I’ve started looking at the court cases seeking to block the Trump Administration’s deployment of National Guard troops in Portland and Chicago. A temporary restraining order was issued after a judge in Oregon found that the government had failed to comply with existing legal restrictions on such deployments.
Much of the evidence submitted to date in these cases is very revealing, and later today I’ll try to post some of the things that struck me as important.
In the meantime, here’s the introductory section of Oregon’s amended lawsuit, which came after Trump shifted gears and sent California Guard members instead of mobilizing the Oregon Guard.
It highlights the issues involved in the case.
And you can read the full amended complaint here.
Introduction to Oregon Amended Complaint against National Guard deployment by Ian Lind
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It sounds like there is rightfully a high legal bar for a president to unilaterally deploy national guard troops. Politics aside, can Trump successfully argue that American cities fallen so far into lawlessness as to warrant this intervention?
Here’s a thought experiment. Let’s set politics aside and talk about principle: Imagine that a future conservative state government, say, Idaho, has decided it will not protect abortion clinics, and local police are refusing to respond to threats or attacks on those clinics because they or their local leaders oppose abortion personally.
Violent anti-abortion mobs begin vandalizing the buildings, blocking patients, and threatening staff.
In response, a Democratic president orders federalized National Guard troops to protect Planned Parenthood facilities and Department of Health property, citing his constitutional duty to ensure federal laws and constitutional rights (such as access to reproductive health services) are upheld.
The state’s attorney general then sues, claiming “state sovereignty” and the Tenth Amendment were violated, arguing that law enforcement is purely a local power.
Interesting. But it’s a “straw man” type of argument in this instance.
The argument in this instance is not about state’s rights. It’s about whether the administration proved that the situation meets the legal criteria for taking the extraordinary step of sending in the National Guard or other military forces. And, as in so many court cases so far, the government failed the test.
The states and cities in the Oregon and Illinois cases piled on evidence showing conditions were nothing at all like an insurrection and very well within the normal range of conditions police are trained to deal with.
Pauly, you picked a very politically charged non-argument for someone who claims to be putting politics aside there. You would lose your mind if a Democratic president even thought about pulling one-tenth of what Trump has done. Whether the reasons were justified or not. Trump doesn’t base his decisions on principles of any kind except for what benefits Trump. Therefore any defense of him that makes comparisons based on principle is irrelevant to the discussion. He’s lying about his reasons for doing what he is doing and once you know that nothing else should matter.