This is by no means an expert or in-depth analysis of the laws, but my understanding of what they mean and how they apply to the current state of this country. This is long, and I apologize, but I feel it's important.
While I think of what I want to write about the Constitution and how it’s pretty obvious that the current President has no idea what it is or what is in it, I keep getting distracted by other things. One of these things is the Insurrection Act of 1805.
This is a piece of legislation that can give certain powers to the President that could be abused if said President is not the kind of person to put the needs of the people he serves above his own interests.
Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.
Why this is currently important and why it distracted me is that this is the excuse the President is threatening to use to intervene in the current civil unrest in cities like Portland, Oregon and other areas where protests against systematic police racism tipped over into violence. I was curious, as I am sure many are, as to whether he actually has the power to do this.
Unfortunately, it looks like he may well have that ability, but there are some things that can limit that power.
Let’s do some history here. The background of this act is actually really interesting. Do you know who is responsible for the creation of this act? Aaron Burr...yes, that guy...the guy who killed Alexander Hamilton.
In a nutshell, a disgraced Aaron Burr decided that since his political career was over in the newly formed United States of America, he’d grab his own piece of the continent to make a country of his own. The Insurrection Act was passed by Congress to give Jefferson the power to thwart him with Federal troops. He ended up not needing to do so, but he had the power just in case. You can read the entire story on the History.com website.
The Act has been amended a few times since then, and has been invoked 22 times in total. Out of those, only 6 times were not at the request of the state where there was some sort of unrest or violence. So, a vast majority of those times were the governors of that state reaching out to the President asking for the assistance of federal troops. And of the 6 that were not requested, most of those were race related and were to protect black citizens against things like the KKK and segregationists. The last time it was invoked was in 1992 by George H.W. Bush, by request of the state of California because of the Los Angeles Riots that happened after the police who used excessive force on Rodney King were acquitted.
So, could Trump possibly use it to quell rioting in places like Portland right now? It’s possible, but it won’t be easy for him.
There is another law, the Posse Comitatus (the ability of an officer of the law to conscript any able bodied man to assist him) Act which puts limits on the Insurrection Act. It states that
Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
Interestingly enough, The Heritage Foundation, a Conservative think tank provided me with the best explanation of how these two laws intersect and why the Use of 1807 Insurrection Act Should Be Last Resort for Quelling Out-of-Control Protests.
Some other interesting asides I stumbled upon while doing this research. You may know I am a bit of a data geek. I took a data analytics boot camp program at the University of Texas and, while I did struggle a bit (as I’m not a developer) I was fascinated by how data can be used to make sense of our world. Despite my troubled history with numbers...they never lie.
I found a website where data concerning political upheaval and other similar crises is aggregated and analyzed. This is a non-profit group called The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). According to their website “ACLED collects the dates, actors, locations, fatalities, and types of all reported political violence and protest events across Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Southeastern and Eastern Europe and the Balkans’”
However with recent events, they’ve got a special project going tracking the civil unrest here in the United States. The interesting things that their analysis shows is that first, the majority of protests have been peaceful:
And that in Seattle, Washington, when police backed off and left the protesters to assemble peacefully, there were no riots. The shaded part of this graph shows that period of time when police withdrew and protesters were left to assemble peacefully.
Their overall research did show some concerning information showing that riots were not quelled, but caused by law enforcement clashing with peaceful protests. I may do a separate blog post on this if I get a chance to analyze the data myself.
They are constantly monitoring the situation, but did publish a report at the end of August, which you can download as well.
So, that’s why it should be a last resort and why both governors and Congress will likely try to block the President using this power to deploy federal troops on American citizens.
While I think of what I want to write about the Constitution and how it’s pretty obvious that the current President has no idea what it is or what is in it, I keep getting distracted by other things. One of these things is the Insurrection Act of 1805.
This is a piece of legislation that can give certain powers to the President that could be abused if said President is not the kind of person to put the needs of the people he serves above his own interests.
Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.
Why this is currently important and why it distracted me is that this is the excuse the President is threatening to use to intervene in the current civil unrest in cities like Portland, Oregon and other areas where protests against systematic police racism tipped over into violence. I was curious, as I am sure many are, as to whether he actually has the power to do this.
Unfortunately, it looks like he may well have that ability, but there are some things that can limit that power.
Let’s do some history here. The background of this act is actually really interesting. Do you know who is responsible for the creation of this act? Aaron Burr...yes, that guy...the guy who killed Alexander Hamilton.
In a nutshell, a disgraced Aaron Burr decided that since his political career was over in the newly formed United States of America, he’d grab his own piece of the continent to make a country of his own. The Insurrection Act was passed by Congress to give Jefferson the power to thwart him with Federal troops. He ended up not needing to do so, but he had the power just in case. You can read the entire story on the History.com website.
The Act has been amended a few times since then, and has been invoked 22 times in total. Out of those, only 6 times were not at the request of the state where there was some sort of unrest or violence. So, a vast majority of those times were the governors of that state reaching out to the President asking for the assistance of federal troops. And of the 6 that were not requested, most of those were race related and were to protect black citizens against things like the KKK and segregationists. The last time it was invoked was in 1992 by George H.W. Bush, by request of the state of California because of the Los Angeles Riots that happened after the police who used excessive force on Rodney King were acquitted.
So, could Trump possibly use it to quell rioting in places like Portland right now? It’s possible, but it won’t be easy for him.
There is another law, the Posse Comitatus (the ability of an officer of the law to conscript any able bodied man to assist him) Act which puts limits on the Insurrection Act. It states that
Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
Interestingly enough, The Heritage Foundation, a Conservative think tank provided me with the best explanation of how these two laws intersect and why the Use of 1807 Insurrection Act Should Be Last Resort for Quelling Out-of-Control Protests.
Some other interesting asides I stumbled upon while doing this research. You may know I am a bit of a data geek. I took a data analytics boot camp program at the University of Texas and, while I did struggle a bit (as I’m not a developer) I was fascinated by how data can be used to make sense of our world. Despite my troubled history with numbers...they never lie.
I found a website where data concerning political upheaval and other similar crises is aggregated and analyzed. This is a non-profit group called The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). According to their website “ACLED collects the dates, actors, locations, fatalities, and types of all reported political violence and protest events across Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Southeastern and Eastern Europe and the Balkans’”
However with recent events, they’ve got a special project going tracking the civil unrest here in the United States. The interesting things that their analysis shows is that first, the majority of protests have been peaceful:
Click on the image to expand
And that in Seattle, Washington, when police backed off and left the protesters to assemble peacefully, there were no riots. The shaded part of this graph shows that period of time when police withdrew and protesters were left to assemble peacefully.
Click on the image to expand
Their overall research did show some concerning information showing that riots were not quelled, but caused by law enforcement clashing with peaceful protests. I may do a separate blog post on this if I get a chance to analyze the data myself.
They are constantly monitoring the situation, but did publish a report at the end of August, which you can download as well.
So, that’s why it should be a last resort and why both governors and Congress will likely try to block the President using this power to deploy federal troops on American citizens.
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