The Air Force is promoting a policy shift that effectively goes against more than a hundred years of precedent and is facing significant opposition to it.

The crux of the policy change is that the relevant Air National Guard units would be folded into the U.S. Space Force, but governors are the heads of their state’s National Guard, and not one of them supports this plan. Instead, the service is attempting a legislative end around by seeking to get Congress to pass it despite gubernatorial opposition.