NY Times: “A Tennessee judge on Monday temporarily blocked the deployment of the National Guard in Memphis, siding with state and local lawmakers who argued that Gov. Bill Lee had overstepped his constitutional authority in sending troops to the city.
The ruling adds to a tangled legal landscape regarding the deployment of National Guard troops in several American cities this fall, either by the Trump administration or at its behest. Local and state officials have pushed back against the use of troops in Democratic-led cities that President Trump has described as overrun by crime.
In Tennessee, seven elected officials went to state court and challenged Mr. Lee, a Republican who deployed the Guard after Mr. Trump said he wanted to crack down on crime in Memphis. Other cities, including Chicago and Portland, Ore., have had the backing of Democratic governors in opposing such deployments.
“The power committed to the governor as commander in chief of the Army and militia is not unfettered,” Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal of Davidson County Chancery Court wrote in her opinion. And, she wrote, “this case raises important questions concerning the use of the state’s military forces for domestic law enforcement purposes.””