States Gear Up for Fight to Keep the National Guard Out of War – By Steve Beynon (Military.com) / July 11 2021
At least 31 states have legislation on the table that aims to deny the president’s authority to deploy National Guardsmen to combat zones without a declaration of war, and supporters of the effort are eager for a Supreme Court battle to define who has ultimate control of state troops.
Dan McKnight, a veteran who heads the lobbying effort for the legislation through his Bring Our Troops Home organization, argues that Congress has been asleep at the wheel in its authority to declare war, ceding its powers to the White House. He said he is not against National Guard troops seeing combat, but thinks members of Congress should not be able to duck the decision.
He’s trying to change that by tapping state lawmakers to assert authority over troop deployments, a back door into a dilemma in which the U.S. has waged decades of war without a formal declaration since the 1950s. However, experts say that a grappling match with the Pentagon about its authority over troops is an uphill battle, and the effort faces steep odds in federal court.
“We’ll go and fight any war you ask us to do,” McKnight told Military.com. “All we ask is, if we raise our hand and swear an oath, you send us to a war declared by Congress.”
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