April 29, 2021–Due Process Institute and organizations from across the political spectrum wrote to urge Congress to pass the District of Columbia National Guard Home Rule Act (S. 30 + H.R. 657), sponsored by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC). Currently, a loophole in federal law allows for large-scale federalization of the National Guard to perform a domestic policing function without invoking the Insurrection Act or any other form of congressional authorization. The proposed S. 30 and H.R. 657 bills would close this loophole by reforming the command structure of the D.C. National Guard (DCNG) and transfer control over the DCNG from the president to the Mayor of Washington, D.C.
This new framework would allow the DCNG to principally operate under local control, just like every other National Guard organization in the country. Furthermore, the reforms would prevent future abuses of the president’s authority to deploy the military domestically, improve the Guard’s responsiveness to emergencies like the January 6 riot, and still preserve the president’s flexibility in a crisis.