While National Guard members from three states head to Washington, D.C. to patrol the capital under the command of President Donald Trump, lawmakers in Massachusetts have advanced a bill to realign the guard’s chain of command here in a way they say would reflect the organization’s evolving mission.
The leader of the Massachusetts National Guard would be elevated into the Cabinet and gain a direct line of communication with the governor under legislation that a bipartisan group of senators voted to recommend for passage in late July. Sponsor Sen. Michael Moore of Millbury said the bill would make the guard’s communications more efficient and argued that it’s more necessary than ever on the heels of Trump’s contested deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles earlier this summer.
The Massachusetts National Guard is a reserve component of the U.S. Army and Air Force that operates partially under state authority, and its members can be called upon by either the governor or, in certain cases, the president of the United States, Moore said. The state-level hierarchy, though, has the adjutant general who leads the National Guard reporting to the Undersecretary of Homeland Security within the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security rather than to the governor.
The use of potentially-armed National Guard members from Ohio, West Virginia and South Carolina to patrol the streets of the nation’s capital, according to NPR, is the second high-profile instance this summer in which Trump has used state guard members to federalize law enforcement in a major American city.
Massachusetts and Virginia are the only two state guard units that do not report directly to the state’s governor, according to Matthew McKenna, the executive director of the National Guard Association for Massachusetts. He said Massachusetts’s adjutant general (TAG) reported directly to the governor for 200-plus years, until a change ordered by Gov. Michael Dukakis in the 1970s.
“The guard is unique, has a unique role, has unique capabilities. But also, more importantly, 90% of the guard budget is federally funded, and only 57 of the guard’s approximate 1,000 full-time employees are paid for with strictly state dollars,” he said at a June hearing of the Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight. “Like the Legislature recognized with Veterans Services, when challenges arise in unique agencies, it’s important that the chains of command are clear. With the nature of the guard’s mission, both in Massachusetts and abroad, it’s not easy to come up with reasons why there are two bureaucratic layers between the governor and the TAG.”
Maj. Gen. Gary Keefe has been the adjutant general of the Mass. National Guard since May 2016, when Gov. Charlie Baker appointed him to the position. He was reappointed by Gov. Maura Healey in 2023 and reports to Susan Terrey, the state’s deputy secretary of public safety and security and homeland security undersecretary. Terrey reports to Public Safety Secretary Terrence Reidy, who joined the Cabinet under Baker and was retained by Healey.
The Senate side of the State Administration and Regulatory Oversight Committee in late July advanced with a favorable recommendation the bill (S 2183) that would create a new Executive Office of the Military Division, and tap the guard’s adjutant general to serve as secretary. That would make the TAG a member of the governor’s Cabinet with a direct line of report to the state’s chief executive.
“The Massachusetts National Guard exists to protect and assist Bay Staters in emergencies, but none of that matters if command gets caught up in bureaucracy or reports from the ground are miscommunicated through a game of telephone between the Governor and the Adjutant General,” Moore said in a statement. “This common-sense legislation elevates the leader of the National Guard to the Governor’s cabinet, streamlining communication and recognizing the importance of the role the Guard plays in the security of the Commonwealth. In emergencies, seconds matter – allowing the head of the state government to correspond directly with the commander of its protecting force will save lives.”
Moore and other supporters, including Sen. John Velis of Westfield, said the reorganization the legislation calls for would centralize communications between the guard and state or local first responders when coordinating responses to things like flash flooding and major snowstorm operations.
“We just, very candidly speaking, don’t have time for inefficiencies, for additional layers,” Velis, a major in the Army National Guard, said when the bill got its committee hearing in June. He added, “To me, this is a no-brainer. I think it needs to change. I think it needs to change soon. We live in a very volatile, contentious, ambiguous world right now, and I’d ask that this bill be referred out favorable.”
Moore also said the bill is important because “with the increasing instability of international relations, national security threats from civil disobedience, civil emergencies, terrorist activities, or even cyber threats” are becoming more prominent.
“As the United States approaches the 2026 FIFA World Cup tournament, during which Massachusetts will host seven games at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, it is imperative that our Commonwealth’s first line of defense has a direct line of communication with the leader of our state to keep our constituents and visitors safe, as well as to protect against overreach of power from a federal administration that has already demonstrated its willingness to do so,” Moore’s press release said.
When more than 200 Bay State soldiers deployed in July to the Horn of Africa for nine months with the Mass. Guard’s 26th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, Maj. Gen. Gary Keefe reminded those assembled at a ceremony in Framingham that the guard has been a crucial part of the nation’s overseas military forces in recent years.
“Everyone nowadays thinks the National Guard just does things in their state. This past year has been our highest operations deployment tempo since 2010 during the War of Afghanistan,” Keefe, the adjutant general, said at the July 24 ceremony.
Having cleared the Senate side of the committee with no opposition (Sen. Becca Rausch reserved her rights, but all other senators on the panel supported the favorable recommendation), the bill is now pending in the Senate Committee on Ways and Means.
