Northwestern University legal and political science experts are offering analysis as the Supreme Court considers Trump v. Illinois, a case focused on the Trump administration’s attempt to deploy National Guard troops to Illinois over objections from state and local officials, including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.
Paul Gowder, professor of law at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, commented on the constitutional and statutory issues at stake. “The greatest fear of the nation’s founders was a standing federal army operating domestically to dominate the people. That’s why two of the foundational principles of our government are the superiority of civilian over military authority and the independent sovereignty of the states. But because sometimes crises require robust federal action, the Constitution gives Congress — not the President — a limited power to specify the conditions under which those principles may be temporarily set aside. Congress has exercised that power by passing statutes specifying the conditions under which the President may call the National Guard into domestic service.
“If we’re to be a nation of laws rather than a military regime, then those statutes must be obeyed, and the courts must be empowered to judge whether the conditions Congress has set in those statutes are satisfied,” Gowder said.
Jaime Dominguez, associate professor of Instruction in political science at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences, discussed how this case relates to federalism and executive power. “This case will further mitigate the interpretation of federalism and the limits of expansion of executive power under the Trump administration. It will test the definition of state rights and state sovereignty over law enforcement matters. We will see if the Supreme Court allows the president to use the military as his personal army to go after and punish those states and their elected leadership that don’t capitulate to Trump’s political demands.”
Other Northwestern faculty available for comment include Daniel Rodriguez, Harold Washington Professor of Law; Nadav Shoked, professor of law; and Heidi Kitrosser, William W. Gurley Professor of Law. Their expertise covers topics such as statutory authority for deploying National Guard troops, powers over police forces among different levels of government, and cities’ roles in immigration policy.
To contact any professors for further insight on these issues, media inquiries can be directed to Shanice Harris at shanice.harris@northwestern.edu.