Who has power to call in national guard
Executive summary
Governors are the primary commanders-in-chief of their state National Guard and can call them up for state active duty under state law [1] [2]. The president also has statutory powers to federalize and deploy the Guard—most notably under Title 10 and, in narrow circumstances, the Insurrection Act—but those powers are limited, legally contested, and vary by duty status and jurisdiction [3] [4] [2].
1. Governors are the default commanders and the routine callers
Each state’s governor is the customary and constitutionally grounded commander-in-chief of that state’s National Guard and routinely orders Guard forces into state active duty for disasters, emergencies, and civil-support missions under state law and funding [1] [2]. Under State Active Duty status, Guardsmen remain under gubernatorial command and are not constrained by the Posse Comitatus Act in the same way federal troops are, allowing governors broad discretion to use the Guard for public-safety operations within their state [2] [5].
2. The president can federalize the Guard under Title 10 and other statutes, but not without limits
The president has authority to federalize National Guard units under Title 10 and related statutes to place them under federal command, a step that changes funding, control, and legal constraints and can permit domestic deployments in service of federal missions [3] [4]. That authority is not unlimited: federal deployment for domestic law-enforcement purposes is limited by statutes like the Posse Comitatus Act and doctrinal safeguards, and presidents historically have used Title 10 federalization sparingly because it removes state control [5] [6].
3. Title 32 is a hybrid that blurs who “calls” the Guard in practice
Title 32 status is a legal middle ground in which Guardsmen remain under state command but are paid and sometimes tasked for federally funded missions, a posture that has grown in prominence for domestic operations and can be requested by the federal government while legally remaining a state-controlled force [7] [5]. Deployments under 32 U.S.C. §502(f) have been used to fund and define operational missions while preserving state command—making the answer to “who called them” factually complicated because the federal government can request and finance forces that the governor still controls [7].
4. The Insurrection Act, Washington, D.C., and special-case exceptions
The Insurrection Act is the narrow statutory vehicle that authorizes the president to employ military forces, including possibly federalized Guard units, to enforce federal law, suppress insurrection, or restore order; invoking it can temporarily lift Posse Comitatus constraints but is legally fraught and politically explosive [2] [8]. The District of Columbia is an important exception: because the District is not a state, the president has distinct authority over its Guard arrangements and has exercised greater control there, a practice that has driven litigation and debate about interstate Guard deployments [3] [9] [10].
5. Law, litigation, and politics determine who gets the final say in practice
Statutory text, Supreme Court precedents, and recent high-profile deployments have shown that the theoretical authority to “call” the Guard can trigger litigation and political pushback—courts have been asked to review whether presidential federalizations or out-of-state deployments exceed legal limits, and scholars warn that expansive interpretations risk subverting Congress’s framework for domestic use of force [11] [7] [6]. The practical bottom line is that governors control their Guards day-to-day, the president can federalize or order deployments under specific statutes (Title 10, Insurrection Act), and Title 32 creates a hybrid that blurs operational ownership; each pathway is bounded by legal checks, political interests, and ongoing courtroom contests [2] [4] [5].