Where are Kansas governor candidates on sending Trump National Guard? | Opinion

Should Kansas send National Guard troops to join the military occupation of Washington D.C.?

It’s not yet an issue in the campaign to replace Gov. Laura Kelly in next year’s election. But it should be.

Some context: Already, a growing number of red state governors are contributing troops to President Donald Trump’s militarization of the nation’s capitol. West Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee have all sent National Guard units to stand around at the Lincoln Memorial as part of an ostensible crackdown on crime.

That’s probably just the beginning.

In the last few days, Trump has threatened Chicago and Baltimore with similar deployments — again, supposedly because of crime issues, but also seemingly out of irritation with their Democratic leaders.

“We go in, we will solve Chicago in one week,” he said Monday morning at an Oval Office.

If you detect authoritarian menace in the president’s enthusiasm for putting troops on the streets of American cities run by his opponents, you’re absolutely right to do so.

This isn’t about crime, not really. It’s about power. Trump wants all of it.

Working for Trump? Or for Kansas?

GOP governors are more than eager to go along with the boss. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, for example, said he was “proud to stand with President Trump” in announcing the deployment of 200 of his state’s National Guard members to D.C.

Kansas Republicans, too, have signaled their own interest in using Sunflower State troops to support Trump’s agenda. Back in April, the Kansas Senate passed a resolution urging Kelly to use her “lawful authority to help secure the United States borders, including offering assistance through the Kansas National Guard.”

Kelly wisely declined the request.

But it’s not just troop deployments. Red state governors are competing to see who can do the most to put their states at the disposal of Trump’s federal government. Some are building migrant detention centers — the notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, along with the similarly alliterative “Cornhusker Clink” in Nebraska and “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana — to help facilitate the president’s agenda of mass deportations. (The attempt by the private company CoreCivic to reopen a Leavenworth facility as a migrant detention center is separate from those state-level efforts.)

“There’s no question that if you’re a Republican governor, you’re looking for ways to do this cooperation there,” Ken Cuccinelli, a first-term Trump official, told Politico this week.

So the big question to Kansas gubernatorial candidates should be this: Are you going to work for Trump? Or for Kansas?

The answer might be enlightening. The crowded field of GOP gubernatorial candidates — including Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, Secretary of State Scott Schwab, Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt and former Gov. Jeff Colyer — is competing mostly to see who can most loudly signal their MAGA bona fides. The Democrats, including state Sens. Cindy Holscher and Ethan Corson, have other priorities.

Patrolling DC isn’t Kansas’ job

The big reason that Kansas hasn’t jumped on Trump’s bandwagon so far, of course, is that it currently has a Democratic governor.

This isn’t just about partisanship, though. Kelly has a pretty good reason for not wanting to send Kansas National Guard troops gallivanting around the country to chase down whatever is bothering the Republican president lately.

“The National Guard is here to provide services to the state of Kansas, to the citizens of the state of Kansas,” she said last year.

Makes sense. Patrolling D.C. or Chicago or Baltimore isn’t really a Kansas job, nor should it be. Neither is guarding the border with Mexico, which has traditionally been a federal responsibility.

That could change.

The president on Monday ordered the Defense Department to create a rapid reaction force made up of National Guard units ready to assist authorities in “quelling civil disturbances.” That sounds like the act of a man ready to make good on his threats against Chicago, Baltimore and other Democratic cities.

And as he showed in California earlier this summer, Trump is more than willing to override the objections of a state’s governor to federalize the guard and order it to deploy.

For now, the Kansas National Guard is under the command of the Kansas governor. What will the next governor choose to do with that authority?