Virginia House passes Defend the Guard 99-0

The Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill on Tuesday that bars the deployment of Virginia’s National Guard into active combat in a conflict that Congress has not explicitly authorized.

“I understand that war is sometimes necessary, but I expect Congress to display an ounce of the courage they expect out of the men and women they send overseas to fight those wars by fulfilling their constitutional obligation to declare war,” Del. Nicholas Freitas (R-62), a veteran and a primary sponsor of the bill, told RS.

The Virginia Senate will vote on the measure before sending it to Governor Youngkin’s desk for consideration. Del. Freitas said he didn’t know whether the bill would pass in the Senate but that he and other supporters have “put it on the best possible footing with strong bipartisan, even unanimous support.”

"Today is an incredible victory for both National Guardsmen and our Constitution,” said retired Sgt. Dan McKnight, chairman of Bring Our Troops Home, a “group of veterans and civilians on a mission to end the Forever Wars & restore the U.S. Constitution.” “H.B. 2193 does not interfere with Title 32 deployments or overseas training missions. Its only requirement is that before the Virginia National Guard goes into combat, Congress has to do its job and vote. I'm incredibly proud to see my organization's bill receive such overwhelming support in the Old Dominion.”

There is a national push for similar legislation, commonly referred to as the Defend the Guard Act, to be passed by other state houses across the country. Hunter DeRensis, Communications Director at Bring Our Troops Home, told RS that “the bill will be introduced in 27 states this year.”

Kentucky State Rep. T.J. Roberts (R-66) introduced a version in January this year, which is now in committee. The Arizona State Senate will likely pass it for a third time in 2025, as the State House voted it down twice prior. A Defend the Guard bill passed the New Hampshire State House in 2024, but the State Senate decided to “quiet kill” the legislation by not voting on it at all. The State House introduced a new bill for the 2025 session. The Republican Party of Maine encoded Defend the Guard language into its state platform, and a bipartisan group of state representatives there introduced a new bill for the 2025 session.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth endorsed Defend the Guard legislation when it was presented in New Hampshire last year. “To me, it makes a lot of sense. I spent most of my career as a National Guardsman, deployed multiple times with the National Guard to foreign wars,” said Hegseth in 2024. “We got used to the idea that state National Guard are part of expeditionary forces, which is not traditionally the use of a National Guard.”

He continued: “This is New Hampshire saying we don’t trust how the federal government is going to use our troops, so we’re willing to commit them when the American people, through their elected branch in Congress, commits those troops to a foreign war, then you can. I love this idea.”

“An American-first foreign policy is about understanding that issues within our own borders should be prioritized,” said Del. Freitas. “In so far as foreign military operations are necessary, there should be clear and compelling reasons and adherence to the constitution.”