President Obama issued Executive Order 13528 on January 11, 2010 establishing a Council of Governors ostensibly “to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State governments to protect our Nation and its people and property.”
If history has taught us anything, it is to beware of “cooperative partnerships” between the federal government and states. They invariably result in an expansion of federal authority and reach at the expense of the states and a diminution of individual rights and freedoms in the name of the general welfare and national security. So-called “cooperative federalism” is a snare and a delusion. Read more here
One direct result of the new Council of Governors will be to provide the federal government more control of state National Guards, allowing the president to synchronize and integrate federal military operations within the United States. The total disregard for the Posse Comitatus Act within this order is one more erosion of restrictions against the use of the military for law enforcement.
More generally, the new Council of Governors establishes a bureaucratic transmission belt for the president to conscript state governors to act as agents of the federal government. Indeed, by establishing this council, appointed by the president and presided over by the Secretary of Defense, President Obama is asking governors to engage in the ultimate act of sovereign suicide in the name of “intergovernmental cooperation and coordination.” This council represents the ultimate in “intergovernmentalism,” a perversion of true federalism.
