House Democrats voted Friday to protect the Oregon National Guard from being used as law enforcement or deployed by the federal government without consent of the governor, as legal arguments over President Donald Trump’s ability to do that with the California National Guard continue.
Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, said he never wanted to introduce legislation like House Bill 3954, but that he considered it necessary to preserve longstanding traditions and legal precedent.
Evans, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force and Oregon Air National Guard who served in combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he didn’t know how many of his colleagues had ever been in a civil war or been shot at.
“What I do know is as somebody who has been in both of those circumstances, wars are never civil and chaos rules the day,” Evans said. “We live in a country that is hyperpartisan and divided. The only thing worse in that environment is putting local folks into the mix with ambiguity.”
The bill would prohibit Oregon’s adjutant general from working with the U.S. Defense Department or any military branches except on congressionally authorized missions or training. It also would expressly ban the Oregon National Guard from providing law enforcement or immigration enforcement.
And the measure would bar the adjutant general from allowing any National Guard members to be called into active service if doing so would leave the guard incapable of responding to statewide emergencies, such as wildfires, earthquakes and terrorist attacks.
Bill cosponsor Rep. Dacia Grayber, D-Tigard, held up a wildfire risk map on the House floor showing all of Washington and Oregon, much of northern California and most of Montana and Idaho as bright red. Fires are already burning, with more than 20,000 acres burned and 56 homes destroyed near The Dalles and in central Oregon.
Grayber, who works as a firefighter, said it was the first time in the 30 years that the National Interagency Fire Center has released that map that anyone can remember the northwest looking that bad.
“If all of this red is on fire, folks, I am here to tell you we are out of resources,” Grayber said. “We will be fighting for resources, because Washington could be on fire, Northern California could be on fire. And at those moments, in any moments where we are facing a natural disaster like that, and especially a wildfire, guess who we look to? We look to our National Guard.”
Evans, Grayber and Rep. Willy Chotzen, D-Portland, introduced the bill in April but it took on increased urgency in recent weeks, when Trump federalized the California National Guard to deploy troops to Los Angeles to respond to protests over immigration raids.
A three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that Trump likely had the authority to do so, rejecting an earlier decision from a federal district judge in California. Legal arguments are continuing.
The bill passed 32-16, with all Democrats voting for it and all Republicans opposed. No opponents spoke about the bill.