The National Guard has been deployed in the nation’s capital for more than a year, but there is still an ongoing legal battle about whether President Donald Trump had the authority to call in the troops.
An Oct. 14 hearing before a three-judge appeals panel addressed the president’s power and continued the year-long debate on the effect of the troops on the city’s crime rate. Attorneys for the D.C. government say the troops breed mistrust among local residents. The administration points to lower crime rates.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled last November that Trump overstepped his authority when he deployed the guard as part of a plan to address crime in Washington. Cobb said the deployment “infringed upon the District’s right to govern itself and to make its own decisions” about how best to deal with crime.
The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit paused that ruling while the case was being litigated, and the troops have remained in the city.
“By any measure, that has been a striking success, with even the D.C. mayor acknowledging the dramatic decrease in violent crime since the deployments began,” government attorney Eric McArthur told the court.
He argued that Trump has the authority to deploy the guard since he is commander-in-chief, and that Congress delegated him a power similar to what a state’s governor would possess through the 1889 D.C. Militia Code.
U.S. Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard asked McArthur to clarify just how much power that meant.
“And how does that not just collapse into federalizing [the D.C. National Guard]?” she asked.
D.C. attorney Mitchell Reich argued that, under the Militia Code, the president is only allowed to deploy the guard under very specific circumstances such as “invasions, insurrections, riots, and other breaches of the peace,” not just “in any circumstance the president deems proper.”
In addition to resident concerns about troops walking around in neighborhoods and near schools, the deployment is also costing the city money, Reich argued. “Vulnerable residents” are afraid to go about their daily lives, which has resulted in less economic activity and less tax revenue, he told the court.
Apart from that, there is an ongoing cost of local law enforcement coordinating with the National Guard, he said, and the district won’t be able to recover that money.
Circuit Judge Judith Rogers was skeptical of that last claim.
In the district, “there are 49 heads of agencies and operations that you have to coordinate with to do anything,” she said. “That’s where it’s hard to see that mere cost of communicating and coordinating is irreparable harm. That’s part of life in D.C.”
Mayor Muriel Bowser came under fire last year for not pushing back harder against the deployment.
Shortly after the operation began last August, she said the influx of troops resulted in a drop in crime, noting that within 20 days, carjackings had dropped 87 percent compared to the same period the previous year.
“We know that when carjackings go down, when the use of guns goes down, when homicide or robbery go down, neighborhoods feel safer and are safer,” Bowser said. “So this surge has been important to us for that reason.”
Trump had declared a crime emergency in the district on Aug. 11 and instituted a 30-day federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department, in addition to calling in the National Guard.
Those actions were possible through the 1973 Home Rule Act, which gave the District of Columbia some degree of self-autonomy, but still allowed Congress and the president a measure of control over its affairs.
In what she said was part of a strategy to end the federal emergency, Bowser signed an order extending cooperation between local law enforcement and the federal government last September.
Her positive comments about the troop surge and subsequent drop in crime met with pushback from Trump’s opponents. During a protest last August, residents marched through the streets mixing anti-Trump slogans with chants of “Recall Bowser!”
The mayor announced a few months later that she would not run for reelection.
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