In 2006, governors across the U.S. strongly opposed a Bush administration measure tucked into a military bill that would let the president federalize the National Guard during domestic crises without state approval.
They argued it was an unprecedented power shift, especially as Guard resources were already depleted by the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina. As the governors wrote in a letter to Congress, it was “an unprecedented shift in authority from the governors as Commanders and Chief of the Guard to the federal government.”
Fifty-one governors, across party lines, urged Congress to reject the move, warning it undermined the Guard’s historic state-federal balance.
