The District of Columbia was always intended to be a Federal District. It was never a state, or anything like a state. It was a very tiny area between two actual states set aside as a federal site for the federal government.
The idea that any person in DC had any authority against the federal government was always a false idea. The permission of Nancy Pelosi was never required to call up the National Guard to ensure law and order inside the District of Columbia. That was make-believe law and the product of a dysfunctional Congress.
The President of the United States is the Chief Executive Officer of the federal government. So he/she outranks Nancy Pelosi in deciding how and when police power will be exercised inside the District of Columbia.
He/she does not need permission from Nancy Pelosi to deploy the National Guard in DC.
ON THE OTHER HAND —- the rule for actual states, like Oregon, is quite different.
Oregon, intrinsically has its own Executive authority, which most certainly CAN be asserted against the federal government. That is what the Founders contemplated in framing a government of STATES.
So the permission of the Governor of Oregon IS required before federal troops can be sent in to exercise police power in Oregon. Unless — there is a catastrophic national disaster — huge earthquake, or explosion of a large mountain, or massive flood, or asteroid impact — OR there is a total loss of civil order —- mass rioting that includes the vast majority of the local population.
Absent said extreme conditions, the Governor of an ACTUAL STATE (not a tiny set aside Federal District) IS required to bring in Federal police power.
DC never had adequate police power to control mass rioting at the local level. Nancy Pelosi was never in charge there, the President, who outranks her as a federal officer, always was in charge in DC (because of what DC is, and is not).
January 6 riot was an odd sort of loss of civil order. In fact it was closer to a trespass, and not even really that because the door to the Congress building was opened (from the inside) not broken through by outside “rioters”.
Again, the dysfunctional Congress was at the heart of the January 6 event.
Inside the Congress building there was a man with a badge and a gun who panicked and killed somebody because that man should never have had a badge or a gun.
The trespassers were shown around by the other guards. They harmed nobody. They went home. The event was just a show, not a real conflict of force. January 6 “riot” was a non-event that ruined the lives of many people, cost the government a huge amount of money, and was never traced back to the subversives inside the Congress who opened the door and let the “rioters” into the Congress building.
So, Portland and January 6 are extremely different on many points of fact and of law.
The Governor of Oregon is not at all in a make-believe position, of fake authority as was Nancy Pelosi. If he says “no” don’t not deploy here, Trump should pay attention. The Governor represents his state and we are a government of states.
Trump who never got over his TV show The Apprentice, likes to brandish his authority, even when he does not really have the authority. Trump is a pugnacious extremist, and a showman first and foremost. Everything is all about Trump’s exercise of his power. He likes attention on himself.
He is a show. Not a “quiet watch” President, as were many great Presidents (Washington, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and GW Bush).
So, people are not perfect. They have failings. The law cannot make that not be true. I have half a century of experience as a federal lawyer. You have no reason to read my posts if you don’t like them. So, just block me, and there, you see, it’s all good.
ROBERTFENTONGARY.com 