Stitt's consistencies
Governor right in avoiding invasion of other states
Gov. Kevin Stitt got some good press last week by taking the right position. The New York Times featured him - as chairman of the National Governors Association - saying the deployment of the Texas National Guard to Illinois violates his view of federalism and states’ rights.
He became the first Republican governor to be critical of interstate use of National Guard troops over a governor’s objections, the Times noted. As President Donald Trump seeks to use military in states and cities, Democratic leaders are asking Republican governors to resist such action.
Stitt buys into Trump’s rhetoric that “blue cities” are lawless, but doesn’t believe governors ought to be pitted against governors. He argues that the Illinois National Guard should’ve been called up before troops in another state.
Sometimes, rationales from different places reach the same conclusion. It’s a way to find some common ground.
Trump’s approach is precedent setting, and Stitt recognizes that.
“Oklahomans would lose their mind if (Gov. JB) Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration,” Stitt told the Times.
Stitt says his position is consistent with previous resistance to what he views as other federal overreach, pointing to his objection to the Biden administration’s pandemic-era rules requiring vaccinations of troops and masking in certain areas. Oklahoma joined several lawsuits to stop such actions.
“As a federalist believer, one governor against another governor, I don’t think that’s the right way to approach this,” he told the Times.
Trump isn’t the first president to take over a state’s National Guard in defiance of a governor. He is the first president to do so since the Civil Rights era and under the broad reason of crime fighting.
The National Guard is a unique military branch in that it answers to state and federal governments. Though, the president can take control of the troops without agreement from a governor.
The troops are usually mobilized for emergencies, such as natural disasters or other domestic needs. During the pandemic, the Oklahoma National Guard assisted at testing and vaccination sites.
The Founding Fathers distrusted the idea of military power, spending a good deal of time debating the merits of a national army versus state militias. President George Washington relied heavily on state militias during the Revolutionary War and complained about the unreliability and fluctuating quality among the units.
Washington set the stage for the modern-day National Guard but also pushed for a strong national military. Congress passed the Militia Act of 1792 for presidents to mobilize and lead state militias. Washington became the first to use that authority when he gathered about 13,000 troops from four states to quell the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.
President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation three days after Confederate soldiers attacked Fort Sumpter in South Carolina to end the rebellion. The order called up 75,000 militia troops from different states and suspended the writ of habeas corpus. The move pushed some southern states to join the insurrection, but Lincoln continued to depend on militias throughout the Civil War.
It wasn’t until the Civil Rights era that presidents re-engaged the authority as governors defied orders from the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1957, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus refused to integrate the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas - the first test of the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education that found racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. President Dwight Eisenhower sent 1,200 Army soldiers into Little Rock to take command of the 10,000 National Guard troops who were blocking nine Black students from entering the school. Within days, those same National Guard soldiers escorted the “Little Rock Nine” safely into the school on Sept. 25, 1957.
President John F. Kennedy followed suit when taking control of the Mississippi National Guard in 1962 when the University of Mississippi refused to admit Black students and in the following year when Alabama Gov. George Wallace would not allow for the integration of the University of Alabama.
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson mobilized the Alabama National Guard to protect civil rights marchers going from Selma to the state’s capital of Montgomery in a three-day journey. The peaceful protestors, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., were previously attacked by Alabama State Troopers when approaching the Edmund Pettus Bridge outside Selma. Known as “Bloody Sunday,” the marchers were attacked with nightsticks, tear gas and whips, and American viewers watched footage on national television news. Three weeks later under the protection of National Guard troops, 2,000 protestors arrived in Montgomery.
That marked the last time a president mobilized the National Guard against a governor’s wishes.
The other times presidents mobilized the National Guard in a state, it was at the governor’s request. Those were: a four-day July 1967 riot in Detroit that left 43 people dead, 342 wounded and 1,400 buildings destroyed; several cities plunged into unrest after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968; the 1980 Cuban refugee crisis that required the assistance of the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve; and the 1992 Los Angeles riots that resulted in 60 people dead and more than $1 billion in property damage.
Trump broke recent tradition in June when sending California National Guard troops into Los Angeles in response to protests against his immigration efforts - a move opposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democratic foe. Trump put federal troops on Washington, D.C., streets for policing.
In Chicago, he deployed earlier this month 500 National Guard troops - 300 from Illinois and 200 from Texas - but a federal judge last week put that on temporary hold last week. The administration claims that lawlessness in the city and in Portland, Oregon, are interfering with immigration enforcement.
Trump has invoked flimsy arguments and evidence to mask his vengeance. Those cities were no more crime-ridden than many conservative-leaning cities.
A day after the Times story was published, Stitt released a video that attempted to strike a more conciliary tone with Trump, or at least provide more explanation. He said the White House called him, and he painted the conversation as productive and full of compliments. He spoke about Oklahoma’s “stings” to catch undocumented commercial truck drivers going through the state and his support to get “blue cities” in line.
He stressed being on board with Trump policies, but there’s a line. It’s reassuring to know he has a line, particularly when it comes to a president demanding unwavering loyalty. More Republicans ought to be publicly questioning this administration’s moves and motives.
Stitt didn’t change his underlying belief that governors not be pressured to invade other states. In this, he’s on the right side.
