Case: Harris v. Lee

This case challenged the deployment of National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee, following a Presidential Memorandum issued by President Trump in September 2025 directing the deployment.

On October 17, 2025, Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit in the Chancery Court for Davidson County, Tennessee, against the Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, the Tennessee Attorney General Skrimetti, and others (the Defendants). Plaintiffs included the Mayor of Shelby County and members of the Shelby County Commission, the Memphis City Council, the Tennessee House of Representatives, and the Tennessee Senate. They sought to halt the unlawful deployment of Tennessee National Guard troops into Memphis at the urging of President Donald Trump.

Represented by private counsel, the Democracy Forward Foundation, and the National Immigration Law Center, Plaintiffs alleged that President Trump requested Defendants to deploy Tennessee National Guard members under Title 32, which allows National Guard members to serve in a hybrid state-federal status. Under Article III, Section 5 of the Tennessee Constitution, Title 32 deployment is only lawful under two circumstances: rebellion or invasion. Plaintiffs argued that no such circumstances existed in Tennessee; rather, Defendants had deployed the National Guard for routine domestic law enforcement. Plaintiffs asserted that, as with federal deployments in California and Chicago, federal militarization stifles social and economic activity while rendering state troops unable to engage in other, often critical, work. Under the Tennessee Constitution (Article III, Section 5) and Tennessee Code Annotated Sections 58-1-106 and 58-1-301, Plaintiffs sought injunctive relief to halt the unlawful militarization of Memphis communities.

On November 21, 2025, the court granted Plaintiffs' motion for a temporary injunction, finding that Defendants' actions in calling the National Guard into Title 32 service were a clear violation of Tennessee’s Military Code, Tenn. Code Ann. §§58-1-106(a) and (c). Defendants were preliminarily barred from taking further action under the Title 32 deployment of the National Guard. The court wrote that the injunction would become effective on Plaintiffs' posting of an injunction bond for $50,000, pursuant to Tenn. R. Civ. P. 65.05. In the same ruling, the court granted a preemptive motion to stay the injunction pending Defendants' application for permission to appeal, giving Defendants five days to file; after that period, the injunction would become immediately effective.

Defendants filed a Tenn. R. App. P. 9 motion seeking permission to appeal, which the Court of Appeals of Tennessee at Nashville (the Court of Appeals) granted. On February 4, 2026, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's injunction, finding that the seven individual Plaintiffs lacked standing. 2026 WL 1144357.

As of October 20, 2026, neither party has taken any further action.