JEFFERSON CITY — Voters will soon decide whether the Missouri National Guard will operate as its own state department — a seemingly innocuous change that garnered little pushback as legislators placed the question on the Tuesday ballot.
Jacqueline Wood, contract lobbyist for the Missouri National Guard Association, said passage of Amendment 5 would remove a layer of bureaucracy from state government and give the National Guard more autonomy over its budget and legislative proposals.
The Post-Dispatch and the League of Women Voters of Metro St. Louis presentthis guide to the candidates and races on the Nov. 8 ballot.
The Guard is currently housed within the Department of Public Safety, one of eight divisions, including the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Gaming Commission, Capitol Police and Fire Marshal, among others.
But state Rep. Peter Merideth, a St. Louis Democrat and one of only two House legislators to vote against placing Amendment 5 on the ballot, said the amendment is unnecessary and raises “red flags.”
“What this looks like to me is they want to set up a state military force at the whim of the governor,” Merideth said.
He pointed to an amendment added on the House floor that says, in part, that the Guard will “protect the constitutional rights and civil liberties of Missourians, and provide other defense and security mechanisms as may be required.”
The Guard’s current state mission, as mentioned on its website, “is to provide trained and disciplined forces for domestic emergencies or as otherwise required by state law under the authority of the governor.”
“To change it from emergency response to protecting the constitutional rights of Missourians — I don’t think that’s the job of a military force at the discretion of the governor,” Merideth said. “That’s the job of the courts.”
He wondered whether the National Guard could be positioned at the Illinois border to block women from getting abortions, because state law says life begins at conception.
Merideth also referenced the state’s Second Amendment Preservation Act, which he said could also be a factor in the future role of the Guard.
“This is the same state that passed a law that says that all federal gun laws are unconstitutional and enforcement illegal,” Merideth said. “What’s to stop the National Guard from becoming a force against the federal government” if “a Republican governor decides that the federal government shouldn’t be allowed to enforce gun laws?”
Wood said the Guard already protects constitutional rights. And she referenced an existing provision in the state constitution that gives the United States government authority over the Guard.
“The governor shall be the commander in chief of the militia, except when it is called into the service of the United States, and may call out the militia to execute the laws, suppress actual and prevent threatened insurrection, and repel invasion,” the constitution says.
“The federal government can call the National Guard into service, and when they do that, the governor doesn’t have authority,” Merideth said. But, “Republicans in the last number of years have made very clear they don’t actually care about federal preemption.
“This seems like one more attempt to give them a tool in their toolbox to discard (federal) preemption and think they can do whatever they want in Missouri,” Merideth said.
“There are no additional powers, authorities, duties — anything to anyone,” Wood said.
State Rep. Lane Roberts, a Joplin Republican and a former director of the Department of Public Safety, was the only other “no” vote in the House for placing the question on the ballot. He said his “no” vote “was a matter more of reservation than opposition” and said he supports Amendment 5.
Roberts said, at times the state and local government “have a mission or an objective and sometimes they’re not the same.
“The director of public safety, being that on-the-ground, at-the-location decisionmaker, sometimes would have the ability to ensure that the decision is harmonious, rather than going to the governor who frequently can’t be on the ground all the time,” Roberts said.
“I could not point to any significant issue of that nature that’s happened at least while I’ve been here,” Roberts said. “But I could see the potential.”
The Post-Dispatch and the League of Women Voters of Metro St. Louis presentthis guide to the candidates and races on the Nov. 8 ballot.
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Jack Suntrup
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