President Donald Trump’s move to mobilize the National Guard in California against the wishes of the state’s governor is playing out in yet another court battle over constitutional powers.

In Washington state, Democrats have watched the events unfold with anxiety. Trump has fixated on Seattle’s chaotic protests in 2020, bringing them up during both presidential debates last year and greatly exaggerating their impact on the city.

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown called Trump’s moves reckless, political, and illegal, and promised to sue if it were to happen in Washington state.

“We’re seeing authoritarianism,” Brown told KUOW’s Soundside. “We’re seeing dictatorial behavior. We’re seeing that to suppress what the president believes is the opposition, and we’re seeing a disregard for the rule of law — all of which are characteristics of a fascist government.”

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The White House said in a statement Monday that “radical left lunatics are taking to the streets of Los Angeles — attacking law enforcement, hurling projectiles at police cruisers, burning vehicles, and shutting down freeways — because the Trump Administration is removing violent criminal illegal immigrants from their communities.”

Could the same thing play out in Washington state — particularly with a recently-passed law limiting how the National Guard can be deployed in Washington?

Rep. Sharlett Mena, a Tacoma Democrat, sponsored a bill earlier this year to limit how the National Guard can be deployed in Washington. House Bill 1321 states that “no armed military force from another state, territory, or district is permitted to enter the state of Washington for the purpose of doing military duty therein, without the permission of the governor, unless such force has been called into active service of the United States.”

In California, the president called up the National Guard under a rarely-used law giving him the authority to quell “a rebellion.” California Governor Gavin Newsom says Trump overstepped his authority.

Mena admits that, should the president “federalize” the National Guard, Washington’s governor has little legal power.

This bill was written to prevent other states’ troops — most likely red states — from entering under their own authority when they volunteer. The Department of Homeland Security has reportedly submitted a proposal to the Pentagon to ask governors for 20,000 volunteer National Guard troops for deportations.

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In those situations, states are often paying from their own budgets, States Newsroom reported last year. But that’s not the case if President Trump federalizes the National Guard.

“When the President federalizes the National Guard, the federal government is on the hook for the bill,” Mena said. “If you think about how many times can the President do something like this and foot the bill, it’s really meant to be a deterrent.”

The bill is not without skeptics. Rep. Jim Walsh of Aberdeen, chair of the state GOP, called it “not a bad bill, but kind of a pointless bill.”

On KUOW’s Sound Politics podcast in April, Paul Queary, publisher of the Washington Observer, said, “If the Idaho National Guard is massing in Coeur d’Alene, I don’t know that a state law is really going to help.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/06/09/could-trump-mobilize-washington-state-s-national-guard-if-immigration-raid-protests-break-out/