Governors oppose Guard plan

~ The bill would allow the president to federalize a state's troops without the governor's consent.

Calling it an "unprecedented shift in authority," the governors of all 50 U.S. states are urging Congress to remove a provision in a bill that would allow the president to control the National Guard during and after national disasters.

The bill, which already has been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, would allow the president to federalize the National Guard without the consent of the governor. The bill is expected to be hashed out when Congress reconvenes in September.

"It would give very broad authority to the president to call up the Guard whenever he sees fit," said David Quam, director of federal relations for the National Governors Association. "The National Guard is the front line of defense at home. If they're taken outside the state for a national disaster and they're needed at home, it could cause real problems."

In a rare sign of complete bipartisan unity, all 50 governors -- including Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt -- earlier this month signed and sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. The letter said the governors strongly oppose the provision, which is included in the National Defense Authorization Act. The provision would authorize the president to take control of the Guard in case of "a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident, or catastrophe that occurs in the United States, its territories and possessions, or Puerto Rico."

The letter said the move would "usurp governors' authority" over the National Guard.

The provision was drafted without consultation or input from governors, said Blunt spokesman Spence Jackson. In fact, the wording in the bill was not discovered until this month, in part because no one told the governors about it, he said.

Jackson said the Guard was indispensable during he recent blackouts in St. Louis as well as when tornadoes swept across the state last spring. "That showed us how vitally important it is that the governor retains control of the National Guard," Jackson said.

Currently, National Guard troops can be used for federal disasters but not without the consent of a governor. Such activations are usually coordinated through the U.S. Department of Defense. Guard troops are being used at the federal level in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We've been very cooperative with the federal government with situations like Katrina relief and very supportive of the president's border-patrol policy," Jackson said. "But Gov. Blunt believes the authority needs to rest with him."

Quam said such a shift in the chain of command would also likely slow response times as different levels of government wrangled over control. "Disasters are local," he said. "The response times need to be local, and the authority needs to be local as well."

No one in the governors association has been able to determine where the provision originated, Quam said, whether from a member of Congress or at the suggestion of the Department of Defense. "No one seems to want to take ownership of it," he said.

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, voted for the bill. Emerson could not be reached for comment, but Emerson spokesman Jeffrey Connor said the overall aim of the bill was to authorize defense spending for the year. He said he did not know if Emerson supported the provision that would give the president power over the National Guard.

Missouri National Guard spokeswoman Capt. Tamara Spicer said local Guard commanders can't comment on the matter. "Our job is to follow whatever legislation is passed," she said. "We're watching it with interest to see what happens, but then we simply follow the direction of the legislation once it's passed."

Some have suggested that the bill gained traction in the weeks after Hurricane Katrina wiped out portions of Louisiana and Mississippi and criticisms were aimed at the government's ineffective response.

In testimony on Capitol Hill, Texas Gov. Rick Perry argued that the National Guard should not be automatically federalized after natural disasters. "If, from the president on down, we recognize the federal response was not adequate during Katrina," he testified, "does that inspire confidence that a greater federal role is the solution?"

In one published report, Retired Sgt. Maj. Frank Yoakum, legislative director for the Enlisted Association of the National Guard in Alexandria, Va., called the provision a "knee-jerk reaction" to Katrina that strikes him as a "political move."

"Fifty states, the territories and the District of Columbia sent 50,000 Guard troops to Louisiana and Mississippi after Katrina," he said. "They did it all within a week. That's the local people working with each other without any federal involvement whatsoever."

smoyers@semissourian.com

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