolen our freedoms from us with the help of the same people we elect to provide a stop-gap in these circumstances, The Congress of The United States!!!
The attacks against us on our soil , while terrible in there own right are nothing compared to what will happen if we go forward with the arrogance we have shown for the rest of the world. We have killed at a rate of more than a 100 to 1 the doers of evil who struck us that terrible blow on 9/11, but now it's time to SECURE OUR BORDERS and withdraw.. If they come, whoever they are, we can and
should kill them!!
Chuck Legare
Orange Park Fl.
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Governors Upset
By Don Evans on Jan 16, 2007 5:45:37 PM
I think that if the governors understood that they are simply figure heads for the land of the Federal Government, they wouldn't be upset. Do any of them actually believe that the State is supreme to the Federal government. Not since the south lost the Civil war have states had the power conveyed by the Constitution and the 10th Amendment. If you don't believe that, why do you think it is now the State of Texas, State of New Mexico etc. and not the Texas State, etc?? All states are not part of the power of the District of Columbia. Still not certain, look at what Congress continues to pass, laws which violate the Constitution but they find cause under the Commerce clause and the Supreme Court backs them up!!
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By Rael Nidess, M.D. on Jan 12, 2007 7:45:30 PM
Hello?
Where've ya'll been?
Bush foisted his "unitary executive" theory onto the 2006 Defense Appropriations Bill in collusion with unthinking Democrats and craven Republicans who failed to read the fine print and understand that, due to this "accommodation" for the President's convenience, he now has unfettered power, by law, to utilize our own troops (the National Guard) for law enforcement on U.S. soil in violation of the Constitutional concept of Posse Comitatus.
This, along with the "Military Commissions Act of 2006" (MCA2006)allows him to name any group of people, including citizens of the U.S.A., as either 'enemy combatants' or 'materially contributing toward terrorism', use our military to lock us up (perhaps if we protest his illegal war too vigorously?) without due process because our Habeas Corpus rights have been denied by MCA2006, and hold us, essentially incommunicado, "interrogating" us with "approved unusual methods", until... well until.
The sorry thing is that this all happened 6 months ago! Where the hell were the news stories then?
We've dug a hole that has only one way out:
Impeach Bush, Cheney, and Rice.
There's more to read at:
http://www.impeachforpeacemarshall.org
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Governors Lose peower struggle for National Guard
By Louis (Lou) Freitag on Jan 12, 2007 3:02:14 PM
The 10th ((Tenth) Amendment has been voided for the state national guard units to be taken away from the states. The presidency is making up their own law as they see fit and are breaking the law/laws to their own advantage.
Are our government people so ignorant they don't know that which they are creating? Is Congress as ignorant of the Constitution, Bill of Rights and spirit of the Declaration of Independence that they are willing to revert to a caste system for we the people?
We impeached the previous president because he lied of an affair with a 24 year old intern and let this president # 43 run the government as a family corporation. Are we on the verge of losing 50 different state constitutions to a big constitution in the country, made up anew?
Lou lfreitag@mchsi.com
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