The discussions are preliminary, The New York Times reported, as some see a doomsday type scenario where a future rogue President may attempt to use the military to stroke an insurrection. However, others worry about removing the command of a President to quickly deploy armed troops, as Presidents did in the Civil War and civil rights eras.
Donald Trump never invoked the law as President. Though he threatened to use it against demonstrators in Lafayette Square who were objecting to the police slaying of George Floyd.
Trump adviser Stephen Miller proposed invoking it for use at the southern border, though then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper shot that notion down.
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The Insurrection Act of 1807 enables the President to deploy U.S. military and federalized National Guard troops against an insurrection, domestic violence, illegal combination or conspiracy which results in the deprivation of constitutionally secured rights, and where the state is unable, fails, or declines to protect said rights.
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It dates to the early 19th century when President Thomas Jefferson signed it amid concerns that Aaron Burr, his former Vice President, was plotting to raise an army.
It was first used in 1861 against the Confederacy.
It was famously invoked by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1957 to quell white resistance in Little Rock, Arkansas, to the desegregation of the high school by the Little Rock Nine.
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The act has been invoked twice in the past 40 years - to quiet unrest after Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and throughout the Los Angeles riots in 1992.
After Joe Biden was declared the victor in the 2020 presidential election, some Trump backers proposed using the military to declare martial law and seize voting machines.
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In December 2020, Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia group, wrote an open letter to Trump where he encouraged him to “use the Insurrection Act to ‘stop the steal,’” start seizing voting data and order a new election.”
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“Clearly, an unlawful combination and conspiracy in multiple states (indeed, in every state) has acted to deprive the people of the fundamental right to vote for their representatives in a clear, fair election,” Rhodes wrote, continuing, “You, and you alone, are fully authorized by the Insurrection Act to determine that such a situation exists and to use the U.S. military and militia to rectify that situation.”
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