New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin joined a coalition Saturday of 24 attorneys general and governors in filing a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in support of Illinois against President Trump’s unlawful, unconstitutional, and undemocratic deployment of the National Guard without approval from the state’s governor. The coalition’s brief says the President’s actions break the law and threaten one of America’s most important principles — that the military must remain under civilian control — while also threatening state sovereignty and core constitutional principles of federalism.
In recent months, the Trump Administration has repeatedly ordered the National Guard into communities throughout the country to usurp the role of local law enforcement — first in California, then Washington, D.C., recently Oregon, and now Illinois. The coalition’s brief makes clear that this violates the Constitution and federal law.
“Judges across the country have made clear what is laid out in the Constitution – Trump’s domestic National Guard deployments are illegal,” said Attorney General Platkin. “The President is using our armed forces as his personal army, sending them into places that he has deemed insufficiently loyal or not politically aligned with him, acting no differently than authoritarians around the world. The courts must stop this blatant abuse of power and stand up for our democracy.”
Yesterday, although it allowed for the federalization of the Guard during the pendency of the stay request, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit denied the Trump Administration’s request for an immediate administrative stay of the portion of the district court’s decision that barred the deployment of any federalized National Guard in Illinois.
Attorney General Plaktin is calling on the court to deny the Trump Administration’s request for a broad stay pending appeal, which would allow troops to be deployed to Chicago. The brief urges the Court of Appeals to uphold the lower court’s ruling that stopped this encroachment by the Trump Administration, and to protect the balance of power between the states and the federal government.
Joining Attorney General Platkin in filing the brief are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai‘i, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The governors of Kansas, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania also joined the filing.
