## Facts

- Federal law has long imposed a dual-enlistment system in which state National Guard members simultaneously enlist in the National Guard of the United States, a component of the Army.
- Guard members remain in state status unless and until ordered to active federal duty, and then revert to state status upon release from federal service.
- In 1952, Congress authorized the Guard to be ordered to active duty or active duty for training without an emergency requirement, while requiring the affected governor’s consent.
- In 1986, after some governors refused consent for overseas training missions, Congress enacted the Montgomery Amendment, limiting a governor’s ability to withhold consent for duty outside the United States based on objections to the location, purpose, type, or schedule of the duty.
- Minnesota’s Governor sought to block an overseas federal training mission involving Minnesota Guard members, arguing the Montgomery Amendment unconstitutionally displaced state authority over militia training.
- The district court rejected the constitutional challenge; the Eighth Circuit affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether Congress may authorize members of the National Guard of the United States to be ordered to active federal duty for training outside the United States without the consent of the state governor.
2. Whether such overseas federal training orders require a declaration of national emergency under Article I, § 8.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed.
- Congress may authorize Guard members in their federal status to be ordered to active duty for overseas training without a governor’s consent and without a declared national emergency.
- The Montgomery Amendment is constitutional.

## Legal Principles

- National Guard members occupy a dual state/federal status; when ordered into federal service as the National Guard of the United States, they are subject to federal command and federal training decisions.
- Congress’s Article I powers, including the power to raise and support armies, permit federal control over training and deployment of Guard members in federal status, notwithstanding their continuing connection to state militia structures.
- The Militia Clauses’ state reservations (appointment of officers and authority to train according to federally prescribed discipline) do not require gubernatorial control over training decisions for Guard members serving in federal status.
- A statutory gubernatorial-consent requirement is a congressional policy choice, not a constitutional mandate; Congress may withdraw or limit it.
- The Constitution does not require that Guard members be ordered to federal training duty only during a declared national emergency.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld Congress’s authority to direct overseas training of National Guard members in their federal capacity, rejecting claims that state governors possess a constitutional veto or that such orders require a national emergency declaration.


Perpich v. Dep’t of Def., 496 U.S. 334 (1990)