This article was originally published in Just Security.

In the two and a half years since National Guard troops descended on Lafayette Square during peaceful protests, Congress has done little to prevent it from happening again. And even after a summer and fall of congressional hearings on the events of Jan. 6 – in which it became clear that then-President Trump never called in the D.C. National Guard to protect the Capitol from rioters – the process for deploying the D.C. National Guard remains overly bureaucratic and beyond the control of D.C.’s chief executive.

Although the searing images of Lafayette Square and Jan. 6 have begun to fade from our collective memories, it remains critical that Congress pass legislation to close loopholes in the laws that govern domestic deployment of the U.S. military to ensure that it is never politicized and deployed in unlawful and dangerous ways again.

Read the full article in Just Security.