A Tennessee court denied a request on Monday to issue a temporary restraining order against the deployment of National Guard troops in Memphis.
“Plaintiffs have not clearly shown by verified complaint or affidavits that immediate and irreparably injury, loss, or damage will result to them before notice can be served on Defendants and a hearing had on Plaintiffs’ motion. Plaintiffs’ attorneys also have not certified efforts to give notice to Defendants or reasons why notice should not be required,” wrote Davidson County Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal.
A hearing for this lawsuit’s temporary injunction order will occur on November 3rd, Moskal noted.
State Democrats filed a lawsuit last week against the State of Tennessee over its deployment of the National Guard to Memphis.
In September, Gov. Bill Lee announced the Memphis Safe Task Force, which combines state and federal resources, to clean up the city’s crime. The governor said the U.S. Marshals will be leading the task force, which combines 13 law enforcement agencies.
National Guard deployments in Memphis began on October 10th.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris announced last Thursday that the county had declared a state of emergency regarding the task force. The declaration states the county can’t support the “physical and financial resources” of the operation.
The emergency declaration notes it will last until the end of the task force, which has made over 1,000 arrests as of last Friday.
A day after making the emergency declaration, Harris and other state Democrats brought legal action against the state. The lawsuit states the defendants in the case, which are Governor Bill Lee, Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, and Major General Warner Ross, have “trampled on Tennessee law by unilaterally deploying Tennessee National Guard members in Memphis as a domestic police force.”
The plaintiffs, who are Harris, Shelby County Commissioners Erika Sugarmon, Henri Brooks, JB Smiley, State Representatives G.A. Hardaway (D-Memphis) and Gaby Salinas (D-Memphis), and State Senator Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville), call the deployment “patently unlawful.”
The lawsuit claims the Tennessee Constitution only allows the state’s governor to use the National Guard in case of “rebellion or invasion,” and the General Assembly needs to approve it.
“Governor Lee acted at the request of President Donald Trump, but not at the request of any Memphis or Shelby County officials. He also had no approval or authorization from the Tennessee General Assembly,” the plaintiffs said.
Tennessee’s state legislature has enacted laws over time to “regulate the Governor’s authority to deploy troops as a domestic police force within the State,” the plaintiffs wrote.
Section 58-1-106 of the Tennessee Code permits the state governor to use the National Guard to fight back against hostile attacks, but in this case, the plaintiff said the National Guard can’t be deployed for “police work or to fight crime.”
The lawsuit cited a 2021 opinion by then-Acting Attorney General Herbert Slatery III that said the “Tennessee Constitution and long-settled judicial precedents provide that ‘only circumstances amounting to a rebellion or invasion permit the governor to call out the militia, and even then, the legislature must declare, by law, that the public safety requires it.’”
Despite this opinion, current Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti vacated Slattery’s opinion.
Yarbro sent a letter to Skrmetti on September 29th, requesting information on why the opinion was changed.
Skrmetti told The Tennessean that the opinion was removed “‘because it did not accurately reflect the state of the law.’”
The plaintiffs also stated the National Guard deployment infringes on “elected officials’ authority to manage law enforcement within their jurisdictions, especially when guard members serve as police.”
Plaintiffs noted the National Guard deployment has caused “financial harms on Shelby County.” Pre-trial services and detentions have increased in costs as a result of the “National Guard’s force multiplier effect on arrests in Memphis,” the plaintiffs said.
“The deployment is thus interfering with Mayor Harris’s ability to perform his functions and to allocate the County’s limited financial resources consistent with the priorities that best serve the people of Shelby County,” the lawsuit stated.
With the National Guard deployed, the plaintiffs said it will harm the economies of Tennessee, Shelby County, and Memphis. The plaintiffs cited what happened to California and Washington, D.C., after the National Guard deployed to those locations.
The lawsuit said Los Angeles’ economy was “stifled” because the deployment forced restaurants, festivals, and farmers’ markets to close. In Washington, D.C., the lawsuit stated the nation’s capital saw its tourism, restaurant, and hospitality industries all affected by the National Guard deployment, citing foot traffic and restaurant reservations dropping “substantially.”
Last week, Lee said the Memphis Safe Task Force will remain deployed in the city “forever.”
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at zschmidt1717@gmail.com.
Photo “Tennessee National Guard Members” by Tennessee National Guard.
