Who Controls Your State? The Federalism Fight Washington Started

GrantOkay, so get this. On June 7, 2025, a President of the United States did something that had never happened in American history.

MayaNever. Not once.

GrantTrump invoked a federal statute

Mayato Wow.

Grantseize control of California's National Guard over Governor Newsom's explicit objection. 4,000 troops pulled from state command.

MayaAnd Newsom sued the next day. Courts ultimately ruled the whole deployment illegal. But the fight cracked open questions about federal power that don't have clean answers.

GrantThat's Power Check. I'm Grant.

MayaAnd I'm Maya. Today's episode is basically a guided tour of how federal authority over states is being stress tested right now across three fronts.

GrantFront one, the National Guard. Can the president take your state's military? We dig into the constitutional plumbing and the Supreme Court's six to three emergency ruling on Illinois. that didn't actually set binding precedent.

MayaJumping in, Front Two, money." The Administration froze roughly ten billion dollars in congressionally approved Social Service funding to five Democratic-led states in January, twenty twenty six, citing fraud. We look at where the Spending Clause line actually sits.

GrantPlayfully, and then, wait for it, Front Three, elections. PBS News got hold of a seventeen page draft The draft executive order that would declare a national emergency and federalize the twenty twenty six midterms? Trump denied it. Then he signed a different order on March thirty first that courts are already blocking.

MayaRight, so we cover the draft, the real one, and what UCLA's Rick Hasen called "virtually impossible to implement before November.

GrantPlus our check or no check closer-our courts, Congress and public opinion. In actually doing their jobs here?

MayaRight. So buckle up. Let's get into it, starting with the moment that started everything, June 7th, Los Angeles.

GrantJune seventh twenty twenty five-write that date down!

MayaOkay, why are we writing it down?

GrantBecause on that day, for the first time in American history, a President invoked a federal statute called ten USC one two four o six to take control of a state's National Guard over the governor's explicit objection. According to the governor of California's office: That has never happened before, not once.

MayaNot even close to once?

GrantNot in two hundred and fifty years; and the statute he used? Legal experts described it as genuinely obscure; it had only been invoked once before, by Nixon in nineteen seventy during a postal strike, and back then the governor asked for it.

MayaSo what actually happened on the ground?

GrantSo get this: Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth transfer It transferred four thousand members of California's National Guard, roughly one in three of the entire active force, to federal command, deployed them to the streets of Los Angeles in a civilian law enforcement role. Governor Newsom didn't ask, he said no-didn't matter.

MayaOne in three of the whole force!

GrantYeah, yeah, yeah. And here's the structural thing that makes this wild: in normal times,

MayaUh huh.

Grantgovernors are the commanders in chief of their Of their own State National Guards-that's how it works-these are state soldiers.

MayaRight; until the Federal Government says otherwise.

GrantAnd that's where it gets good, because California sued immediately. Oregon sued. Illinois sued after Trump sent Texas National Guard troops into Chicago without Illinois's consent. Three governors, three lawsuits, all in months.

MayaAnd the courts?

GrantA federal judge in California ruled in August 2025, after a full bench trial, that the L.A. deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act. That's the law barring the military from domestic law enforcement.

MayaSo a court said it was flat out illegal?

GrantFlat out illegal." The ruling was put on hold pending appeal.

Speaker 3Yeah.

GrantEventually the Supreme Court weighed in on the Illinois case. Trump dropped the California deployment on December 31st, 2025; troops went home.

MayaOkay, but here's the thing I keep coming back to: if courts ultimately said "no," what took so long? And what actually in the law let this get as far as it did?

GrantThat's the question. What does the statute actually require? Choir: What did the Administration argue, and why did some courts initially say the President might be right?

MayaSounds like we need to crack open the constitutional fine print.

GrantWe absolutely do. So the judge ruled it illegal, but why? That's the question I kept circling back to.

MayaRight, and there are actually two separate legal fights stacked on top of each other here. The first is the Posse Comitatus Act, which we touched on. The second is something called the Anti-Commandeering Doctrine, and that one is where it gets philosophically interesting.

GrantOkay, walk me through it, plain language.

MayaSo the core idea goes back to 1997. In Printz v. United States, Congress had passed the Brady Bill, gun background checks, and told local sheriffs to run the checks while the federal system got built. Supreme Court said no, you cannot conscript state officers to carry out a federal program.

GrantSo local sheriffs sued over gun background checks and that became the foundational case for National Guard federalization decades later.

MayaI know, right? The doctrine cuts in all directions. It came from a conservative court protecting conservative sheriffs from a Democratic Congress. Now it's protecting Democratic governors from a Republican president.

GrantWhich tells you something about why structural protections actually matter independent of who's in power.

MayaExactly. And the principle is clean. The federal government can set its own agenda, but it cannot conscript state officers as the muscle. You want something done, you use your own people.

Speaker 4Mm-hmm.

MayaHmm.

GrantSo where does the cross-state deployment fit? Because sending Texas Guard troops into Illinois without Illinois' consent, that felt like a whole different level.

MayaIt is a different level. According to the Supreme Court brief filed by Illinois, federalizing Texas troops to occupy another state is something Congress has never explicitly authorized. The brief called it unprecedented in modern law.

GrantSo, we're now... Now making law by doing things and seeing if courts stop us.

MayaThat is a pretty accurate description, yeah. And the Supreme Court in December 2025 blocked the Chicago deployment six to three, saying the administration had not identified a source of authority that would allow the military to execute laws in

Speaker 3How?

MayaIllinois.

GrantSix to three on an emergency docket. That's not a close call.

MayaThough the dissenters Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch. It's pushed back hard; and, crucially, that ruling does not set binding precedent; it was an emergency application.

GrantHmm. So the courts pumped the brakes on the military lever. But here's the thing: military force is just one way to pressure a state. There's a quieter tool that's been running in parallel the whole time.

MayaThe money.

GrantThe money. And that fight has a whole different legal framework behind it. So the Guard story hits you emotionally, soldiers in American cities, but there's a quieter lever the administration has been pulling that's maybe just as aggressive:

MayaMoney!

GrantMoney. Back in January, 2026, HHS sent letters to five states—California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York-all Democratic-led-freezing roughly $10 billion in congressionally approved social service funding-TANF, child care grants, and the Social Services Block Grant-gone, pending compliance with new demands.

MayaAnd CBS News confirmed all five states were Democratic-led. Not a coincidence, according to the states.

GrantThe Administration cited fraud concerns.

MayaHmm.

GrantNow, there was a real fraud scandal in Minnesota, no question, but HHS didn't present specific evidence of fraud in the other four states.

MayaRight, so you've got one state with documented problems, and four others get swept into the same freeze without explanation. That's the part that raises constitutional alarms.

GrantOkay, so walk me through the legal theory-because this is different terrain from the Guard stuff. Stuff.

MayaYeah, so the Spending Clause, Article I, Section 8, lets Congress attach conditions to federal money. That's totally settled. The question is where the line sits between a condition and a gun to the head.

GrantAnd there's actually a case on that.

MayaYeah, NFIB v. Sebelius, the 2012 Obamacare ruling, most people remember it for the individual mandate, but buried in there is a Spending Clause holding that matters here. here. The Supreme Court said threatening to yank all existing Medicaid funding unless states accepted a brand new program-that crossed from cooperation into coercion, which violates the Tenth Amendment.

GrantSo a condition on how you use the money you're getting-fine line-threatening to pull money you've already counted on to force unrelated compliance-that's the line.

MayaExactly. And what states are arguing now is that the $10 billion for dollar freeze looks a lot more like that second category. Congress approved those funds; the executive branch is holding them hostage over new requirements Congress never authorized.

GrantThere's also a Center on Budget reporting angle here. They noted the administration failed to identify specific noncompliance before pulling the trigger which federal regulations actually require.

MayaA court did temporarily block the freeze, so the legal system caught it, for now. But grant here's what's worth noting, the Guard story used military force; this one uses a spreadsheet.

GrantSame pressure, different tool; and neither of those leave state election machinery untouched; but what happens when the Administration goes after the ballot itself, because that is exactly where we're headed next.

MayaThat's where this whole pattern lands. Stay with us.

GrantOkay, so the funding freeze was a pressure tool. This is different. This goes straight for the ballot.

MayaAnd Trump basically telegraphed it himself! He posted on Truth Social in February, there will be voter ID for the midterm elections, whether approved by Congress or not.

GrantWhether approved by Congress or not. Just said it out loud.

MayaRight out loud! So there are actually two things to separate here. First, a 17-page draft executive order that PBS News revealed... is reviewed in full, it would declare a national emergency over alleged foreign election interference, and effectively hand the federal government control over the 2026 midterms.

GrantHand-counted paper ballots nationwide every one of the 211 million registered voters re-registering in person with citizenship documents.

MayaEvery. Single. One.

GrantEvery. Single. One. But Trump denied even considering it when PBS asked him directly.

MayaSo that's the draft. Then, on March 31, he signs an actual order, narrower but still real: it directs DHS and Social Security to build a federal citizen voter list, and restricts USPS from delivering mail ballots to anyone not on a pre-approved list.

GrantWait, so the Postal Service is now a gatekeeper for who gets a ballot?

MayaAccording to NPR's reporting, yeah. And courts had already blocked parts of a 2025 elections order on the exact exact same constitutional grounds.

GrantWhich brings us to Article 1, Section 4. States set the times, places, and manner of federal elections. Congress can override that. The President? Nowhere in that sentence.

MayaAnd Brookings quoted UCLA election law expert Rick Hasen saying the rulemaking alone makes implementation virtually impossible before November, and that's if courts don't block it first, which they already have. Have partly.

GrantA DC District Court judge ruled in January that provisions of the twenty twenty five order cannot lawfully be implemented; her words, 'Our Constitution does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes to federal elections procedures.'

MayaSo the Guard couldn't hold; the funding freezes in court; now the ballot structure itself is being contested. Grant, there's a pattern here.

GrantEvery lever, every time a legal check appears. as the administration moves to the next one.

MayaAnd here's the strange part: the loudest voices defending states' authority over elections right now, Democratic secretaries of states. Arizona's Adrian Fontes called it a disgusting overreach.

GrantWhich is wild, because 10 years ago, states' rights and election law was almost exclusively a conservative argument.

MayaThe doctrine didn't move. The power did. And that inversion honestly is worth sitting with a minute.

GrantIt really is. That's exactly where we're going next. Switching gears a bit here. So here's something genuinely wild about everything we've been talking about.

MayaHit me.

GrantFor like 40 years, states' rights and the 10th Amendment were almost exclusively conservative arguments used to fight federal civil rights enforcement. The Affordable Care Act, environmental regulations, that was the playbook.

MayaAnd now Gavin Newsom is invoking the 10th Amendment. Come on.

GrantRight—the ideological jersey swap is total!

MayaAnd look, I don't think it's pure hypocrisy—the legal doctrine doesn't belong to either party; whoever holds federal power historically gravitates toward more federal power, that's just the physics of it.

GrantAnd that's actually where I land. Governors are using the legal tools correctly, regardless of who's holding them; the doctrine either means something or it doesn't.

MayaMm-hmm. Okay, but I have to push back a little. Some of these same governors were not exactly champions of federalism when they wanted federal COVID relief money or climate funding. That's a real tension.

GrantFair point.

MayaAnd the numbers back this up being bigger than partisan opinion. According to States United polling, less than a quarter of Americans think the president should be able to deploy the National Guard in a state without the governor's consent. Wow. Less than a quarter.

GrantLess than half of Republicans agreed with it even.

MayaThat is not a partisan split. So the public is actually ahead of the political class on this.

GrantThey understand the structural problem even if the politicians are playing team sports. Exactly,

Mayaand that brings us back to the question this whole episode keeps circling: does the doctrine actually hold regardless of who's invoking it? Here's my honest answer:

Grantthe principle is sound; any party that uses federal muscle to override states when it's convenient, the principle is sound; any party that uses federal muscle to override states when it's convenient, and then screams federalism when it's not, is being inconsistent.

MayaAgreed, and inconsistency is a bipartisan tradition at this point.

GrantIt really is. So the real test isn't who's saying the right thing right now.

MayaIt's whether the mechanisms are actually holding the line. Courts, Congress, public opinion. Are those checks working?

GrantAnd that is exactly the question I want to spend our last segment on, because the answer is complicated. And honestly, yeah,

MayaIt's not as reassuring as you'd hope.

Grantnot quite. So, check or no check, courts, Congress, public opinion, do any of these mechanisms actually work?

MayaUgh. Courts first. They've done the heavy lifting. Permanent injunctions in Oregon, the Ninth Circuit returning California's Guard to state control, three federal courts blocking provisions of the elections orders. By any measure, that's a functioning check.

GrantYeah, and the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling in Trump v. To be Illinois last December was real. The court told the Administration it had failed to identify a source of authority to deploy troops there. That's not a technicality.

MayaNo, it's not. But here's my hesitation; that was an emergency docket ruling, no binding precedent. The case is still working through the courts—one shift in the lineup and those lines redraw.

GrantYeah. Partial check for me. Courts are holding, but they're not supposed to. It's supposed to be the whole answer, and that brings me to Congress, which has basically been a spectator.

MayaA very comfortable spectator.

GrantThe SAVE America Act, stalled in the Senate, rejected as an amendment forty eight to fifty. No meaningful hearings on the Guard federalizations or the funding freezes have produced actual binding action. Zero.

MayaZero. And look, congressional inaction isn't neutral. When the legislature goes quiet on executive overreach, it signals that the behavior is acceptable. That silence has consequences.

GrantPointedly, courts can block individual moves; they cannot fill a democratic accountability gap. That's Congress's job.

MayaSo my verdict? Fragile check. The courts are the only wall right now, and a one vote shift at the Supreme Court could redraw every line we've talked about today. The Guard, the funding, the elections?

GrantAnd the live test case is sitting right there. The 2026 midterms. Federalized voter lists. USPS mail ballot restrictions. A draft emergency order still floating around. Everything we covered today converges on November.

MayaIf those elections run under contested Federal rules and courts are still litigating the authority behind them while ballots are being cast,

GrantWow!

Mayathat's not a hypothetical any more.

GrantNo, it's THE scenario.

MayaSo—check or no check?

GrantPartial check. Structurally stressed.

MayaFragile check-one ruling away from no check at all.

GrantOkay, so what a week to be paying attention.

MayaRight? We covered a lot of ground, Grant.

GrantThe thing that keeps sticking with me is that moment you flagged about the anti commandeering doctrine, conservative legal architecture now being protected by Democratic governors.

MayaYeah, Printz v. United States, nineteen ninety seven, basically showing up to do the thing it was designed to do, just not for the side that designed it.

GrantWhich is kind of the whole point of structural protection.

Speaker 3Exactly; they only matter if they hold,

Mayaregardless of who's in power. That's the takeaway this week:

Speaker 3That's the takeaway this week: the rules have to mean something independent of the moment.

MayaIf this episode helps you understand something about how that actually works, share it with one person who'd care.

Speaker 3Follow us wherever you listen, and leave a review if you want to help others find the show.

MayaThanks for being here. We'll see you next week.

Speaker 3Stay curious.