Governors Organizations

Ten days after the election of 1992, Jackie and I attended the New Governor’s Conference in Colorado Springs, which was sponsored by the National Governors Association (NGA), an organization that would figure prominently in my life the next decade. The meeting was attended by the new governors elected that year: Ed Schafer of North Dakota, Marc Racicot of Montana, Mel Carnahan of Missouri, and me, Mike Leavitt of Utah. The governor of Vermont, Howard Dean, was also included because he had only been governor a year, taking office when his predecessor died in office.

A faculty of standing governors and NGA staff conducted a school designed to be a crash course on how to be governor. We newcomers were all hungry to learn, and we were riding a wave of excitement over the anticipation of taking office.

The group was small and intimate. There was no discussion of party or ideology. One subject at a time, sitting governors would talk about their successes and failures. I still reference these lessons I had learned at the New Governors School.

I remember Bruce Sundlun of Rhode Island describing his 30/30/40 Rule: “The success of proposals you make will be determined 30 percent on the basis of substance, 30 percent by how you package it, and 40 percent by who you tell in advance.” I don’t know if the percentages are right, but he made a point I have never forgotten.

30/30/40 Rule: The success of proposals you make will be determined 30 percent on the basis of substance, 30 percent by how you package it, and 40 percent by who you tell in advance.

The very colorful governor of Tennessee was Ned McWherter, a very southern style governor with a thick southern accent type right out of central casting. He liked cigars, had a round belly, bushy eyebrows, a thick Tennessee accent, and an unforgettable laugh. He described how he had dealt with legislators reluctant to support his road construction budget. “I bring ’em to my office and sit them right at my knee. Then, I’d reach into my drawer and pull out a picture of a yellow D-9 Caterpillar. Then I’d say, ‘Representative, do you know what that is?’

They would respond, ‘It’s a D-9 Cat.’

Then I’d say, ‘Well Representative, you better take a long look at that picture, because if I don’t have your vote on the transportation plan, it will be the last D-9 Cat your county is going to see for a long time.’”

Carroll Campbell, a southern gentleman with a mellifluous South Carolina drawl, taught different models of organizing a staff. Roy Romer of Colorado used an analogy of filling up a political-capital tank, and then emptying it out on the right kinds of projects. I still remember stories he told about the mistake he’d made at a public demonstration when he picked up a protestor’s sign and later saw his image on the front page of all the statewide newspapers.

Other sessions dealt with budgeting, relationships with cabinet officials and the lieutenant governor. Each session included a candid question-and -answer session.

Perhaps the most poignant sessions were the ones with our wives, as governors and first ladies spoke candidly of the hard lessons they had learned about protecting their children and family.

Governors told stories of the way they dealt with media intrusion. I remember the governor of Nevada, Bob Miller, describing how the media went through the family’s garbage and analyzed their grocery bills.

There was candid talk about the tensions that arise over scheduling and the struggle to find time to be alone. A marriage professional talked about how to protect our marriages.

Jackie and the other first ladies discussed ways of managing the expectations of the job and family priorities. The main message was “You have to do it your way.”

In the years that followed, I was on the faculty several times. Jackie and I even played host one year. The November 2000 orientation was held in Park City, just a week after I won my third term in office and finished a stint as head of the NGA.

One of the most important sessions to me focused on the role of the National Governors Association. Nearly every state participates as members, paying dues based on the size of the state. The NGA is an independent nonprofit organization, carefully designed to preserve a nonpartisan tone. The chair and vice chair alternate between Republican and Democrat, each serving one-year terms.

The organization is governed by a nine-person board. When the chair is a Republican, the Democrats have five members of the board. When the chair is Democrat, the board lineup reverses to a Republican majority. All of this is designed to encourage fairness and the avoidance of partisan politics. Partisanship was not eliminated altogether, but to a large extent it worked.

At the New Governors School, veteran governors described the policy process of the NGA and how bipartisan groups of governors meet with members of Congress to advance the cause of states. There was a lot of encouragement for new governors to actively engage. As I listened to the discussion, I concluded I wanted to be heavily involved. I liked the productive tone, the substance, and the relationships.

As if to remind all the newly elected governors that we had not left the world of politics, we all departed Colorado Springs and flew directly to meetings of the Republican Governors Association (RGA) or Democratic Governors Association. The RGA meeting was held in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where Governor Tommy Thompson served as host.

Unlike the NGA conference, the RGA session was all about politics. Pollsters provided analysis on what had occurred in the election and looked ahead to the future. Members of the Republican congressional leadership team joined us. There was substantial overlap on the policy issues we discussed, but this time with a decidedly partisan bent. Media was a daily fixture at the event, something not allowed at NGA. I was somewhat acquainted with the RGA staff and the organization already as they had provided assistance to me during the election.

Shortly after I was inaugurated, I attended yet another governors group, the Western Governors’ Association (WGA). The WGA encompasses twelve states from Hawaii to Texas, but its core group is the interior western states. The organization is headquartered in Denver. It is a bipartisan group that operates similarly to the NGA but deals primarily with western issues.

The final major organization I became heavily involved in for a time was the Council of State Governments (CSG). Located in Lexington, Kentucky, the CSG was the place that governors, state legislators, and other state officials came together.

Over the course of the next decade, I chose to devote significant time and energy to all four of these organizations. Each played a different role in my productivity as a governor, and the combination of the four provided me with important relationships that added greatly to my effectiveness. The NGA, RGA, and CSG provided leverage for my efforts to return power to the States, while the Western Governors’ Association was the vehicle through which Western Governors University was created.

Republican Governors Association

My pathway to leadership in the National Governors Association came about via my involvement with RGA—and my rise in the RGA had been aided substantially by good timing.

In recent years, the position of RGA chair has become a platform that aspiring governors use to rise to national attention. Mitt Romney used it while he was governor of Massachusetts to propel his candidacy for president in 2008. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey did the same in 2014. In those years, the organization raised $80 to $100 million on campaign efforts to ensure that Republican governors were elected. Over the last twenty-five years, the association has expanded and become a much more prominent entity.

In 1993, there were only nineteen Republican governors in the United States. Four of those, including me, were elected in 1992. The party lost the presidency to Bill Clinton that year and controlled neither the House nor the Senate. The previous year, the RGA had raised less than $2 million and had a staff of just an executive director and a few others. It was not a particularly robust organization.

By mid 1993, I had begun to formulate a plan to organize the states to become more assertive regarding our role in American governance. My plans to develop a Conference of States, had begun to gain significant momentum. I needed a platform to begin working with Republican governors, and the RGA seemed ideal.

As I surveyed the field, most of the other eighteen Republican governors were either leaving office, running for reelection, or had already been RGA chair. I concluded to launch a quiet campaign to become RGA vice chair in 1994, knowing that I would then move to chair in 1995.

Campaigns within governors’ organizations are generally done in a low-key way. People who want to assume a role begin circulating with the other members, making their interests known and asking for support. I think there were others who expressed interest, but by the time we got to the November meeting, I had secured the necessary support.

The vice chair traditionally assumed the role as chief fundraiser of RGA. The chair, Maine governor John McKernan, was leaving office at the conclusion of his position as chair and was content to allow me to do all I was willing to do. In previous years, with George H.W. Bush in the White House, most of the RGA money had been raised through one annual dinner. Without the White House or control of either house of Congress, as well as RGA having only nineteen governors (and most of them from smaller states) finding a fundraising hook was a challenge.

I developed a format called “Governors Forums.” I asked each member of RGA to agree to attend a handful of events around the country. Organizations would pay $25,000 to belong to the RGA Governors Forums, and for that fee they could have very intimate conversations with three to five rotating governors at interesting places around the country. It was a success. That year we broke all previous records for RGA fundraising, bringing in—what would seem small by comparison now— $4 million.

Serving as RGA vice chair provided me three important assets. First, it was a reason (with a budget) to visit other governors. I flew all over the country raising money and delivering checks. It was a great way to build relationships with not just standing governors, but also incoming governors. Second, I was able to define, in significant measure, the theme around which the RGA would operate. I chose a federalism theme, returning power to the states. Finally, it positioned me to emerge as the leader of the Republican governors in the larger NGA.

On Election Day 1994, the earth moved. It was a nationwide Republican landslide, with people rejecting the direction of the country. For the first time in more than a half century, Republicans won control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The new Speaker of the House would be Newt Gingrich and the emerging Senate Majority Leader was Bob Dole of Kansas.

In my world, the big news was the election of twenty-nine Republican governors. Republicans were not just elected in numbers; they were elected in large states like New York and California. Among many unexpected victories was the governorship of Texas. George W. Bush, the son of the former President George H. W. Bush, was elected, defeating the prominent incumbent Governor Ann Richards. I had been in Texas to campaign with George W. Bush, not only visiting but delivering RGA money.

What happened next can only be described as providential.

Just as it had two years prior, the RGA scheduled its annual meeting right after the New Governors Conference, ten days after the general election. I had chosen to hold the meeting in historical Williamsburg, Virginia. It was a decision aimed at augmenting the theme of “Returning Power to the States.” Because the RGA Conference was the first political gathering after the election, it became the center of the political universe. The national media swarmed the event, as did corporate sponsors, lobbyists, and others. The facilities were inadequate, creating an exciting chaos.

The centerpiece of the Williamsburg meeting was a meeting between the new governors’ majority and the new leadership of Congress. It set the stage for a dramatic period of great change in American government. It was also a period of unparalleled collaboration between governors and Congress.

I assumed the position of RGA chair at that meeting. A remarkable series of events had put me right at the center of the action during a period of transformation. I feel confident in saying that in modern times there has never been a period when governors played a more prominent role in national policymaking than they did in the two years that followed. This, and the Conference of States, is covered in more detail in Chapter 2: Federalism, located in volume IV, A Sacred Trust.

National Governors Association

My role in the Republican Governors Association provided a close working relationship with every Republican governor and most of the Democrat governors. So, when the executive committee of NGA was appointed by the chair and vice-chair, it was logical I would be assigned. While not automatic, this ultimately set me up to become vice chair of NGA in July 1997 and chair in July 1998.

The National Governors Association is a policy body. States have common interests on many matters. Every state has essentially the same types of problems and has to confront them, albeit differently. As the federal government has pushed into areas outside those specifically enumerated by the Constitution, NGA became the place where states united to effect federal action.

In order to arrive at policy positions that unify the governors, NGA has developed a policy process. Position papers are written and then refined through debate and discussion, and then either approved as a formal position or rejected. Once approved, those who represent the states through NGA are bound to stick within the policy positions reflected in those documents.

Often there are ideological differences that make agreement on a policy difficult to achieve. Likewise, politics and personalities often complicate matters, but the construct of the organization is sound and its contribution unique. The policies would be worked on by staff and then voted upon at either the annual meeting in July or the midyear meeting in Washington, D.C.

Forty governors and many other interested parties attended the July NGA conference. Generally, the attendance exceeds one thousand people. For my family and I, attendance at NGA became a family tradition, and the hosts would typically organize a family agenda. We have wonderful memories of those events. Through the NGA conferences, the children of governors got to know one another as well. They had experiences in common and looked forward to seeing each other.

In January or February, NGA organizes a winter meeting in D.C., and it is always held at the J.W. Marriott. In addition to debating policy positions, meeting with congressional leaders, and discussing various policy themes, we would often meet with the president of the United States and his cabinet.

During the time I was governor, there were two presidents who served, both former governors. Bill Clinton loved governors. He had been governor of Arkansas for twelve years and served as chair of the NGA. Once president, he rolled out the red carpet for governors. Often, I was part of small groups that visited the White House for policy discussions. Usually the president, vice president, the White House staff, and cabinet would assemble in the East Room. They would spend a couple of hours in discussion. You could tell President Clinton really enjoyed it.

To my disappointment, George W. Bush seemed quite ambivalent toward governors. Worse, his staff at times seemed openly hostile. There were several times when he failed to meet for any significant amount of time with us as a group. His staff didn’t like the bipartisan nature. They were driving a conservative agenda and resented that a majority of governors were Republicans and yet didn’t produce policies that were strictly aligned with administration wishes. There was even a time when a coalition of conservative organizations tried, via a majority of Republicans serving on the executive committee of NGA, to get the longtime executive director of the organization, Ray Scheppach, fired. I killed the plan, telling its backers, “On this matter, you don’t have five votes.”

While I found the Bush White House attitude irritating and frankly a bit embarrassing, it was somewhat understandable. George W. Bush was governor for only one term and he governed a very large state. Large states tend not to feel the need for collective clout. Rick Perry, his successor, was substantially worse in his attitude toward NGA. It was an attitude of “We’re Texas, we don’t need NGA.” He actually withdrew from the organization.

In an interesting way, Bush’s lack of interest toward NGA benefited me. At times George Bush did need the NGA and RGA. We knew each other because of my RGA work, and when he did come to various events we sat together. So, when he knew an issue was percolating at NGA that would affect Texas, he’d just call me and ask if I would look after Texas’s interest. This was true on both Medicaid reform and welfare reform. In a way, I became his problem solver. I’m sure the relationship that developed between us contributed to the invitation I received to join his cabinet.

The Western Governors’ Association

It is impractical for the National Governors Association to be involved in all the regional issues that exist in each unique region of the country. So over time, governors began to organize regional associations. The Western Governors’ Association (WGA) was formed in 1984, in large part because of the efforts of Utah Governor Scott Matheson.

The organization seemed to focus most on regional energy, public lands, transportation, and environmental issues. In many ways WGA resembled NGA. It was organized to emphasize bipartisan collaboration. It operated through a policy process, driven by a staff council made up of staff members from each governor. However, there was a full-time staff located in Denver, along with a Washington staffer, who shared space coincidentally with our Utah State Office in Washington, D.C. The WGA was led by Jim Souby, who had previously served in the Alaska Governor’s Office. Jim and I worked closely together for many years at WGA. He later took over a policy institute I formed.

The WGA took the lead in developing policies that involved multiple states. For example, when hazardous waste is hauled from state to state, it is necessary to have protocols and agreements on how it will be handled. Shortly after the Bush Administration took office, there was an electric power transmission crisis in the western states. WGA became the vehicle through which the states worked together. There were groups that worked on forestry issues such as fire and disease. We dealt jointly with the federal government on water issues, road issues, and other public land issues.

At times, WGA served as an agent to carry out arrangements we negotiated with the federal government. Congress was considering legislation compelling the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop a plan to clean up the air over the Grand Canyon. It was of great concern to states surrounding the canyon that the EPA would create regulations negatively affecting their economies in order to fix a problem in Arizona. WGA negotiated an agreement to let the states develop a collaborative plan to solve the problem and then became the convener. I became co-chair of that effort—the Western Regional Air Partnership. I have written extensively about the experience in a book I co-wrote, titled Finding Allies, Building Alliances. The experience was among the first times I began to focus on the process of structuring collaborative problem solving.

I later used WGA as the vehicle to form Western Governors University. The idea was conceived at a WGA conference in Park City. The initial research and organizing activities were financed and organized through WGA, hence the name of the university.

I also pushed an initiative to develop smart-card delivery of various benefit programs. WGA also became the initial vehicle through which I developed and deployed the environmental philosophy known as Enlibra, a Latin coinage meaning “moving toward balance.”

My leadership role at WGA occurred in a fashion similar to RGA. The position of chair is alternated between Republican and Democrat. In 1993, several Republican members were up for election, leaving office, or had served as WGA chair. I concluded to accept the role of WGA chair early in my term, primarily because I felt it would be a vehicle to propel my ideas on federalism.

Council of State Governments

The NGA, RGA, and WGA were organizations of governors. Obviously, governors are not the only influencers of state policy. State legislators, the courts and other statewide officers share influence. Each of those have formed groups to optimize their strength and to educate people serving in those roles. For example, the National Conference of State Legislatures exists to serve state legislative bodies.

The Council of State Governments (CSG) is a Lexington, Kentucky–based organization that brings all of those groups together on issues. As my federalism efforts began to mature, it became clear that all three branches of state governments would be needed in order to affect any change in direction. Consequently, I agreed to chair CSG as well during my first term.

The Council of State Governments became the key organization connecting my work with governors, state legislatures and state courts. Dan Sprague, the executive director, was a true believer in the important role states should play and threw the resources of the entire organization behind my efforts to organize the Conference of States. I write about those experiences in a later chapter, but putting the organization in context with other organizations is important to understanding the job of governor.

These four organizations became a significant part of life for the next sixteen years. Even after I moved from being governor to a cabinet member in the George W. Bush Administration, I interacted with them constantly. States coordinated efforts through the sponsorship and coordination of these four groups. Each group had a niche it filled. The NGA was the most important policy influence. The WGA was the most productive in terms of undertaking meaningful joint action.

The RGA was important because it mirrored the highly partisan way in which Congress functions. The Republican caucuses in both chambers of Congress operate politically and become highly suspicious of NGA. So, much of our interaction involving Congress was conducted through RGA. This was far less than ideal in my view because RGA didn’t have the policy capacity of NGA.

One could legitimately question why I spent so much time involved in different multi-state organizations. Some governors choose to be minimally engaged. I chose to engage heavily for two reasons. First, the idea of federalism was fundamental to my philosophy. Boosting the collective viability of states, including Utah, was part of the commitment I made upon being elected. Secondly, many of the things I needed to accomplish as governor of Utah required a coalition of states.

I feel confident that my raw time allocation to these national organizations was between 10 to 15 percent. I served as vice chair and then chair of all four. For most of my service I was on the executive committee of all three of the governors’ organizations. Those roles do not begin to describe the deep involvement I had with a small group of other governors and congressional leaders on a variety of matters during a remarkable period of time when state and federal officials became seriously engaged.

Was it the right decision? Absolutely, and I would do it again. A strong but limited national government is essential. However, history will show that as the federal government encroached on the role of states, government became less effective and more remote from the people. This fact lies at the heart of the way government spending has spiraled out of control. It is fundamental to how generations have become shackled by debts of their forebears. It is also responsible for a sense of entitlement that has become part of the fabric of American life.