Texas Guard Deployment Wastes Taxpayer Money on Illegal Mission

I’m writing to object to your decision to send Texas National Guard troops to Illinois and Oregon at federal direction, wasting taxpayer money on a deployment that federal courts blocked as unconstitutional. The 7th Circuit ruled this mobilization “an incursion on Illinois’s sovereignty” and a likely violation of the 10th Amendment. Two hundred Texas Guard members spent over a month training at an Illinois base before returning home without accomplishing their mission. The rest remain stuck at Fort Bliss in El Paso. Texas taxpayers are funding troops who can’t perform their assigned duties because you prioritized presidential demands over legal authority and state interests. Just last year you called a Biden plan to transfer National Guard units an “intolerable threat” and wrote that you “strongly oppose any attempt to sideline governors when it comes to their respective National Guards.” Your 2016 essay defending states’ rights warned that “state leaders were supposed to have the power and opportunity to check any attempt by federal officials to overstep their bounds.” Even Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, a Republican, criticized your troop deployment, saying Oklahomans would “lose their mind” if Illinois sent troops to Oklahoma during a Democratic administration. You’re setting a precedent that will let future presidents you disagree with interfere in Texas affairs. Constitutional experts warn Texas will struggle to reverse the expanded federal powers you’re helping create. I’m calling on you to defend Texas sovereignty and stop wasting taxpayer money on legally blocked deployments that undermine the federalist principles you once championed.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​