Whoops...
Palin's "Commander In Chief" Position Stripped By Bush
September 3, 2008 11:20 AM
Republicans have touting Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's service as "commander in chief" of the state's National Guard as proof of her foreign policy chops. Democrats and other observers countered that while a governor can command the Guard in local emergencies, he or she has no say at all when it comes to foreign deployments.
As it turns out -- according to both conservatives and liberals -- U.S. governors were stripped of crucial discretion over their National Guard units at home for a good part of Palin's first term.
A clause from National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 amended the Insurrection Act, handing President George W. Bush expanded power to declare martial law and take over Guard troops without a governor's assent. Passed by the Congress and signed by the president more than a month before Palin took office in December 2006, critics on both sides of the aisle deemed it a federal power grab.
"Governors' control of the National Guard can be trumped with a simple presidential declaration," the American Conservative wrote.
Democrat Pat Leahy of the Senate Judiciary Committee agreed, saying: "The changes to the Insurrection Act will allow the President to use the military, including the National Guard, to carry out law enforcement activities without the consent of a governor."
The issue even kicked off a debate inside Alaska, with state Rep. Bob Roses sponsoring a resolution to ask Congress to "reconsider a 2006 law granting the White House more authority over National Guard troops," according to an Anchorage Daily News article from April 18, 2007. The paper ended its article by noting that "a spokesperson for Gov. Sarah Palin said she supports the resolution," presumably because Palin agreed that her authority over the Guard had been negatively impacted.
After Leahy teamed up with Republican Sen. Kit Bond, Congress repealed the 2007 changes to the Insurrection Act, effectively undoing the federal encroachment over governors' National Guard authority. But between the time she was sworn in on Dec. 4, 2006 and the time H.R. 4986 was signed by President Bush on Jan. 28, 2008, all U.S. Governors -- Palin included -- theoretically had even less authority over their state Guard units than they do today.
huffingtonpost.com |
