First, the Insurrection Act should be amended to include some element of congressional oversight. When it comes to committing troops to combat on foreign soil, the War Powers Act puts restraints on a president in the form of congressional notification and authorization requirements. Specifically, the War Powers Act requires that Congress be notified within 48 hours of U.S. troops being introduced into foreign hostilities and mandates use of those troops end within 60 days unless Congress declares war or authorizes continuance. For a domestic deployment of U.S. forces, a president should be required to notify Congress within 24 hours, and that deployment should end in 48 hours without congressional authorization.

Second, in anticipation of a scenario such as the alleged discussions of the U.S. military seizing voting machines, where 48 hours would be just enough time for a president to complete a coup, the consent of one or more other executive branch members should be required. The mere idea that other high-ranking officials would have to sign off on an invocation of the Insurrection Act could have a chilling effect on a president considering an anti-democratic plot. For example, then Vice President Mike Pence refused to succumb to intense pressure from those demanding that he refuse to ratify the 2020 Electoral College vote. Then Attorney General William Barr eventually resigned when Trump insisted he find election fraud that didn’t exist. In fact, the attorney general should provide a Department of Justice opinion that the proposed insurrection invocation and troop deployment must not violate exercise of civil rights, as happened in 2020 after Floyd’s murder when the National Guard was deployed in response to the peaceful protests in Lafayette Square in Washington.

Third, a president’s signature on an Insurrection Act declaration should trigger automatic judicial review.