2024-03-18 10:33:39
An Idaho bill making its way through the Legislature called the “Defend the Guard Act” could threaten funding and resources for the Idaho National Guard, the military unit’s commanding general says.
Equipment, funds and pay for 5,000 Idaho National Guard personnel “are endangered by this proposal,” Maj. Gen. Michael Garshak, the adjutant general of the Idaho National Guard, wrote in a March 6 letter to a state lawmaker, obtained by the Idaho Capital Sun.
The proposed legislation, Senate Bill 1252, would require Congress declare war, or an invasion or insurrection, to deploy Idaho National Guard troops for active duty combat. The Idaho National Guard’s primary focus, Garshak wrote, is to train for “its federal mission of fighting and winning the nation’s wars.”
But some Idaho senators – including the bill’s sponsor Sen. Ben Adams, R-Nampa – doubt the act would defund the Idaho National Guard. The bill could come up for an Idaho House committee hearing in the coming days. The Senate passed the bill earlier this month in a 27-8 vote.
“If Idaho were to limit by state law when and if the appropriate federal authority could call on the Guard for federal combat or (Defense Support of Civil Authorities) missions, we believe Idaho would lose federal missions, equipment, and funding. The impact on funding could be as much as hundreds of millions annually,” Garshak wrote, echoing concerns he’s had over years of similar bills proposed in Idaho.
But Adams, who sponsored this year’s legislation and previous iterations, says the bill wouldn’t result in the Idaho National Guard being defunded.
Idaho Sen. Ben Adams, R-Nampa, works from the Senate floor at the State Capitol building on Jan. 9, 2023. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun)
“Congress holds the purse strings. And a member of our own congressional delegation is the third highest ranking member on the Appropriations Committee in Congress. You will not see him or any member of Congress defund their respective states’ National Guard,” Adams told Idaho senators in floor debate on March 4.
Idaho’s bill is model legislation by a group called Defend the Guard, Adams told the Sun. No Defend the Guard bills have become law, Adams said. The Arizona Senate in March 2023 was the first legislative body to pass the bill, the group’s website says.
If Idaho’s bill is approved by the Legislature, Adams previously told the Sun, “it would start a ripple effect around the country” and would impact Congress.
Defend the Guard Act would target war powers
Proponents see the Defend the Guard Act as a way to rein in what some call unconstitutional federal war powers, since Congress hasn’t formally declared war since World War II.
But critics worry the bill could limit the Idaho National Guard, which officials say is mostly federally funded.
Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Winder, R-Boise, called Garshak’s concerns valid in an interview with the Idaho Capital Sun. But Winder said “we didn’t feel like they would be defunded.” The Idaho National Guard, he said, would still be able to do its job, receive national funds and provide training.
“We’re not trying to kill the guard, by any means. We support them and respect and admire them for their honorable service, and the fact that they’ve had the courage to go around the world into combat zones, when called upon,” Winder told the Sun. “But there’s a broader issue, and that is the authority of the federal government — and particularly the president of the United States — to move our young men and women around the world and put them in harms’ way without a declaration of war.”
To become law, the bill must pass the Idaho House and avoid Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s veto. Winder told the Sun “there’s yet a lot of work to be done” on the bill, noting some opposition in the House. And Winder said he didn’t know if Little would sign the legislation into law.
When the bill came to the Idaho Senate on March 4, Sen. Geoff Schroeder, R-Mountain Home, told senators he worried about how it would affect the Idaho National Guard. But as Schroeder debated against the bill, he said defunding wouldn’t happen.
Idaho Sen. Geoff Schroeder, R-Mountain Home, listens to proceedings at the State Capitol building on Jan. 9, 2023. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun)
“They’re not going to defund the guard. I get that. That’s absolutely correct,” Schroeder said on the Senate floor. “They don’t have the ability. They don’t have the authority to do it.”
But, he said, “what absolutely will happen” is that officials in the Department of Defense, working to anticipate threats and conflicts, will say, “‘Well, there’s a state that we’re not going to have assets available to mobilize in case we need to get started ahead of time.”
“I really hope that one of these days, Congress asserts its constitutional sole authority to declare war. And I think we need to really, really send a message to them to do that. But I think this has an unintended consequence that’s dangerous, and that I think affects an organization that I spent 21 years in. That I shed tears over. An organization that’s probably one of the best things that’s ever happened to me,” said Schroeder, who served in the Idaho National Army Guard. “That I love.”
He voted against the bill.
Consensus among military leaders on ‘inevitable impacts’ of Defend the Guard
Garshak hadn’t yet sent a letter opposing this year’s bill before the Senate debate. But Adams, on the Senate floor, refuted Garshak’s arguments and accused the top-ranking military official of being a messenger for a bureaucrat.
“I don’t know who he reached out to. I do know that the letter that he sent is almost exactly the same letter that every state has received when trying to implement similar legislation,” Adams told the Sun in an interview.
“That leads me to believe that it’s coming from a common source. He reports to the National Guard Bureau, which is under the Department of Defense,” said Adams, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps for almost six years.
Lt. Col. Christopher Borders, public affairs officer the Idaho National Guard, said Garshak “has not been in contact with” the National Guard Bureau on the bill. He said Garshak’s “thoughts are his own military opinion and advice.”
“There is a general consensus among the 54 adjutants general with regard to what they see as the inevitable impacts of Defend the Guard. That’s it,” Borders said.
Garshak’s concerns aren’t new. Garshak has shared those concerns with Adams in letters in previous years, Adams and Borders told the Sun.
Gov. Brad Little promoted Maj. Gen. Michael Garshak on April 4, 2019, at the Capitol. Garshak serves as the 25th adjutant general of Idaho and as the commanding general of the Idaho National Guard. (Master Sgt. Becky Vanshur/U.S. Air National Guard)
“The president acting through the Secretary of Defense could very well withdraw National Guard funding from a state if the state fails to comply with federal law. And federal law does not grant governors the authority to object to the federal activation of the National Guards for overseas contingency,” Borders told the Sun.
The Idaho National Guard is Idaho’s fourth largest employer, Garhsak wrote.
“There would be an immediate and devastating economic impact to the State if the Idaho National Guard lost force structure and funding provided by the federal government,” Garshak wrote.
The Idaho National Guard’s federally provided resources, equipment and training funds allow Idaho National Guard employees “to develop the capabilities to respond to state emergencies here in Idaho,” Borders said.
The Idaho governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Idaho National Guard officials plan to testify on bill before House committee
Adams said that his bill allows leeway for training. Adams told the Sun all the concerns “are circumstantial.” But he said the Constitution, in Article One, Section 8, is “clear on how warfare is supposed to be conducted.”
“If we do not follow the law, the consequences are dire. That leads to tyranny or anarchy. Both are equally devastating,” Adams told the Sun. “What we have is fragile. So if I’m betting — if I have to choose between the force structure of the United States Department of Defense or the U.S. Constitution, I pick the U.S. Constitution every time.”
Garshak wrote that “there is still a check on the president’s ability to send troops overseas,” noting that Congress authorized military operations. And he noted recent conflicts “are between non-nation state terrorist groups and the United States as opposed to sovereign nations as the Constitution contemplated.”
The Idaho National Guard is funded 95% by the federal government, Borders told the Sun. Only 28 people of the Idaho National Guard’s over 5,000 workforce are funded by Idaho, Garshak wrote.
“Our office has been provided no evidence to the contrary,” Borders told the Sun. “The (Department of Defense) has made it abundantly clear in U.S. Code that they will take resources and reallocate them to states that are able to remain accessible to the Department of Defense.”
Borders said Idaho National Guard officials plan to testify in an expected House committee hearing on the bill. He said they were originally unaware the legislation was advancing this year in the Legislature and didn’t know the Senate was voting on it. Adams said he had sent Garshak a copy of this year’s bill before it was publicly introduced in late January.
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