A governor does not have to request the president invoke the insurrection act. Didn't you dumb asses watch Fraggle Rock as kids? The insurrection act exists solely as insurance for when governors won't act.
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Substantively, the Insurrection Act authorizes the president to deploy the military domestically in four sets of circumstances:
Where the president receives a request for assistance from the legislature of a state that is experiencing “an insurrection ... against its government[,]” or that state’s governor if its legislature cannot be convened, under 10 U.S.C. § 251.
Where the president “considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings,” under 10 U.S.C. § 252.
Where “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” either “so hinders the execution of the laws of [a] State, and of the United States within th[at] State, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by Law, and the constituted authorities of that State are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection,” under 10 U.S.C. § 253(1)—in which cases, the statute notes, that state “shall be considered to have denied the equal protection of the laws secured by the Constitution.”
Where “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy ... opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws,” under 10 U.S.C. § 253(2).
Most invocations of the Insurrection Act have taken place pursuant to § 251 at the request of state officials, including the most recent—namely, President George H.W. Bush’s 1992 deployment of federal troops to suppress the Los Angeles riots. (That said, it’s not entirely clear which provision of the Insurrection Act Bush was relying on, as only California’s governor, not its legislature, requested the intervention and Bush’s proclamation and related executive order do not specify.) Section 252, meanwhile, has been applied primarily to situations of armed uprising, rampant violent criminality and widespread rioting. By contrast, § 253 has most commonly been used in the context of civil rights to authorize the use of federal troops to enforce school desegregation and defend civil rights activists.
Together, these provisions delegate an immense amount of authority to the president. This is amplified by the fact that several of these provisions—especially § 252—hinge on the president’s subjective evaluation of the prevailing circumstances. What’s more, every one of these provisions employs broad and undefined terms like “unlawful obstructions” and “domestic violence” that allow the president significant leeway in interpreting when and how they should be applied.
This does not, however, mean that these provisions are blank checks. Even absent a request for assistance from a state government, the Insurrection Act seems to expect that the president will invoke its authority only where certain conditions are met. And it’s not at all clear that the current circumstances meet these standards.
For § 252 to be available, for example, the president is supposed to conclude that civil unrest has made it “impracticable” for the courts and broader justice system to operate normally. Yet there are few signs that the justice system has ceased to be effective, even in areas that have experienced looting and violence. In D.C., the closest one can get is a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to close early on June 1 and 2 due to its proximity to the White House and related protests. Similarly, § 253(1) is intended for use in responding to violations of the Equal Protection Clause. But it’s unclear what protected class of persons’ civil rights may have been duly threatened by the recent unrest so as to reach this threshold.
