THE DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS ASSOCIATIONS AND THE NATIONALIZATION OF AMERICAN PARTY POLITICS
Anthony Sparacino Doctoral Candidate The Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics University of Virginia [email protected] TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements 3
List of Tables and Figures 4
Introduction: Governors in a Nationalized Party System 5
Chapter 1: A Theory of National Gubernatorial Party Organizations 25
Chapter 2: Governors and National Politics Before the National Gubernatorial Party Organizations 54
Chapter 3: Beyond a Decentralized Party System: Origins of the Republican Governors Association, 1960-1968 91
Chapter 4: The Republican Governors Association in a Nationalizing Party System, 1969-1980 134
Chapter 5: Republican Governors as National Programmatic Partisans, 1981-2000 179
Chapter 6: The Seeds and Stunted Development of the Democratic Governors Conference, 1961- 1980 226
Chapter 7: The Democrats Catch Up: The DGA and the Integration of the Democratic Party, 1981-2000 279
Conclusion: Partisan Governors Associations in a Polarized Era, 2000-Present 325
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project would not have been possible save for a tremendous amount of support, encouragement, and feedback. First, I wish to thank my family. Dad’s interest in politics inspired my own from an early age. Mom always was willing to listen and offer support and encouragement. Both of them provided reassurance in my decision to attend graduate school and were there for me every step of the way. Second, I wish to thank my outstanding dissertation committee. Sidney Milkis, James Ceaser and James Savage have been outstanding, compassionate, and able advisors and have offered more support and inspiration, through their scholarship and personal interactions with me, than I could have ever expected or hoped for. Ray Scheppach has been a tremendous outside reader whose knowledge of the NGA and the role governors play in state and national politics is unparalleled. His connections also added a significant wrinkle to the research presented here. It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with all of them and to get to know them personally. Third, I wish to thank a number of colleagues that have been instrumental in helping me to think through this project as it has developed over the last few years. In particular, I wish to thank Nicholas Jacobs who has read through significant chunks of this manuscript, offered insightful, penetrating, and indispensable commentary, and has, through his own scholarship, inspired some of my thinking on the subject matter covered herein. Nick’s friendship has been invaluable and I could not ask for a better colleague. Boris Heersink has also been an incredible mentor since I first started in graduate school and has offered insightful and deep commentary on chapter drafts, including as a discussant at the 2018 Midwestern Political Science Association meeting. Kal Munis and Richard Burke have also been supportive and insightful during American Politics Writing Group meetings and elsewhere. Likewise, Carolyn Coberly, Aycan Katitas and Alexis Yang have been incredibly supportive through our “accountability” group meetings and have also been great friends. Fourth, I wish to thank the Institute for Humane Studies, the Mercatus Center, the Bradley Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation, the West Virginia University Library, and the University of Virginia Arts Humanities and Social Sciences Grant Program for funding that made this dissertation possible. Fifth, I wish to thank the archivists who made my research across the country as streamlined as satisfying as possible. Finally, I wish to thank Barry Van Lare, Governor Charles Robb, Chuck Dolan, Mark Gearan, Katie Whelan, Nathan Daschle, Chris Henick, and Paul Butler for taking the time to speak with me and share their perspectives on the DGA and the RGA. I dedicate this work to all of these individuals and offer my sincerest thanks to each and every one of them.
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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
TABLES
1.1 Motivations for, Causes of, and Potential Effects of Partisan Governors’ Associations 29 1.2 RGA and DGA Chairmen and Later National Political Careers 48 2.1 Governors and Reform: Developments Leading to the Creation of Partisan Governors Associations 55 3.1 GOP Conditions and Effects Present, 1960-1968 93 4.1 GOP Conditions and Effects Present, GOP The Nixon Years 138 4.2 GOP Conditions and Effects Present, GOP The Ford Years 159 4.3 GOP Conditions and Effects Present, GOP The Carter Years 168 5.1 GOP Conditions and Effects Present, 1981-1988 181 5.2 GOP Conditions and Effects Present, 1989-1992 198 5.3 GOP Conditions and Effects Present, 1993-2000 210 6.1 Democrats Conditions and Effects Present, 1960-1968 241 6.2 Democrats Conditions and Effects Present, 1969-1976 258 6.3 Democrats Conditions and Effects Present, 1977-1980 272 7.1 Democrats Conditions and Effects Present, 1981-1988 282 7.2 Democrats Conditions and Effects Present, 1989-1992 305 7.3 Democrats Conditions and Effects Present, 1993-2000 311 8.1: DGA and RGA Fundraising and Expenditures, 2004-2016 343
FIGURES
2.1 Republican Governors at RNC, 1900-1976 83 2.2 Democratic Governors at DNC, 1900-1976 84 3.1 Governors in the States by Party (1960) 100 3.2 Governors in the States by Party (1964) 108 3.3 Governors in the States by Party (1968) 131 4.1 Governors in the States by Party (1972) 156 4.2 Governors in the States by Party (1976) 160 4.3 Governors in the States by Party (1980) 172 5.1 Governors in the States by Party (1984) 195 5.2 Governors in the States by Party (1988) 199 5.3 Governors in the States by Party (1992) 210 5.4 Governors in the States by Party (1996) 214 5.5 Governors in the States by Party (2000) 223
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INTRODUCTION: GOVERNORS IN A NATIONALIZED PARTY SYSTEM
In late November, 2018, Republican governors held their annual conference in
Scottsdale, Arizona, the first major gathering of leading figures of the Republican party since the midterm elections. President Trump had hailed the midterm results as a vote of confidence in his administration. The Republican governors assembled were, contrarily, generally not enthralled with their party’s performance or its electoral prospects leading into 2020. While the GOP expanded their majority in the Senate, the party lost control of the House of Representatives and had a net loss of six governorships.
The Republican Governors Association’s (RGA) retreat was quite busy. The governors elected a new chairman, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, fresh off his own reelection, was elected the organization’s vice-chairman. A team of governors and members of their staffs engaged in a series of interviews to hire a new Executive Director for the organization to replace the outgoing Paul Bennecke. Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb was chosen to lead the group’s Policy Committee.1 The RGA also announced it was to begin a “post-2018 autopsy” including an examination of voter files from their respective states to ascertain how the party, and gubernatorial candidates in particular, could perform better in 2019 and 2020.2
The conference also featured a number of governors speaking before a slew of RGA donors who were invited to the meeting. Doug Ducey of Arizona, for instance, noted that “It was the RGA that was the firewall for me that allowed me to make the case on what we had accomplished, what we were going to accomplish into the future and create that separation to
1 Carden, Da, 30 November 2018. “Holcomb to lead policy planning for Republican Governors Association.” NWITimes.
Hogan spoke before the group concerning his campaign and how he felt he was able to outperform a number of his colleagues among women, particularly suburban women, who many within the party feared were being isolated by President Trump’s rhetoric and policies.4
A great deal of attention by the media and many of the governors was given to the effect that President Trump was having down-ballot, particularly on the elections of Republican gubernatorial candidates. This was especially true in states in the Southwest, where Hispanics have been making up an increasing share of the electorate, and in the Northeast where
Republicans have, especially over the past few decades, found it increasingly difficult to win elections. Utah Governor Gary Herbert, for instance, expressed frustration at Trump’s
“incendiary tone.”5 Drawing a sharp distinction with the president, Massachusetts Governor
Charlie Baker said he “relished being ‘called the most boring governor in the history of
Massachusetts.’”6 Ricketts, however, as incoming chairman, was less antagonistic toward the
President, noting that the incumbent’s party typically loses seats in midterm elections.
A few thousand miles away in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Democratic Governors
Association (DGA) held its own conference. The Democratic meeting was similar to that of the
Republicans in a number of ways. At that meeting, they elected Rhode Island Governor Gina
3 Fischer, Howard. 28 November 2018. “Gov. Ducey credits help from GOP governors association for election win.”
Raimondo as chairwoman and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy as vice-chair. The DGA could now boast six women as members, a symbol of the party’s inclusive message on gender.7
Organizational matters were dealt with behind closed doors. Several governors and their staffs interviewed individuals for the position of DGA Treasurer. Former IGT Chairman and DNC political director Donald Sweitzer was eventually hired.8
The Democratic governors centered their meeting on the party’s approach to healthcare and highlighted their stands on expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Louisiana
Governor John Bel Edwards, who won a sizable victory against former Republican Senator
David Vitter in a red state in 2015, led a tour of a healthcare facility in the city and brought several Democratic governors-elect along for the ride. In speaking with the press, a number of governors sought to differentiate themselves from Republicans President Trump and congressional Republican leadership on issues such as immigration, climate change, and education.
Governors in a Nationalizing Party System: An Argument
A key takeaway from the reporting on these events is that governors of both parties seem to care a great deal about national politics, including and especially partisan politics. At these meetings, for instance, governors of both parties could not avoid discussing President Trump’s rhetoric and actions in some fashion. While Republicans debated the extent to which the president was undermining their electoral fortunes in the states, Democrats were seeking to draw distinctions with the president’s governing agenda. Additionally, the governors were investing in
7 2 December 2018. The Westerly Sun. “Raimondo to head up Democratic governors association.” Associated Press.
This heightened attention by the governors to national partisan politics given the nature of the American party system presents a puzzle. Governors are often very independent minded, they have a great deal of power within their states, and they receive a great deal of media attention in their own right. Former Governor and Senator Charles S. “Chuck” Robb, in an interview for the George Mitchell Oral History Project, once noted that “I’m not a legislator at heart, I loved being governor, I thought that was – and then you will search in vain to find anybody who’s held both jobs who won’t give you the same answer – in that during the time that
I was in the Senate there were always sixteen members of the Senate who had served previously as governor of their states, not one of them would give you a different answer. And since then I have yet to find anyone who has served who didn’t say that they preferred the role of governor.
Many of the governors have not been particularly happy in the Senate and I was, I suppose, one of those people [that some] predicted that I would not be happy.”9 He later noted that “I frequently equate it to the difference between being captain of a smaller ship as being governor, and being a bow thruster on an ocean liner being in the Senate, you’re one of a hundred.”10
9 Robb, Charles ‘Chuck’ S. 4 August 2009. “Interview with Chuck Robb by Brien Williams.” The George Mitchell Oral History Project. Williams" (2009). George J. Mitchell Oral History Project. 36.
In short, why should independent-minded governors, the most prominent state-level actors, care so much about what the parties are doing in Washington, and what is it that they care about? Moreover, why should governors organize collectively, thus making themselves one among many, within their parties? Finally, why have these organizations persisted and what effects have these organizations had on the parties to which they belong?
These are the basic questions that guide this project. This dissertation explores the origins and development of the Democratic and Republican governors’ associations. I seek to illustrate why these organizations developed when they did, how they contributed to greater coordination between governors and national party officials, including presidents, congressional leadership, and the chairpersons of the national committees, and what effects the Associations have had on the party system. Most basically, I argue that the governors, in creating and acting through these organizations, were responding to concerns over the effects of national partisan politics on gubernatorial policy and electoral motivations and contributed to the development of more integrated and nationally programmatic parties. The DGA and the RGA did not work to decentralize the party system but allowed governors to assert themselves in an increasingly nationalized and programmatic party system, and to do so in meaningful ways.
In creating these organizations, the governors demonstrated that they realized that their abilities to influence national party decisions, such as through their control of state delegations to national party conventions, were no longer sufficient despite the increasing importance of state- level executive leadership in policy implementation in the United States’ federal governing structure. The independence and autonomy of governors was insufficient to influence parties that were concerned with developing nationally coherent programs that were increasingly reflections of the desires of national party leaders, particularly presidents. The DGA and the RGA allowed
9 the governors to take part in national political discussions and to do so on a continual basis, allowing for the organizations to become institutionalized. Thus, governors had venues through which they could regularly engage with national party elites outside the national nominating conventions and the national party committees, ones which drew on the powers of their offices and not just their de-facto status as state party leaders in a decentralized and fragmented party system.
By bringing the concerns of the parties’ governors to national party elites, the DGA and the RGA allowed the governors to influence the national party programs, especially but not solely in terms of issues concerning intergovernmental relations; elevate their own political, sometimes presidential, ambitions; and augment the resources available to gubernatorial candidates through the development of the governors’ associations as part of the party-in-service.
The DGA and the RGA provided a forceful set of voices for the governors illustrating the importance of policy and electoral outcomes at the state-level. Governors, for instance, reinforced the notion that states could operate as areas in which national party programs could be implemented, such as in terms of welfare reform, education, and tax policy. Governors could also elevate issues to the national agenda, such as tax policy and collective bargaining reforms, that they were addressing at the state-level. State interests and governing capacities could be more clearly brought to bear on the development and implementation national partisan programmatic agendas.
National partisan actors situated in Washington subsequently contributed to the success of governors in the states and had reason to take the concerns of those occupying state office seriously. Presidents, congressional leadership and the national party committees invested financial and other resources in the RGA and the DGA and cooperated with the governors
10 through these organizations on electoral initiatives and policy. In turn, the governors and the
Associations promoted the interests of the national party, especially as the party system became more polarized. The party organizations through their partisan messaging, during and apart from their activities at National Governors Association meetings, added to the litany of voices promoting national partisan programs and electoral efforts. As such, the Associations promoted the party as a whole, including the programs of presidents, presidential candidates and the organizational efforts of the national party chairs.
Methodological Approach
The DGA and the RGA are unique organizations within American politics. For one thing, they are the only organizations to speak on behalf of the entirety of the governors of each of the two major political parties. Scholarship on these organizations within the field of political science is, however, limited. One literature which does discuss the DGA and the RGA specifically tends to place these organizations within a broader array of state-based lobbying organizations.11 A second literature which discusses these organizations mainly centers on their role as part of the party-in-service, specifically in terms of fundraising.12 It largely does so since the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which made fundraising and spending data much more readily available. A third focuses on historical party development but often treats the governors’ organizations as occasional players, ones that flow in and out of broader historical narratives that largely focus on the efforts of the national party committees and presidents.13
11 See Jensen, Jennifer. 2016. The Governors’ Lobby: Federal-State Relations Offices and Governors Associations in Washington. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. 158-63. See also Jensen, Jennifer M. 2017. “Governors and Partisan Polarization in the Federal Arena.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism. 47.3: 314-41. 12 Torres-Spelliscy, Ciara. 2012. “The $500 Million Question: Are the Democratic and Republican Governors Associations Really State PACS under Buckley’s Major Purpose Test?” New York University Journal of Legislation & Public Policy. 15.2: 485-538. 13 See for instance Galvin, Daniel. 2010. Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush. Princeton: Princeton University Press; Klinkner, Philip A. 1994. The Losing Parties: Out-Party National Committees, 1956-1993. New Haven: Yale University Press. 11
Jennifer Jensen, who has offered the most extensive discussion of these organizations, notes that “it has been only within the last 10 years that the groups have become a major force in gubernatorial or intergovernmental politics.”14 This view, from which I dissent, misses the ways in which governors have influenced national partisan politics. The perceived, and overstated,
“weakness” of these organizations is, I argue, attributable to drastically different contexts in which these organizations have operated over the course of the last five-plus decades.
Specifically, the DGA and the RGA arose at a time when the party system was far more decentralized than it is today. The organizations began under a drastically different campaign finance system - they began before the passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act in 1971.
Further, and crucially, the organizations were not met with universal support from other actors within the party when they were first created, and this was sometimes true within the memberships of the organizations themselves. Understanding the impacts that these organizations have had on the party system requires us to acknowledge the vastly different historical circumstances during which these organizations were formed and those in which they operated as well as how these circumstances depart from those we see in the current political landscape.
The current strength of the DGA and the RGA must be understood as historically constructed. The major fundraising capacities of the RGA and DGA, for instance, are the product of a number of factors. The formation of the organizations themselves allowed for and contributed to the integration of the party system and thus helped to set the stage for developments that were not always immediately felt but were, rather, incremental. The governors who originated and developed these organizations were reacting to particular contexts and they
14 Jensen, Jennifer. The Governors’ Lobby. 158. 12 shaped the Associations in order to allow the parties’ governors to address changing national political circumstances that had state-level effects. The moments at which these organizations formed were, to be sure, instances of political conflict. However, “political conflict,” as Guy,
Pierre, and King argue “is not just a feature of formative moments but just as often occur during path-dependent periods.”15 The moments in which the organizations were founded were instances of intense political conflict in which governors and national political elites grappled with issues such as civil rights. These episodes demonstrated that actors operating within state governments could be, and were being, affected by political decision-making in Washington.
This interconnectedness of national, state, and partisan politics would reemerge in other contexts over the next several decades. To be sure, they did so in new forms and under unique historical circumstances, but they reemerged nonetheless. Governors of both parties had reasons to engage in national partisan politics during and after the 1960s, and the existence of the DGA and the
RGA gave them a means of doing so.
In order to make the argument sketched above I develop this dissertation as a work in
American Political Development and employ the methods of historical institutionalism. “APD’s primary interest,” according to Orren and Skowronek, “lies in grasping processes of change conceptually, in general terms, and in considering their broader implications for the polity as a whole.”16 As Bensel notes, “American political development involves the longitudinal investigation of such institutions, including explanations of their origin, the conditions sustaining their existence (i.e., reproducibility), and the reasons for their demise. A necessary element in such theoretical investigations is their explicit insertion into one or more of the larger thematic
15 Peters, B. Guy, Jon Pierre and Desmond S. King. 2005. “The Politics of Path Dependency: Political Conflict in Historical Institutionalism.” The Journal of Politics. 67.4: 1278. 16 Orren, Karen and Stephen Skowronek. 2004. The Search for American Political Development. New York: Cambridge University Press. 6. 13 tapestries which attempt to encompass all or at least major parts of the American experience.
Such insertion will almost always situate the case at hand with respect to similar (and possibly contrasting) institutions, either in other periods of American history or in contexts drawn from cross-national comparisons.”17
In terms of longitudinal analysis, this project charts the development of these organizations from their founding in the 1960s through the 2000 presidential election, with some attention to more recent activities in the conclusion. I tie these developments to deeply rooted changes in the offices of state executives, intergovernmental relations, and party politics, particularly ones rooted in the Progressive Era. I, thus, seek to give careful attention to historical context, both in terms of the origins of the organizations and the activities of the Associations and their members since that time.
Governors were participating in national partisan politicking throughout the period considered here and the Associations provided a means to this end, one that was readily available to them once the organizations were created. The organizations also weighed in on a large number of political events and phenomena, some of which contributed to the institutionalization and augmentation of the Associations. In this sense, this project seeks to illustrate both the change to the American party system, including the trend toward partisan polarization, that were manifest in the creation of the RGA and the DGA as well as the patterns of behavior by the governors that these institutions allowed and promoted.18
17 Bensel, Richard. 2003. “The Tension Between American Political Development as a Research Community and as a Disciplinary Subfield.” Studies in American Political Development 17: 104-5. 18 See Sheingate, Adam. 2014. “Institutional Dynamics and American Political Development.” The Annual Review of Political Science. 17. 461-77 for a discussion of the tension between APD’s focus on explaining change and continuity with respect to political institutions. 14
National partisan politics, including inter-party and intra-party conflict, provide part of the “larger thematic tapestry” of which the Associations are a part. To be sure, intergovernmental relations are a focus of this project. However, discussions over intergovernmental relations were occurring within and between the parties and not simply among levels of government (or the formal governing institutions of said levels). As Bulman-Pozen has recently argued, “We cannot fully understand our federal system today without taking account of partisan competition.”19
Federalism allows for the parties to employ particular strategies and governors can, and often do, play important roles in partisan contestation, and not simply in terms of their own elections within the states. In this project, I seek to underscore the interrelationships among governance in the states, intergovernmental relations, and partisan politics and how the interplay among changes in these areas contributed to important developments in terms of national party organizations, partisan contestation, and the American polity more broadly, including and especially the emergent interconnectedness of partisan goals and state prerogative that governors have sought to balance in their activities through the RGA and the DGA.
There are two cases presented in this study: one organization per party. I give each case multiple chapters but comparisons are often drawn between the two, especially comparisons between the organizations at various points in time. The RGA and the DGA were in constant conversation, or perhaps more accurately put contestation, with one another. However, they took different paths of development in terms of organizational form, the size of staffs, and the resources at their disposal during any given election season. The Associations were often engaging in larger debates over the same political phenomena: civil rights, Watergate, New
Federalism, welfare reform, education, Medicaid, etc. However, they were often engaging in
19 Bulman-Pozen, Jessica. 2014. “Partisan Federalism.” Harvard Law Review 127.4: 1078. 15 these conversations in different ways based on the standing of the governors and the national parties. Thus, comparisons between the two organizations’ paths of development, and differences in the effects they had on the larger parties, can be drawn. Ultimately, both organizations push the parties in similar directions but understanding the unique historical trajectories taken within each party, especially the relationship between the logic of dual federalism and the place of the
South in American party politics, sheds light on political decision-making taken by the governors and national party elites throughout the period under study and the impact of these decisions on contemporary politics.
In taking this approach, the project largely takes the form of a historical narrative. The dissertation begins by focusing on governors and their place within the larger political system.
Consequently, the project gives limited attention to particular governors and other important historical figures. Not every governor played a meaningful role in the developments analyzed in this project, which does not emphasize the politics of any specific state or governor. Rather, the project addresses systemic changes in the relationship of governors to the national parties, one which occurred through and because of organizational developments within the parties. As such, the chairmen of the Associations, governors with presidential ambitions, presidents, some congressional leaders, and the chairmen of the national parties receive the bulk of consideration in the chapters that follows.
This analysis relies on a wide array of primary and secondary materials. First and foremost, I bring to bear a range of primary source materials from archives across the country. I have visited the collections of governors, mainly those who at some point served as chairmen of the DGA or the RGA, national party committee chairmen, and presidential libraries. The
16 gubernatorial collections themselves were treasure troves of information that political scientists, at least those who do not study state-level politics specifically, often overlook.
As with any historically oriented project, I am operating with some degree of selection bias. Elman and Elman note that “historians know that there are likely to be other documents, indeed whole collections of papers, that they have not seen. Accordingly, they are inclined to view their results as the uncertain product of an incomplete evidentiary record.”20 This is certainly true in this case. Many more collections of gubernatorial papers have documents relating the DGA and the RGA than I could possibly visit. I chose, therefore, to focus my attention primarily on those governors who served as chairmen of the Associations. Further, some collections were more thorough than others. Recordkeeping varied tremendously across individual collections.
A second selection criterion had to do with the timespan covered by the project. The
RGA and the DGA have existed, in some form, since the 1960s. My argument is developmental, a fact that required me to visit numerous archives. No centralized archives for either of these organizations exist. The primary source materials I collected emphasize the origins and early activities of the organizations under study. The amount of primary source material included here falls off during the 1990s, at least in terms of materials available in print.
I have sought to supplement this data with other sources. I conducted extensive searches of historical newspaper archives. I have gone through numerous oral histories. Lastly, I conducted interviews with governors and staff members of the Associations. My selection criteria are, of course, biased by availability of respondents and their willingness to talk. I
20 Elman, C., and M. F. Elman. 2001. “Introduction: Negotiating International History and Politics.” In Bridges and Boundaries: Historians, Political Scientists, and the Study of International Relations, edited by C. Elman and M. F. Elman, pp. 1–36. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 29. 17 focused my efforts on those individuals who, from earlier research, seemed to have more involvement in the Associations, specifically the Executive Directors of the organizations or governors who seemed to have been active. In short, I have attempted to “triangulate” available data to ensure a fair account of my subject matter, using an array of source material to develop a full and systematic account of these organizations.21
Contributions of the Dissertation
The dissertation seeks to make three basic contributions to the literature. At a most basic level, the dissertation adds a critical element to our understanding of the history of political party organizations. This will be the first extensive historical treatment of the DGA and the RGA. I deal with these organizations in their own right and on their own terms. They are at the center of the analysis that follows.
Second, the dissertation situates the changing place of American governors within a transformed American polity, including and especially within an evolving American party system. As the American polity has become more nationalized, the powers of and demands on, the office of governor have evolved. In some ways, the governors have been critical agents in these developments, even acting as political entrepreneurs, such as by creating the Associations themselves.22 However, the office has also been subject to new demands placed on them from national political actors. Jacobs and Ewing, note, for instance “the institutionalization of the federal–state–local relationship through rhetorical and administrative developments created new expectations of the states and localities themselves. Subnational political actors became resources for presidential politicking, in turn creating opportunities for savvy politicians and
21 Thies, Cameron G. 2002. “A Pragmatic Guide to Qualitative Historical Analysis in the Study of International Relations.” International Studies Perspectives. 3. 359. 22 On political entrepreneurship, see for instance Sheingate, Adam. 2014. “Institutional Dynamics and American Political Development.” Annual Review of Political Science. 17: 461-77. 18 bureaucrats at all levels to advance their policy interests.”23 This tension between gubernatorial prerogative and those of national elites, including presidents, are at the center of many of the actions taken by the governors through the RGA and the DGA. The RGA and the DGA have given the governors a means of engaging with presidents and congressional leadership on the national party program - the creation of the national brand – and are thus important to our understanding of why the parties develop the national programs, or brands, that they do. That is, by focusing on governors and the Associations, we can learn about evolutions in the relationships among actors situated across different political institutions, each with their own prerogatives and perspectives.
Lastly, the project seeks to offer insight into contemporary political decisions and debates. Today’s governors are involved in a litany of policy debates that are not simply “state- based” in their scope. The discussions of the 2018 RGA and DGA meetings above are but two examples of a broader phenomenon that has motivated this study. Recent scholarship has, for instance, noted the substantial role of partisanship in gubernatorial behavior related to the implementation of Obamacare including Medicaid expansion and the formation of state healthcare exchanges.24 Governors are involved in numerous policy disputes today from healthcare to education to immigration and their dual roles as heads of state governments and heads of state parties force them to grapple with the policy and the political effects of national political outcomes. Thus, this project offers insight into the historical roots of contemporary
23Jacobs, Nicholas F. and Connor M. Ewing. 2018. “The Promises and Pathologies of Presidential Federalism.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 48.3: 558. 24 See for instance Barrilleaux, Charles and Carlisle Rainey. 2014. “The Politics of Need: Examining Governors’ Decisions to Oppose the “Obamacare” Medicaid Expansion.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly. 14.4: 437-60; Rigby, Elizabeth. 2012. “State Resistance to ‘Obamacare.’” The Forum 10.2. 19 partisan debates and demonstrate that the moderating tendencies of executive office may have, since 2000 especially, have given way to a heightened form of national partisan polarization.
Outline of the Dissertation
Chapter 1 provides an elaboration of the argument presented above: that governors, in response to important national political contingencies, have played an important role in shaping the American party system since the 1960s through the DGA and the RGA, somewhat counterintuitively, contributing to the move from a decentralized to a more integrated and nationally programmatic party system. It begins by outlining basic motivations for governors to engage in national political decision-making. That is, it outlines a theory as to why governors would form national partisan governors’ organizations. I argue here that governors care about how national governing institutions affect policy outcomes at the state-level and how party brands shape state-level electoral outcomes as well as the career ambitions of governors beyond state politics. I next lay out the historical conditions under which the organizations were created
– a strengthening of the office of governor in a general sense, a move to a more cooperative, and later coercive, form of federalism, and the emergence of a more nationalized and programmatic party system. It then discusses these motivations in terms of the activities of the DGA and the
RGA themselves. Here, I argue that governors, through the Associations, seek to wield influence over the development of the national party brand, the outcomes of national presidential nomination contests, and the affairs of the national party organizations, including the DNC and the RNC, particularly how national party resources are utilized. That is, it discusses how the
Associations channel the efforts of their memberships and the effects they have had on the parties and, in turn, the effects of coordination with national elites on gubernatorial behavior in a nationalized political environment.
20
Chapter 2 begins the historical analysis by offering a snapshot of the development of gubernatorial involvement in national politics, including partisan politics, from the Founding to
1960. I highlight the development of the office of the governor, changes in the nature of
American federalism, and changes in the nature of the party system. This chapter provides the
“independent variables” that allowed for the origins of the RGA and the DGA. I argue that the expansion of governors’ roles as heads of state parties, increased involvement with national governing institutions – the shift from a system of “dual” to “cooperative” federalism, and the emergence of a more programmatic party system, and the problems and opportunities such a system presented governors, provide the historical backdrop for the origins of the partisan governors’ organizations.
Chapter 3 discusses the rise of the RGA in 1961 through the 1968 presidential election.
The issue of civil rights provided a “spark” for the RGA to form within the confines of the traditionally non-partisan National Governors Association (NGA) and its crystallization as a unique entity within the Republican party. It also traces the early activities of the RGA demonstrating that Republican gubernatorial behavior was meaningfully altered from before the emergence of the Association in terms of how governors interacted with national party officials, the roles they played in national presidential nominating contests, and their roles in inter-party contestation.
Chapter 4 covers the critical developments during the period of 1969 to 1980. The core argument of the chapter is that the RGA provided a meaningful venue through which the governors strengthened their influence over national partisan politics. Moreover, the development of the RGA as an organization can be explained by the perceived need on the part of the governors to enhance their active role in national politics. The affairs of Richard Nixon,
21 the Watergate scandal, and the losses of the party in the 1976 presidential election acted as vindication of enhanced gubernatorial activities within the GOP, allowing for activities begun in the 1960-1968 period to be institutionalized and expanded upon. Thus, the chapter illustrates that many of the conditions under which the RGA was established, situations in which national partisan conflict could impact governance and elections in the states, reemerged in new forms and propelled the continuation of patterns established in the 1960-68 period and even the strengthening of the RGA as organization.
Chapter 5 covers the activities of the RGA from the inauguration of Ronald Reagan to the nomination of George W. Bush in 2000. I begin with a consideration of the interaction of
President Reagan and the Republican governors through the RGA, highlighting the emergence of
New Federalism and the recognition of Reagan that the party needed to invest in state-level political outcomes to be successful. It traces these developments to the emergence of a more programmatic form of activist conservative governance at the state-level, one that allowed governors to be critical players in national Republican politics on a host of issues, including healthcare and welfare reform. Put simply, the 1980s and 1990s saw the crystallization of a new form of activist conservative governance, one which allowed Republican governors to demonstrate their leadership at the national-level and became critical to the emergence of the
Republican party’s platform in the 1990s, including the “Contract with America” in the historic
1994 midterm elections. Republican governors were crucial to national partisan contestation in this period in promoting conservative policy proposals in their states and in terms of the national partisan agenda.
Chapter 6 covers the 1960 to 1980 period but shifts focus to the DGA. The DGA developed during the same period but under different historical circumstances than the RGA.
22
The DGA began as a means of promoting the national Democratic agenda, especially that of
President Lyndon Johnson, but its development as an organization was limited by a factional dispute within the broad-based Democratic party. Southern governors, by and large, did not get on board with the party’s leftward shift on the issue of civil rights and, thus, the organization largely remained a caucus within the NGA during this period. While Southern governors could still find a path to election that was largely distinct from the paths taken by their northern counterparts and the Republican presence in the region remained weak, there was less impetus to develop the DGA. Here, I provide historical background on the ways in which American federalism allowed a great deal of diversity within the Democratic party and how these changes, both in terms of its effects on state governance and the relationship between state and national party organizations shaped the development of the DGA and the Democratic party over the span of two decades.
Chapter 7 traces the development of the DGA from 1980 to 2000, covering the emergence of the organization as a distinctive Association within the Democratic party and not just a caucus within the NGA. It demonstrates the impact that Democratic governors had on the emergence of the Democratic party platform and their roles in helping to elect Bill Clinton president in 1992 as well as in helping to sell the Democratic agenda during his presidency. In this regard, I demonstrate that the integration of the party’s governors that began decades earlier had long-term and meaningful implications for the party system. Democratic governors emerged during this later period as significant players on the national scene, particularly as partners with the Clinton administration.
The conclusion offers a continuation of this analysis in the post-2000 era, which has been characterized by a more intense form of partisan polarization. The RGA and the DGA underwent
23 significant organizational changes during this period, particularly in response to campaign finance legislation. However, a question remains as to how the changes to the organizations and a more hyper-focused attention to winning elections under a new campaign finance regime and a more polarized electorate have affected the roles played by and influence governors have on national politics, including the development of the national party programs. I end by reflecting on the potential implications of these recent trends for contemporary polarization, particularly the role of the governor in a polarized political climate in the Trump era and offer a potential path forward for future research.
24
CHAPTER 1: A THEORY OF NATIONAL GUBERNATORIAL PARTY ORGANIZATIONS
The DGA and the RGA are unique in that they are the only organizations dedicated to further the interests of the governors of their respective parties. As such, they are distinct from a range of other organizations dedicated to further the interests of the American states such as the
National Governors Association, the Council of State Governments, and a host of state-based lobbying groups that have offices in the nation’s capital. The DGA and the RGA, I argue, are more properly understood as part of the network of organizations constituting the national
Democratic and Republican parties.25 Their efforts are geared towards improving the standing of the party to which they belong. Yet, the Associations are also distinct from other organizations that make up the party networks in that they are specifically dedicated to representing and assisting their parties’ governors. In this sense, the perspective of the governors can be, and have been, brought to bear on the activities of the national parties.26
The American party system remains structured by American federalism. As Milkis notes,
“Formed during the early part of the 19th century, political parties were conceived as bulwarks of decentralization, as localized political associations that could provide a vital link between constitutional offices, especially the executive, and the people; they would do so by balancing state and local communities, championed by the Antifederalists as the true guardians of the
25 Herrnson and Bernstein, among others have discussed the “expansion” of the party universe in terms of the party as organization. See for instance Bernstein, Jonathan. 1999. The Expanded Party in American Politics. Doctoral Dissertation. University of California, Berkeley, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing; Bernstein, Jonathan and Casey B. K. Dominguez. 2003. “Candidates and Candidacies in the Expanded Party.” PS: Political Science and Politics 36.2. 165-9; Herrnson, Paul S., and David Menefee-Libey. 1991. “The Dynamics of Party Organizational Development.” American Review of Politics 11: 3-30; Herrnson, Paul S. 2009. “The Roles of Party Organizations, Party-Connected Committees, and Party Allies in Elections.” Journal of Politics. 71.4: 1207-24. 26 That is to say, even if the governors are advocating on behalf of a particular policy, these organizations channel their endeavors through the parties. 25 people’s rights, and the national government, strengthened by the Constitution of 1787.”27 To this day, for instance, the national party committees are made up of representatives of state party organizations as are the delegates of national conventions. In a formal sense, the representation of state and local communities has been maintained by the party organizations.
Despite this, today’s parties are much more integrated and nationally oriented than they were in the 19th century. This is true in terms of the behaviors, roles, and standing of the parties’ governors. Today’s governors are important players in national - not just state - politics and they have multiple channels through which they engage in national partisan politicking. This is especially true within the network of party organizations that make up the national party infrastructure. The DGA and the RGA are important means through which this gubernatorial participation in national partisan politics occurs, perhaps even more so than through state party membership in national party organizations, including the conventions and national committees.28 In fact, as will be discussed below, the DGA and the RGA have been important venues in which gubernatorial activity in other party organizations, including state parties, has been discussed.
I argue that the DGA and the RGA were formed as a means of advancing the interests of the governors within their respective parties and that the result of their formation and institutionalization within the larger party network allowed for the parties to become more integrated and programmatic than they had been often in ways that advanced the interests of the parties’ governors – specifically by providing campaign resources and room for discussion of
27 Milkis, Sidney M. 1999. Political Parties and Constitutional Government: Remaking American Democracy. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. 3. 28 The RGA and the DGA do not sit “below” the RNC and DNC as do the state party organizations. They sit alongside the Democratic and Republican Congressional and Senatorial campaign committees in that their reach is national in scope. On these organizations see Kolodny, Robin. 1998. Pursuing Majorities: Congressional Campaign Committees in American Politics. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 26 state-level concerns within the national parties. The parties maintain a commitment to federalism, not through a commitment to decentralization of the party as organization in a traditional Jacksonian sense but through states as vessels for advancing the programmatic interests of the parties. Federalism, specifically acknowledgement of the importance of state governments, and therefore governors, in achieving policy platforms is a part of the party programs in part because the governors have found a new way of asserting themselves within the parties. Put another way, governors can and do serve the national parties but, because of this, the national parties have reasons to take the advice of the governors seriously and to make investments in the success of these individuals. The DGA and RGA have been critical in this regard.
The governors’ engagement in national partisan politics was augmented in ways beyond specific discussions of intergovernmental relations. Through the Associations, themselves meaningful additions to the national party organizations, the governors were able to enhance their national reputations, obtain resources from national party organizations, and contribute to the development of national party programs. Governors became regular spokesmen for the national parties on a wide range of policy topics, including foreign affairs. That is, while the governors used the organizations to further their own interests, the organizations allowed for the governors to act on behalf of the national parties. Thus, the ultimate outcome of the creation of the DGA and the RGA has been a more integrated and programmatic party system, one in which governors and national party elites can coordinate on electoral strategies and policy implementation.
This chapter expands upon this basic argument and situates this thesis within the extant literature. The first section provides a theoretical foundation for why governors should care about
27 partisan politics, including national partisan politicking, and therefore may want national partisan organizations of their own. In short, governors care about electoral and policy outcomes as well as careers after being governor, often in Washington, including the Oval Office itself.
The second section discusses the conditions under which the governors should, and ultimately did, move to develop associations within the party. Put briefly, as the American polity becomes more nationalized – as the powers of the federal government increase, as the ties between the national and state governments become stronger, and when the locus of power within political parties shifts from state and local leaders to national governing elites - governors should seek to advance their interests in new ways, ones that do not rely on decentralized governing institutions, including decentralized parties. Nationalizing forces propel governors to grapple with how national partisan politics affect their ability to achieve their goals. This section begins to address the developmental question: why did the organizations form in the first place
(and why did they form when they did)? It also provides a logic as to why these organizations were maintained unlike a host of other temporary committees dedicated to party building during the 20th century, such as the Democratic Advisory Council, the Republican Coordinating
Committee and the Percy Commission. By the 1960s, and thereafter, governors were forced to grapple with the effects of national policies on a wide range of state-level policy outcomes and the effects of national party branding activities, by presidents, party leadership in Congress, and national party organizations on state-level electoral outcomes. After the 1960s, the organizations provided an institutionalized space in which the governors engaged in national party elites on a host of issues that were seen as having implications for their electoral and policy goals.
The third and final section of the chapter discusses the implications of the organizations once formed. Governors seek to assert themselves regarding the development of the national
28 party program, particularly, but not solely, as it relates to intergovernmental relations. They seek to augment the resources at their disposal during elections, including publicity and financial backing. They also seek to advance their own political ambitions within the national party infrastructure, such as during presidential contests. Put another way, this section addresses the question of what effects the Associations have had on the party system by highlighting the patterns of activity the organizations engage in. Table 1.1 provides an overview of the chapter.
Table 1.1: Motivations for, Causes of and Potential Effects of Partisan Governors’ Associations
Motivations Conditions Potential Effects
Getting (Re)Elected Empowered State Executives Expanded Resources for Within State Governments Governors and Gubernatorial Policy Outcomes and Party Organizations Candidates
National Political Ambitions Cooperative/Coercive Greater Gubernatorial Federalism Involvement in National Partisan Politics Nationally Programmatic Parties Gubernatorial Influence on the Party Program
Gubernatorial Motivations for Partisan Governors Associations
The first question that arises in terms of explaining the origins of the DGA and the RGA concerns the interests of those that formed and compose the Associations - the governors. As
Jensen notes, “Without a governor with the political will and economic incentives to set up an office, none would be created.”29 Moreover, as Shefter argues, “to explain many significant political phenomena – such as the conditions leading to the emergence of strong political parties
29 Jensen, Jennifer M. 2016. The Governors’ Lobbyists: Federal-State Relations and Governors Associations in Washington. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 14. This is consistent with Robert Salisbury’s theory of interest group development. See Salisbury, Robert H. 1969. “An Exchange Theory of Interest Groups.” Midwest Journal of Political Science 13.1: 64-76. 29
– it is less important to chart the views of mass publics than to understand how the strategic behavior of leaders is shaped by and in turn shapes political institutions.”30
In many ways, governors are like other politicians including members of Congress – they are ambitious in that they care about getting elected, and in many cases reelected; achieving desired policy outcomes; and seeking higher elected office, or some other position in national politics – the presidency, a Senate seat, or a cabinet appointment. In these ways, the same basic assumptions underlying the behavior of members of Congress laid out by Mayhew are applicable to governors.31 These basic goals manifest in terms of the relationship between the governors and political parties, a relationship which has been slowly transformed especially over the course of the 20th century.
For one, the governors’ desire to be elected and, when possible reelected, a possibility that has increased over time due to changes to state constitutions and statutes, almost forces them to run as a member of a political party. Parties are the vehicles through which ambitious politicians seek elective office. They organize nomination procedures and provide assistance to their respective candidates during general elections. The parties also provide meaningful linkages between those seeking office and voters as members of the electorate often identify with a political party, or at least they tend to favor politicians of one party over the other.32 They are also “long” or “institutionalized” coalitions with reputations and bases of support among voters
30 Shefter, Martin. 1994. Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experience. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 3. I do not argue here that the views of mass publics were not important to the phenomenon under analysis here. Indeed, the governors care a good deal about the views of the publics which elect them. Rather, I seek to illustrate that those public views intersected with particular institutional dynamics in which the governors were operating. 31 Mayhew, David R. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven: Yale University Press. 32 See for instance, Campbell, Angus, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes. 1960. The American Voter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Lewis-Beck, Michael S., William G. Jacoby, Helmut Norpoth, and Herbert F. Weisberg. 2008. The American Voter Revisited. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; Green, Donald, Bradley Palmquist and Eric Schickler. 2002. Partisan Hearts and Minds: Political Parties and the Social Identities of Voters. New Haven: Yale University Press. 30 that are relatively stable, at least in the short term. Ambitious politicians, thus, have incentives to join political parties and to maintain their membership in these organizations over time.33
For their part, the governors and gubernatorial candidates are, almost unanimously, members of national parties that compete, to varying degrees of competitiveness, in all fifty states. At the very least, governors have been members of national parties in that they bore their labels. Since 2010, for instance, only one governor, Bill Walker of Alaska, has won a race as an independent. Thus, in spite of the independence of the office that so many governors have expressed value in, this virtue typically does not lead to governors leaving the party or running as independents. Such instances are rare.
Second, governors have policy objectives and parties help to organize governing institutions and bridge the gap among them. Within legislative bodies, for instance, parties establish leadership positions, act as cues for individual members to identify potential allies, and act as “institutionalized” coalitions that work collectively to advance particular agendas, often at the expense of those who are not members of the coalition.34 Within the states, parties also provide connections between state executives and members of state legislatures, mirroring the connections between presidents and parties in Congress. Governors will share partisan identification with members of the legislature and can work with these members to achieve policy agendas at the state-level. Though many governors seek to operate in a bipartisan manner, and many pride themselves on their ability to do so, the parties remain a critical component in
33 For a discussion of the roles of elites within political parties see Aldrich, John. 2011. Why Parties? A Second Look. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. See also Schlesinger, Joseph A. 1975. “The Primary Goals of Political Parties: A Clarification of Positive Theory.” American Political Science Review 69.3: 840-9. 34 See for instance See Cox, Gary W., and Matthew D. McCubbins. 1993. Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Cox, Gary W., and Matthew D. McCubbins. 2005. Setting the Agenda: Responsible Party Government in the US House of Representatives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Jenkins, Jeffery A., and Charles Stewart III. 2013. Fighting for the Speakership: The House and the Rise of Party Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 31 organizing governing bodies at multiple levels of government. Partisan affiliation, in this way, helps to overcome the institutional roadblocks present in a system based on the separation of powers and checks and balances.35
Third, governors often, though certainly not unanimously, care about advancing national political ambitions. In this sense, the parties allow for governors with national ambitions to overcome the institutional roadblocks provided by the United States federal constitutional design. For instance, the governorship has been a springboard to the presidency.36 During the
20th century alone, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt,
Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all served as governor before advancing to the White House. Many governors have also gone on to serve in presidential cabinets, as senators, and as chairmen of national party committees. In these ways, partisan governors’ associations can be useful to governors in that they can provide meaningful assistance during electoral campaigns, allow governors to advance policy goals, and allow their memberships to raise their national political profiles.
Governors, then, care about many of the same things as other politicians. What is distinctive about them is that they are executives within a federal system and are, thus, more independent from parties than other office-seekers. Their independence is constructed partly through constitutional design through the separation of powers but also, to a large extent, manifests through the governors’ place within the parties. They are not, for instance, subject to the same degree of pressure as an individual MC is from party leadership in Congress. They are
35 This point is often raised as a function of political parties in the Madisonian system. It is also discussed as a virtue of political parties. See for instance Muirhead, Russell. 2014. The Promise of Party in a Polarized Age. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rosenblum, Nancy L. 2008. On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 36 See Ambar, Saladin M. 2012. How Governors Built the Modern American Presidency. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; Ambar, Saladin M. 2014. “The Rise of Sunbelt Governors: Conservative Outsiders in the White House.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 44.1: 72-94. 32 somewhat removed from the partisan institutions in Congress which promote loyalty to party leadership and the promotion of partisan agendas. They do not sit below the Speaker of the
House or the Majority or Minority Leader of the Senate and are not “whipped” by agents of said leadership. This degree of autonomy allows for some contestation over the conduct of party politics. Nevertheless, parties can and do offer benefits to governors in their efforts to achieve their goals and loyalty to the national party is increasingly expected in today’s polarized political climate. The DGA and RGA are an organizational means to these ends.
Conditions Necessary for Partisan Governors Organizations
While the literature cited above provides insight into why governors would want to have organizations dedicated to advancing their interests within the parties, a question remains as to the conditions under which governors will move to create such organizations, which are national in scope, and under which they will utilize them once they are created. Put another way, why did these organizations first appear in the 1960s and not earlier and why have these organizations been maintained when so many other organizational efforts – the Democratic Advisory Council, the Percy Commission, the Republican Coordinating Committee – have been shut down?
Further, why not simply act through state party organizations? Surely, governors would appreciate financial resources geared toward elections and means for elevating their reputations for presidential runs, regardless of when they served in the office.
I argue that the motivations for having and maintaining national partisan governors’ organizations require governors to be regularly engaged in national politics and to believe that national political decision-making is having meaningful effects on their abilities to advance the goals discussed above. For this to occur, three basic conditions need to be in place. First, governors must be empowered to engage in programmatic politics – they must be “strong” at the
33 state-level. In other words, they must be empowered to act on their own programmatic ambitions. Second, there must be strong ties between the federal and state governments. Federal governmental action needs to be seen as important for state-level policy outcomes. Third, there must be national political conflicts that governors perceive as critical to political and electoral outcomes about which they care.37 In sum, the necessity for such organizations needs to be real and perceptible in terms of the motivations outlined above.38 This requires an understanding of the governorship as an institution in a federal constitutional system.
Governors in State Politics: The Need for Ambition and Strength
With regard to the first point, today’s governors have a tremendous amount of power regarding their ability to shape policy in their states. Gubernatorial authority within the states has, in fact, been bolstered since the Founding and especially since the Progressive Era.
Governors are not passive agents in political decision-making in the states. They are creative leaders with explicitly defined constitutional and statutory authorities as well as important informal means of promoting their goals. They are, today, elected directly by the people of their states and are often the center of media attention with regard to state politics. As Ambar notes,
“the governorship is a political institution. It is not simply a touchstone for discourse within federalism. As a political institution, the governorship has meaning that crosses state and institutional boundaries, while also serving as a gateway for understanding the presidency.”39
37 I argue that these factors were independently necessary and jointly sufficient to inaugurate the RGA and the DGA. On necessary and sufficient conditions see for instance Mahoney, James. 2000. “Strategies of Causal Inference in Small-N Analysis.” Sociological Methods and Research 28.4: 387-424. 38 While this work seeks to explain the actions taken by governors, the basic reasoning provided here can also be brought to bear on the actions taken by national political elites in dealing with governors of their respective parties. If, for instance, governors have capacities to shape and implement policy at the state-level, presidents and party leadership in Congress will be more likely to make investments in electing governors in the states if they feel that state governments could help implement national policies favored by a party. 39 Ambar, Saladin. 2012. How Governors Built the Modern Presidency. 10-1. 34
Governors exhibit significant rhetorical leadership and, as the chief executives in their states, often have important capacities for shaping public policy outcomes within their jurisdictions. They typically exhibit a large degree of control over state bureaucracies, come to office with substantial governing agendas, and have numerous formal authorities granted to them by state constitutions beyond the veto.40 In many states, their authorities are augmented by the limited time frame of state legislative sessions. Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and Texas, for instance, hold regular sessions of their legislatures during odd-numbered years.
In some cases, governors also have responsibilities imposed on them that cause them to deviate from partisan positions. For instance, state constitutional provisions or statutes mandating balanced budgets have contributed to a number of Republican governors agreeing to tax increases and a number of Democratic governors allowing cuts to social welfare programs that they may not otherwise have made. They are, hence, in a unique place in terms of their ability to initiate and execute governing agendas at the state-level. As Ransone notes, “in most states the governor is one of the key people in the fascinating game of political chess.”41
Moreover, governors are not immune from ambition to seek higher office. The RGA and the DGA will be shown as a means of advancing the interests of individual governors. As such, a critical variable to consider is the extent to which members of these organizations are seeking the
White House or are otherwise looking for a position in Washington after finishing their term.
40 In some ways the constitutional authorities of governors exceed that of the president. For instance, many governors have the line-item veto, a power that the Supreme Court in Clinton v. New York ruled as unconstitutional on the national level. Additionally, many state legislatures meet for very limited sessions during the year, allowing the governor a significant amount of leeway. 41 Ransone Jr., Coleman B. 1982. The American Governorship. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 3. See also Schlesinger, Joseph A. 1970. “The Governor's Place in American Politics.” Public Administration Review 30.1: 2-10; Schlesinger, Joseph A. 1957. How They Became Governor: A Study of Comparative State Politics, 1870-1950. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press; Sabato, Larry J. 1978. Goodbye to Good Time Charlie: The American Governor Transformed, 1950-1975. Lexington: Lexington Health and Books; Beyle, Thad L. 1968. “The Governor's Formal Powers: A View From the Governor's Chair.” Public Administration Review. 28.6: 540-5. 35
Political ambition may be a motivating factor for creating these organizations, but the level of political ambition among the governors at any given time is also a variable that influences the conduct of politics within these venues.
Governors in Intergovernmental Politics: Strengthening Ties Between National and State
Governments
With regard to the second point, today’s governors have numerous reasons to care about what is going on in Washington D. C. Decisions made in the nation’s capital today often affect the inner workings of state governments, of which governors are today arguably the single most important players. Numerous federal programs from education to healthcare to immigration affect the budgets and administrative duties of state level bureaucracies. Medicaid, for instance, operates on joint funding by federal and state governments and are largely administered at the state-level despite the program having been created by the national government. Education, traditionally a state issue, has come under increasing federal scrutiny, such as through the No
Child Left Behind Act. Even immigration, traditionally seen as a policy area under the domain of the federal government, has important implications for the conduct of state and local law enforcement officials. Federal outlays, overall, make up approximately a third of state-level spending, a percentage that has been increasing over time. In 2017, for instance, federal mandatory and discretionary grants made up between 17.5 (Hawaii) and 41.9 (Michigan) percent of state revenue.42
Again, the extent to which national politics has implications for gubernatorial behavior has varied considerably over time.43 Indeed, the contours of American federalism have shifted
42 Federal Aid to State and Local Governments. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“certain interests are common to all parts of the nation, such as the formation of general laws and the relations of the people with foreigners,” while others “are special to certain parts of the nation, such as for example, the undertakings of the township.”44 Power in managing local and state affairs was divided, allowing for the maintenance of individual rights albeit at the expense of efficient outcomes of governing policy. Since Tocqueville’s tour of the young Republic, scholars of American federalism have chronicled a shift from a system of “dual” federalism to a more integrated relationship between the national and state governments with some scholars emphasizing cooperation between levels of government and others emphasizing conflict between the two.
These changes have had significant implications for the behavior of governors in relation to national political elites. Governors do not always, in their interaction with national government officials, act as ardent defenders of state autonomy or the logic of “dual sovereignty,” though that line of reasoning does manifest in gubernatorial rhetoric upon occasion, and was especially prevalent in the rhetoric of conservative Democratic governors such as George Wallace. Balogh has argued that governors “have been publicists, lobbyists, enthusiasts for business development, and even nationalists, arguing for federally funded services delivered by units of government that citizens could trust” and that “governors adapted to the opportunities presented by an enlarged federal government.”45 Further, “Because governors were uniquely positioned to represent all the citizens of their state, they often
44 De Tocqueville, Alexis. 2000. Democracy in America. Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. Eds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 82. 45 Balogh, Brian. Introduction: Directing Democracy.” In A Legacy of Innovation: Governors and Public Policy. 2008. Ethan G. Sribnick, Ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1. 37 articulated and shaped popular demands in ways that led to state-administered or –regulated policies.”46 The DGA and the RGA have been sites of such gubernatorial behavior, channeling these interactions between governors and national political elites through the political parties.
Ultimately, once an issue with implications for state governance is thrust onto the national agenda, governors have reason to get involved in national political discussions. National political decision-making can have important implications both for how money is spent at the state-level and for how state-level regulations are written. The trend toward more national intervention in state politics leads governors to actively engage in policy discussions in Washington, and this could take place through party organizations.
Governors in Party Politics: National Party Reputations and Organizations Matter in the
States
With regard to the third point - the nature of the American party system, and how the governors see themselves within said system, is especially important for the development and use of these organizations because of what the governors can achieve, or at the very least hope to achieve, through their membership in the parties. Both the governors’ roles in state and national party politics have shifted over time.
APD scholarship has long discussed the shift of the American party system from being
“decentralized” to one that is increasingly programmatic and nationally oriented. Klinghard, for instance, emphasizes the rise of new campaign techniques and the ability of presidents to engage the American people more directly during the 1896 presidential election, a contest that set
46 Ibid. 7. To push the point further, states have often been the logical go-to for national elites in seeking to implement national policies. There have been instances in which presidents and congressional leaders have sought out the support of local officials directly in implementing national policy, such as in the case of Lyndon Johnson’s Model Cities program during the Great Society. American political history is also rich in terms of the challenges presented by regionalism, especially concerning political development in the South and the expansion of the nation westward. However, the United States lacks regional administrative capacity. States are officially recognized as legitimate governing bodies in the Constitution. 38 precedent for future presidents both through William McKinley’s “front-porch” campaign and
William Jennings Bryan’s extensive travels and active participation in the Democratic National
Convention that year.47 Milkis underscores the importance of presidential programmatic leadership, particularly noting Progressive critiques of decentralized parties and the rise of national governing programs under FDR.48 To the Progressives, the strength of local party organizations impeded the execution of national political agendas that could alleviate the problems of the Gilded Age. Presidents moved to make the parties more accountable to them.
These changes altered the relationship between national and state party elites, with power shifting toward those in the nation’s capital.
A related line of inquiry within the literature on political parties and American federalism concerns the ability of parties to “safeguard” federalism. Grodzins and Elazar, for instance, argue that the decentralized nature of the American political parties protected federalism by making officials elected to national offices accountable to numerous state and local party leaders.49 In a similar vein, Riker argues that “the institution that seems to be most significant in separating the relationship between the center and electorate, on the one hand, and states and electorate, on the other hand, seems to be the widely decentralized party system.”50
Others have emphasized the move away from a decentralized party system. Truman, for instance, argues that changes in the media landscape, which have pushed the attention of voters
47 Klinghard, Daniel. 2010. The Nationalization of American Political Parties: 1880-1896. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Klinghard, Daniel P. 2005. “Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, and the Emergence of the President as Party Leader.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 35.4: 736-760. 48 Milkis, Sidney M. 1993. The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System Since the New Deal. New York: Oxford University Press; Milkis, Sidney M. 1999. Political Parties and Constitutional Government: Remaking American Democracy. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. 49 Grodzins, Morton. 1966. The American System: A New View of Government in the United States. Chicago: Rand McNally; Elazar, Daniel J. 1987. Exploring Federalism. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. 50 Riker, William H. 1964. Federalism: Origin, Operation, Significance. Boston: Little, Brown. 104. See also Filippov, Mikhail, Peter C. Ordershook, and Olga Shevetsova. 2004. Designing Federalism: A Theory of Self- Sustainable Federal Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 39 to presidential contests, have weakened state and local party organizations’ attachment to voters.51 The mid-20th century saw the rise of candidate-centered rather than party-centered campaigns and presidential nomination contests moved from being decided in conventions to primaries and caucuses, shifting power away from state and local party leaders and promoting more direct ties between national elected officials and voters.
These changes to political party organizations within the states have shifted the relationship of the governor to the party. At the state-level, especially during the 19th and early
20th centuries, party bosses were not always in line with gubernatorial agendas. In fact, attacks on the state and local party organizations resulted in expanded executive authority at the state- level. Thus, from an organizational standpoint, transformations of parties within the states have empowered governors. They are today the de-facto leaders of state parties and, as such, typically control party organizations that are capable of creating their own platforms at the state-level, raise money, recruit volunteers, etc. Through the state party organizations, the governors also have some means of influencing the national parties, which are composed of delegations of the parties of the fifty states (and territories). Taken together, shifts toward a more nationally oriented party system and enhanced gubernatorial strength relative to state parties raises questions as to the relationship of governors to national partisan governing agendas.
For one, the state of American partisanship in the electorate provides electoral motivations for governors to care about affairs in Washington above and beyond questions of policy implementation created by the expansion of national governing authority, though policy implementation also is a critical concern. As Aldrich notes, the reputation of a party can be seen as “valuable to the extent that it conveyed information to ease the voters’ burden in making a
51 Truman, David B. 1967. ‘Federalism and the Party System.” In American Federalism in Perspective. Aaron Wildavsky Ed. Boston: Little, Brown. 81-109. 40 decision by giving a single, continuous signal about where a party and (virtually) all of its candidates stand – and how they will act in office.”52 Scholars of American political behavior since Schattschneider have noted a trend toward the nationalization of the American electorate.
As Hopkins has recently noted, “in a nationalized polity, many votes cast for governors, state legislators, and even sometimes mayors are cast with an eye toward the candidates’ alignment in national politics.”53
Scholars of American political behavior have often addressed the nationalization of the
American electorate as a dependent variable.54 In particular, trends in political nationalization are often discussed alongside discussions of polarization and sorting.55 Levendusky, for instance, demonstrates that over time, Republicans have become more likely to adopt more consistently conservative policy positions while Democrats have become more consistently liberal in their ideological orientation.56 This is largely attributed to the behavior of political elites, including elected officials. In short, elites sorted first, followed by the mass electorate.
52 Aldrich, John. 2011. Why Parties? A Second Look. 256. 53 Hopkins, Daniel J. 2018. The Increasingly United States: How and Why American Political Behavior Nationalized. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 19. See also Rogers, Steven. 2016. “National Forces in State Legislative Elections.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 667: 207-25. 54 For a recent discussion of this see Hopkins, Daniel J. 2018. The Increasingly United States: How and Why American Political Behavior Nationalized. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. For discussions of electoral nationalization in comparative contexts see Claggett, William, William Flanigan and Nancy Zingale. 1984. “Nationalization of the American Electorate.” The American Political Science Review 78.1: 77-91; Caramani, Daniele. 2004. The Nationalization of Politics: The Formation of National Electorates and Party Systems in Western Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Morgenstern, Scott, and Stephen M. Swindle. 2005. ‘‘Are Politics Local? An Analysis of Voting Patterns in 23 Democracies.’’ Comparative Political Studies 38.2: 143– 70; Morgenstern, Scott, Stephen M. Swindle and Andrea Castagnola. 2009. “Party Nationalization and Institutions.” Journal of Politics 71.4: 1322-1341. 55 See for instance Abramowitz, Alan, and Steven Webster. 2015. “All Politics is National: The Rise of Negative Partisanship and the Nationalization of U.S. House and Senate Elections in the 21st Century.” Prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, April 16–19, 2015; Jacobson, Gary. 2013. “Partisan Polarization in American Politics: A Background Paper.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 43: 688–708; Levendusky, Matthew. 2009. The Partisan Sort: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became Republicans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 56 Levendusky, Matthew. 2009. The Partisan Sort: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became Republicans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 41
I do not challenge this line of scholarship. Rather, I seek to highlight the role of governors, and the Associations, in this process by underscoring the implications of nationalizing trends for state-level, and not just national, political actors. Put simply, these changes in the nature of the coalitions of the two parties have important implications for how the parties and their candidates engage in electioneering efforts as well as organizational development within the parties. That is, the perceived nationalization of issues has implications for understanding the behavior of governors. Governors care, for instance, about the implications of changing partisan coalitions on the abilities of their respective parties to win elections – nationally and in the states.
Governors did not initiate the nationalization of American electoral behavior but rather responded to the nationalization of political issues and presidential politics in ways that have likely contributed to this trend in the long run.57
Relatedly, there is a question as to the extent of gubernatorial influence on national partisan outcomes, such as during presidential nominating contests, as the party system becomes more integrated. As state party organizations weaken, governors’ influence over presidential selection, for instance, is transformed. They can no longer directly influence delegate votes at national conventions, or at the very least their ability to do so is curtailed, even if their status within state party organizations is strong relative to local or state party bosses. Likewise, their ability to influence national party platforms is also mitigated as these decisions require agreement among platform committee participants at the conventions. Thus, gubernatorial influence over national partisan decisions is weakened as the party system becomes more
57 In this way, the process of the nationalization of the electorate and the nationalization of party organizations through gubernatorial activity may be said to be endogenous, part of a feedback loop. 42 nationalized, at least in terms of the tools governors have traditionally had at their disposal through political party organizations.58
Given these lines of research, two issues stand out in terms of providing impetus for governors to become more active in national politics through the party as organization. First, I argue that changes in the national party brand can be, and have been, interpreted by governors in the context of electoral efforts within the states and the degree to which the national party and state parties can operate independently of one another.59 Governors have sought to engage in national partisan politics when they perceive that the national party brand was endangering their political and policy ambitions and when they could not rely on traditional state party organizations to overcome these hurdles. Again, their engagement, generally, has been stronger since the 1960s with the dawn of the partisan Associations and transformations in the national party organizational apparatus more broadly.
The brand will include specific issue positions that can affect the standing of the national parties, and therefore the elected officials who bear party labels. Specific issue positions taken by the party, such as those regarding race relations, wars, social welfare policy, etc. can influence which groups of voters a governor or group of governors, and other elected officials for that matter, seek out during electoral contests. If the national party takes an unpopular position that risks isolating a particular group this potentially jeopardies electoral strategies by the parties
58 The UCLA school of political parties takes a different view of the extent to which party insiders influence the outcomes of presidential nomination contests. However, the means by which insiders, in which they include governors, have to exert this influence is through public endorsements, fundraising, and campaign appearances rather than direct influence on delegate votes. Presidential contenders and campaign operatives have often noted the importance of having the backing of a governor in primary and general election contests, mainly because governors can help presidential campaigns build the infrastructure and fundraising base necessary to mount a vigorous campaign within the states. See Cohen, Marty, David Karol, Hans Noel and John Zaller. 2008. The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 59 On brands see Grynaviski, Jeffrey D. 2010. Partisan Bonds. Political Reputations and Legislative Accountability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 43 within the states. This will be especially true when an issue is receiving ample media attention as was the case in terms of a number of issues that will be discussed later, especially that of civil rights during the 1960s. Individual governors can seek, and have sought, to “localize” their races and highlight their autonomy from partisan politics. Through the DGA and the RGA, however, they can also bring their concerns over national party programs and electoral strategies to national party elites.
Second, the presidential ticket becomes of particular importance in terms of defining what the national parties stand for. Presidential approval is often depicted as crucial to partisan electoral outcomes, even during midterm elections when the president is not on the ballot.
Presidential policies, and even personalities, can be, and often are, interpreted as having impacts on vote choice down-ballot. For instance, the president’s party historically has tended to lose seats in Congress during midterm elections and this is often discussed in terms of said elections being “referendums” on the president’s leadership. This provides perceived “danger” for governors and, thus, motivations for them to assert themselves in national partisan politics.60 An increasing body of literature has pointed to presidential approval having a particular influence on down-ballot vote choices, even in midterm election cycles. Fullmer and Daniel for instance, in an examination of 143 gubernatorial races between 1994 and 2014, find “that state-level presidential approval has a significant effect on the performance of the president’s party in these races.”61 Shifting gubernatorial and other state-level elections to the midterms was a conscious
60 This is in line with the literature on party building, which has long demonstrated that parties engage in organizational development and rebranding activities in response to losses. See for instance Klinkner, Philip A. 1994. The Losing Parties: Out-Party National Committees, 1956-1993. New Haven: Yale University Press; Galvin, Daniel. 2010. Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 60 Heersink, Boris. 2018. “Party Brands and the Democratic and Republican National Committees, 1952-1976. Studies in American Political Development (April): 81. 61 Fullmer, Elliot and Rebecca Daniel. 2018. “Invisible Coattails: Presidential Approval and Gubernatorial Elections, 1994-2014. The Forum: 16.2: 270. See also Piereson, James E. 1975. “Presidential Popularity and Midterm Voting at Different Electoral Levels.” American Journal of Political Science 19: 683–694; Simon, Dennis 44 decision on the part of state level political actors to shift attention to these contests to state and local issues.62 If these analyses are true, and based on the rhetoric of governors across the time period analyzed here it is at the very least believed, then governors have significant reason to care about the image of the national party. Again, the emphasis on the presidency is not to say that congressional leadership is immune to criticism by the governors, especially when the party is not in control of the White House. Indeed, tensions between the congressional parties and the governors play an important part of the story developed in later chapters. Rather, the presidency is emphasized because of the high profile and ample media attention of the personalities occupying the office, the agendas stemming from said office, and the hyper-focus on the national executive.
I argue that these conditions – an augmented governorship, a tightened relationship between the national and state governments, and the emergence of a more programmatic and nationally oriented form of partisanship - were met by the 1960s and not so consistently beforehand. Rather, the conditions were gradually put in place leading up to this time and were largely maintained since then. Governors had become more powerful within state politics over time. Intergovernmental relations had developed to be more cooperative, and sometimes coercive. And, the party system had become more focused on nationally programmatic, especially presidential, politics. Further, these conditions were generally maintained since that
M. 1989. “Presidents, Governors, and Electoral Accountability.” Journal of Politics 51: 286–304; Simon, M. Dennis, Charles W. Ostrom Jr., and Robin F. Marra. 1991. “The President, Referendum Voting, and Subnational Elections in the United States.” The American Political Science Review 85 (4): 1177–1192; Carsey, Thomas M., and Gerald C. Wright. 1998. “State and National Factors in Gubernatorial and Senatorial Elections.” American Journal of Political Science 42 (3): 1008–1011; Cohen, Jeffrey E. 2007. “The Polls: Presidential Referendum Effects in the 2006 Midterm Elections.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37 (3): 545–557. 62 See Engstrom, Erik J., and Samuel Kernell. 2014. Party Ballots, Reform, and the Transformation of America’s Electoral System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 45 time, allowing the organizations to find continued meaning and therefore ample reasons to continue and even expand upon their activities.
Effects of Partisan Governors’ Associations: Integration, Resources and Gubernatorial
Influence
In a broad sense, the basic implication of having partisan governors’ organizations has been an integration of the American party system. The DGA and the RGA have allowed for greater cooperation between the governors and national party elites. Specific implications of this development include: greater resources invested in the governors and the governors’ associations in terms of electoral efforts; greater involvement by the governors, especially through the DGA and the RGA, in selling the national party brand; and greater participation by governors in developing the party program. Overall, the organizations have promoted the notion that governors have become central elements of national partisan teams.
Resources and National Organization
The first point raised here can broadly be interpreted as an expansion of the national party as organization, allowing for increases in the resources made available to the governors. The monetary and service-oriented resources available to the governors through national party organizations have definitely increased over time.63 The resources available to the RGA and
DGA reflect this general trend, especially since campaign finance reform in the early 2000s.
According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, for instance, DGA expenditures increased from $30 million in 2004 to almost $97 million in 2014. The RGA increased its
63 See Cotter, Cornelius P. and John F. Bibby. 1980. “Institutional Development of Parties and the Thesis of Party Decline.” Political Science Quarterly 95.1: 1-27; Cotter, Cornelius P., James L. Gibson, John F. Bibby, and Robert J. Huckshorn. 1989. Party Organizations in American Politics. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press; Dwyre, Diana. 2010. “Party Organization and Mobilization of Resources: Evolution, Reinvention, and Survival.” In New Directions in American Political Parties. Jeffrey M. Stonecash Ed. New York: Routledge. 63-90. 46 spending from $43 million to $168 million in the same period.64 The size of the staffs has increased dramatically since the founding of these organizations. For instance, as of January
2019, the RGA’s website listed a full-time staff of twenty-three.65 In the late 1960s, the staff for the RGA numbered only three. While the resources of these organizations are not distributed equally among their memberships – campaign expenditures are for instance strategic, largely targeting highly competitive races – the trend has been upward in terms of the resources at the disposal of the Associations.
Additionally, before these organizations became the robust financial organizations that they currently are, the organizations received resources from other party committees and national political elites. Within this category, I include monetary and staffing assistance provided by the national committees as well as fundraising assistance and time commitments given by presidents.
That is, the Associations have contributed to strategic investment in gubernatorial races by national party officials who, while investing in local and state parties, no longer rely on these organizations for the conduct of electoral efforts. Again, the DGA and the RGA are new organizations that sit alongside state party organizations and can work with these organizations.
Fundamentally, however, they are distinct from the state party organizations. I also include the meetings of the organizations themselves, in this respect, as they are important in promoting the activities of the governors and elevating their national profiles. The meetings are resources for the governors and national party elites in and of themselves. The governors use the organizations to further their own personal agendas within the parties.
64 See Jensen, Jennifer M. 2016. The Governors’ Lobbyists: Federal-State Relations and Governors Associations in Washington. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 160. Figure 5.1. See also Torres-Spelliscy, Ciara. 2012. “The $500 Million Question: Are the Democratic and Republican Governors Associations Really State PACS under Buckley’s Major Purpose Test?” New York University Journal of Legislation & Public Policy. 15.2: 485-538. 65 14 January 2019. Republican Governors Association.
The Associations have also added leadership roles within the national parties. The chairs of the DGA and the RGA are often high-profile leaders within the party and several of them have gone on to run for president or for a Senate seat, to lead the national party committees, or serve in presidential cabinets. They also typically are given speaking slots at the national conventions and have used the Associations’ meetings to lobby for gubernatorial roles at the national conventions and for governors to obtain slots on temporary party committees. Table 1.2 provides a summary of the post-governorship careers for RGA and DGA Chairmen. The chairmen (and women) of these organizations contribute to broad-based party-building efforts, often being important players in fundraising efforts.
Table 1.2 RGA and DGA Chairmen and Later National Political Careers Democrats Republicans John Connally – Secretary of the Treasury John Love - Director of the Office of Energy Harold Hughes – US Senator Policy Dale Bumpers – US Senator John Chafee – Secretary of the Navy, US Wendell Ford – US Senator Senator Wendell Anderson – US Senator Ronald Reagan – US President Reubin Askew – US Trade Representative Linwood Holton – Assistant Secretary for Patrick Lucey – Ambassador to Mexico Legislative Affairs Chuck Robb – US Senator Kit Bond – US Senator Bruce Babbitt – Secretary of the Interior Otis Bowen – Secretary of Health and Human Richard Riley – Secretary of Education Services Michael Dukakis – Presidential Candidate Jim Thompson – Chair of the Intelligence Bill Clinton – US President Oversight Board James Blanchard – Ambassador to China Robert Orr – Ambassador to Singapore Dick Celeste – Ambassador to India Richard Thornburgh – US Attorney General Roy Romer – Chair of the DNC John Sununu – White House Chief of Staff Evan Bayh – US Senator Thomas Kean – Chair of the 9/11 Howard Dean – Chair of the DNC Commission Gary Locke – Secretary of Commerce, Mike Castle – US House Representative Ambassador to China John Ashcroft – US Senator, US Attorney Joe Manchin – US Senator General Tom Vilsack – Secretary of Agriculture Tommy Thompson – Secretary of Health and Kathleen Sebelius – Secretary of Health and Human Services Human Services George Voinovich – US Senator Joe Manchin – US Senator Mike Leavitt – Secretary of Health and Human Services, Administrator of the EPA Terry Branstad – Ambassador to China
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Ed Schafer – Secretary of Agriculture Tom Ridge – Secretary of Homeland Security Mitt Romney – US Senator, Presidential Candidate Sonny Perdue – Secretary of Agriculture Rick Perry – Secretary of Energy Chris Christie – Chair of the Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission
Party Integration: Coordinating on Message and Policy
Second, the governors have become more involved in taking part in national partisan politicking through these organizations. For one, the RGA and the DGA have played important roles in shaping gubernatorial behavior during NGA meetings. In this sense, the governors have acted as part of national partisan teams in their interactions with the other party’s governors.66 In fact, discussions with those who have worked for the NGA have noted an increase in partisanship, particularly since 2000, though I show that partisanship did affect the NGA much earlier than that, and in important ways. This is true in terms of the press releases of the partisan organizations as well as public statements made during Association meetings, those occurring during NGA meetings as well as during separate retreats of the DGA and the RGA. Additionally, the governors have used the Associations to coordinate appearances in Washington and outside of their home states in furthering national partisan agendas.
Importantly, the DGA and the RGA contribute to national partisan teamsmanship in terms of the interactions of national and state governments. Recent literature has highlighted the ways in which state governing capacities have become important in challenging national partisan policy agendas. The debate over Obamacare is but one instance of this trend. As the partisan
66 See Jensen, Jennifer. M. 2017. “Governors and Partisan Polarization in the Federal Arena.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism. 314-41. 49 organizations have strengthened, the governors have become more involved in a more “partisan” form of federalism. As Posen has argued:
Put in only slightly caricatured terms, Republican-led states challenge the federal government when it is controlled by Democrats, while Democratic-led states challenge the federal government when it is controlled by Republicans. States oppose federal policy because they are governed by individuals who affiliate with a different political party than do those in charge at the national level, not because they are states as such. And the fact that there are fifty states and many actors composing the federal and state governments is critical. Because it is party politics that draws the battle lines, some state and federal actors line up on the side of the federal government, while other state and federal actors line up on the side of the states. Federalism provides the institutional terrain for disputes that are substantive in nature.67
That is, governors have become more active in selling the national party brand and in challenging the partisan opposition through their place in state governments, which act as
“laboratories of partisan politics.”68 For instance, “Sometimes a handful of states, or even a single state, define and promote a party’s stance on a particular issue. California has advanced the Democratic position with respect to global warming and emissions standards, while Arizona has been the standard-bearer for the Republican Party on immigration.”69
This coordinated team play is consistent with scholarship that has demonstrated that governors and state parties have demonstrated increased partisan polarization over time. For instance, Weinberg demonstrates that State of the State speeches have increasingly taken on a partisan dimension, one reflective of national partisan divides.70 Paddock finds that state party platforms have also exhibited greater degrees of consistency within the parties across the states over time.71 Anecdotal evidence based on interviews, including those conducted by Jensen and
67 Bulman-Pozen, Jessica. 2014. “Partisan Federalism.” The Harvard Law Review 127.4. 1080. 68 Ibid. 1124. 69 Ibid. 1127. 70 Weinberg, Micah. 2010. “Measuring Governors’ Political Orientations Using Words as Data.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly. 10.1: 96-109. See also Coffey, Daniel. 2005. “Measuring Gubernatorial Ideology: A Content Analysis of State of the State Speeches.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 5: 88–103. 71 Paddock, Joel. 2004. State and National Parties and American Democracy. Peter Lang. Inc. 50 myself, indicates that the RGA and DGA have promoted partisanship within the NGA. I argue here that said evidence is explained through the organizations working toward coordinated messages between the national parties and the governors.
Governors and National Party Programs
Finally, the development of the party program is a key point of concern for the governors, and the DGA and the RGA are sites of advancing the interests of state executives. If the national party brand is thought to have effects on voting behavior among the public and the reputation of the national parties is taken into account in gubernatorial vote choice, then the governors should seek to have some influence over what the national parties are saying and doing.
On this front, the governors often advance policy planks for the national party platforms and the RGA and the DGA typically have staffing and office space at national party conventions.
The governors also advance policies developed in their states on the national stage. This occurs through influence on the national platforms and through interaction of the RGA and the DGA with congressional and presidential leadership, such as in promoting New Federalism under
Nixon and Reagan, welfare reform during the Clinton administration, and education policy from the 1980s through the 2000s. Governors can help to shape national partisan governing agendas through multiple venues and they rely on their administrative and rhetorical leadership to do so.
For instance, governors in both the DGA and the RGA have advocated for waivers from federal programs such as welfare, Medicaid, and national education standards. The Associations have furthered these interests through press statements and through seeking to enhance the roles of the governors within the national party as organization. In this way, the fact that the governors are increasingly selling party programs that they have helped to craft.
51
The opportunities for governors to influence the national party programs opens the door for a mix of the “governmental centralization: and “administrative decentralization” discussed by
Tocqueville to live on in a new form. Governors have become more likely to advance national partisan agendas. However, this still allows for some degree of policy experimentation, though decreasingly so as the parties have become more programmatic over time. Governor Tommy
Thompson, of Wisconsin, for example, became a leading figure in the development of welfare reform in the 1980s and 1990s. In doing so, he led the way for a new form of activist conservative governance that shaped the GOP going into the new millennium.
Conclusion
In the final analysis, the Associations have become important organizations within the national party infrastructure. The governors have used, and continue to use, these organizations to further their own objectives which have not been to decentralize the party system but rather to further integrate said system. Over time, the political and policy motivations of the governors have increasingly been seen in relation to the conduct of national partisan politics. Additionally, the conditions under which these organizations were formed have largely been maintained. The increase in the powers of governors within the states has largely been maintained, the interconnectedness of national and state policy has tightened, and the party system has remained nationalized. Thus, the impetus for the governors to engage in national partisan politics has been sustained, and has even increased over time. This has allowed for the partisan gubernatorial organizations to be maintained, and even to grow in importance over time.
I do not mean to argue here that the electoral and political motivations were equally distributed across all governors or that the conditions outlined above were distributed equally across the states in a spatial sense. State constitutional provisions regarding executive power, for
52 example, vary across time and place. Presidential ambitions by sitting and former governors also is not a constant. In fact, in comparing the developments of the RGA and the DGA I will argue that these conditions differed meaningfully across the parties. Rather, I seek to illustrate that these factors were sufficient to instigate meaningful change to the national parties and that these changes have endured over time.
In the following chapters I demonstrate that the conditions under which governors should act to advance their interests in terms of national programmatic politics were in place by the
1960s and that the rise of the RGA and the DGA established patterns under which these organizations and their members have acted since that time. That is, there is a broad secular development at work which has functioned to integrate the governors of both parties into national partisan politics through these organizations. I first turn to the pre-1960 period, and attempt to illustrate that the governors’ place within state and national party politics was being transformed, setting the stage for coordinated action on the part of state executives within the national parties.
53
CHAPTER 2: GOVERNORS AND NATIONAL POLITICS BEFORE THE NATIONAL GUBERNATORIAL PARTY ORGANIZATIONS
There has been a dramatic change in the role of governors in national partisan politics over the course of American history. Governors’ engagement in national politics, including partisan politics, before the Progressive Era tended to be atomized and irregular. The “state of courts and parties” defining the American political landscape in the 19th century included a limited role for governors in national politics, and quite often a subdued role in state-level politics.72 To be sure, many men who served as governor before the Progressive Era achieved great things. Nine men who became President before 1900 had previously served as governor.73
Others, such as DeWitt Clinton of New York, were critical in advancing the budding commercial republic through innovative infrastructure projects like the Erie Canal. Governors before the
Progressive Era were, however, primarily state-level actors and not always powerful ones at that.
In 1888, Lord James Bryce went so far as to argue that “State office carries little either of dignity or of power.”74
Reform movements culminating in the Progressive Era brought new ideas as to the role of governor within the American political system, ones which fundamentally altered the place of governors within the states, in intergovernmental relations, and within the party system.
Executive leadership took on a bolder character, with governors expected to lead a broader state apparatus, represent state interests in conversations with national political officials, and be the faces, if not the outright leaders, of state party organizations. In sum, the standing of the
72 Skowronek, Stephen. 1982. Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 73 See for instance, Anderson, David J. and John Weingart. “Governors Who Became President.” Center on the American Governor. Rutgers University.
Table 2.1 Governors and Reform: Developments Leading to the Creation of Partisan Governors Associations
Weak to Strong Executives Dual to Cooperative Decentralized to Integrated Federalism Party System • Increased constitutional/statutory • Rise of Governors • Governors Become authorities Groups State Party Bosses • Increased media • State roles in federal • Increased Emphasis attention programs on the Presidency • Increase in state • National resources at • Assault on bureaucracy/state the disposal of state Local/State Party reorganizations governments Organizations
In this chapter I underscore these three basic sets of transformations (outlined in Table
2.1) that, taken together, provide the historical backdrop which precipitated the governors to form national partisan governors’ associations. First, reform movements, especially the
Progressives, promoted enhanced executive power, both at the national-level, in the hands of the president, and at the state-level, in the hands of the governors. Governors, like presidents, oversaw expansions of the administrative state. They also benefited from expanded capacities to lead through more formal agenda setting powers, control over state administrative bodies, and enhanced rhetorical leadership. In this respect, there was a parallel in the development of executive leadership across levels of government. The rise of administrative states, for instance, empowered governors within their domains, often at the expense of the autonomy of municipal governments and the supremacy of the legislative branch. The Progressives, like Hamilton,
55 believed that “energy in the executive is a leading characteristic of good government” and they promoted this notion across levels of government.75
Second, older notions of dual federalism gradually, or perhaps more aptly put, fitfully, gave way to a more “cooperative” form of federal-state relations, one in which governors played important roles. This resulted in greater interaction between the national government and the governors through formal groups, such as the Intergovernmental Advisory Board, and through the establishment of state based lobbying and informal, though impactful, governors’ organizations. I emphasize the National Governors’ Conference here as it ultimately becomes the space in which the partisan governors’ associations formed and, as such, acted as a precursor and, later, an alternative to the partisan organizations. The emphasis on these organizations also underscores the direct means by which governors interacted with national political elites.
The governors, before 1960, were largely pulled into national politics through the expanded scope of federal governance. In this sense, calls upon the states empowered governors, even promoting the development of an enhanced politics of administration at the state-level.
Over time, however, “cooperation” offered the potential for contestation between levels of government. State administrations were crucial in administering federal programs – from ad hoc efforts to support the world wars, to the development of the modern highways system, to the management of various elements of the welfare state – but states, and especially the governors who ran them, sought flexibility in running these programs, and sometimes resisted their being instituted in the first place. This involvement allowed partisan contestation to enter into what had typically been bipartisan cooperation.
75 Hamilton, Alexander. Federalist 70. The Federalist Papers. New York: Bantam Dell. 426. 56
Third, Progressive reforms initiated a long process in which the relationship between governors and the parties was transformed. A number of governors played determinative roles in attacking traditional party organizations, including Woodrow Wilson, Robert LaFollette, and
Theodore Roosevelt. Governors, by and large, became more liberated from the traditional party system rooted in local and state party organizations. These reforms were extended, though reimagined, in the 1950 APSA Report, which sought to acknowledge – but never fully developed
- a role for state-level elected officials in a responsible party system, and through actions taken by the national government and states that furthered weakened the decentralized party system and, simultaneously, called into question the place of governors within an evolving party system.
The institution of direct primaries and the weakening of party bosses and local machines more broadly, while not complete by the 1960s, elevated the American governorship within state parties, allowing the individuals occupying these offices to further their own programmatic ambitions and foster a more direct connection between the governors’ mansions and the people of the states. By the 1960s, governors were typically the de-facto leaders of state parties and were regularly engaged in debates over national party programs at the national nominating conventions. I lay out the overarching logic of party nationalization here and return to this point in Chapters 3 and 6 in terms of this trend with respect to the Democratic and Republican parties individually as the trends did not affect both parties uniformly, though they were both certainly present, to varying extents, in each.
Ultimately, these three broad historical trends elevated the governorship within the states and within state parties. However, these changes also provided the backdrop of a tension that became manifest in the 1960s. Specifically, gubernatorial independence sits uneasily beside
57 nationally programmatic parties, especially when the size and scope of federal governing authority is outsized.
Executive Leadership Since the Founding
Restraining the Executive Since the Founding
Students of the American governorship often look at the first half of the 20th century as a period of weak chief executives. Larry Sabato notes that this feature of state governance has deep roots in the American political tradition: “Because of the colonial experience, Americans have historically been hesitant to place any concentration of power in the hands of one person.
Hamilton and his associates had to struggle to ensure that the presidency was not crippled from the start. Governors were far more limited in the early state constitutions than the president was by the federal constitution and thus forced to bear severe institutional handicaps on their powers.”76 The Founders sought to avoid state governors having the reputation of their predecessors during the colonial era, who were representatives of the British crown. Tocqueville, decades later, noted that “the governor of the state in fact represents the executive power; but he exercises only some of its rights.”77
This suspicion of executive strength had institutional and not just cultural implications.
Early state constitutions handicapped gubernatorial power through formal limitations on the explicit powers of governors as well as through the means of selecting state executives. This led to a separation of powers doctrine that elevated the legislative branch. At the urging of the
Continental Congress, for instance, the thirteen colonies adopted working constitutions. All
76 Sabato, Larry J. 1978. Goodbye to Good Time Charlie: The American Governor Transformed, 1950- 1975. Lexington: Lexington Health and Books. 63. In Federalist 69, Hamilton takes great pains to demonstrate that the presidency under the new Constitution would be only just as powerful, if not less so in come cases, than the governor of New York. 77 De Tocqueville, Alexis. 2000. Democracy In America. Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop Eds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 81. 58 established an executive branch but nine provided that these individuals be elected by the state legislatures rather than the people directly. Moreover, at the Founding, most state constitutions called for annual elections of governors. Throughout most of the 19th century, two-year terms for governors were quite common. Ross and Millsap have argued that “a two-year term for the governor is not long enough to allow him to implement any type of administrative program or get any long-range plans enacted by the state legislature.”78 As Tocqueville notes, constant elections ensured that the governor “always remains in a strict dependence on the majority that created him.”79 Even the state of New York, which saw a number of high-profile governors, several of whom went on to be president and had among the strongest governorship among the original thirteen states, wavered between two- and three-year terms of the office until the 1930s.
A state constitutional amendment passed in 1821, during the tenure of DeWitt Clinton, one of the most powerful and renowned governors of the first half of the 19th century, actually reduced the term of office to two years. Even if governors had programmatic ambitions, their capacities to achieve their goals were highly circumscribed.
Generally, explicit executive powers were narrowly defined and the crafters of state constitutions were clearly influenced by the perceived overreach of the British Crown. Jefferson, for example, in a draft constitution for the state of Virginia, proposed a narrow definition of gubernatorial authority:
By Executive powers we mean no reference to those powers exercised under our former government by the crown as of it’s prerogative; nor that these shall be the standard of what may or may not be deemed the rightful powers of the Governor. We give him those powers only which are necessary to carry into execution the laws, and which are not in their nature [either legislative or] Judiciary. The application of this idea must be left to reason. We do however expressly deny him the prerogative powers of erecting courts, offices, boroughs, corporations, fairs, markets, ports, beacons, lighthouses, and seamarks;
78 Ross, Russell M. and Kenneth F. Millsap. 1966. State and Local Government and Administration. New York: The Ronald Press Company. 331-2. 79 Tocqueville. Democracy in America. 82. 59
of laying embargoes, of establishing precedence, of retaining within the state or recalling to it any citizen thereof, and of making denizens, except so far as he may be authorized from time to time by the legislature to exercise any of these powers.80
The limitations on gubernatorial power varied across the states and did not always include specific provisions prohibiting gubernatorial action. However, numerous states limited the powers of the office in ways that seem remarkable by contemporary standards. For example, only the state of Massachusetts gave their governor the power to veto legislation at the Founding.
This changed over the course of the 19th century. By the 1960s, forty-nine governors had the power to veto entire bills and forty-two had the ability to cast “line-item” vetoes, mainly on appropriations bills. Yet, the veto power itself was rarely used and its use constitutes a form of negative agenda control rather than a more positive form of agenda-setting characterizing the modern governorship.81
Another limitation on gubernatorial power, particularly when compared to that of presidents, concerned the nature of the relationship of the governor to state administration. In the early republic, as Tocqueville notes, “the governor [did] not enter into the administration of townships and counties, or at least he takes part in it only very indirectly by the nomination of justices of the peace which he cannot afterwards revoke.”82 Thus, even within the states, gubernatorial authority was circumscribed by the strengths of municipal and county authorities which benefitted from closeness to the people.
Further, numerous states elected a number of officials that have independent authority to enforce state laws. For instance, in 1964, forty states elected state treasurers rather than having
80 Jefferson, Thomas. “Jefferson’s Draft of a Constitution for Virginia, May-June 1783. The National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Hamilton had advocated be “unitary” in Federalist 70, was not easily found in state constitutions through the end of the 19th century.
Progressive Reform and an Enhanced Executive
Reform movements of the late 19th century and the Progressives after them provided the foundations for “correcting” this lack of executive authority. In part, executive power, rather than legislative authority, according to the Progressives, allowed for the people’s will to be more fully realized through public policy. In his autobiography, Theodore Roosevelt, reflecting on this time as both a state and national executive, noted that “I acted for the public welfare, I acted for the common well-being of all our people, whenever and in whatever manner was necessary, unless prevented by direct constitutional or legislative prohibition.”84 Roosevelt, first as governor and later as president, “augmented the administrative capacities of the executive branch.” Upon his ascent to the presidency, Roosevelt “certainly did not intend to rely on congressional oversight to address the problems of industry, particularly with a Congress so closely identified with
83 Faust, Martin. 1925. The Custody of State Funds. New York: National Institute of Public Administration. 56. 84 Roosevelt, Theodore. 1913. The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt. Centennial Ed. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 197. 61 industrial interests. He wanted a stronger executive, a president with a large and professional career administrative staff at his disposal.”85 Woodrow Wilson, in his now classic critiques of the institutional design of the Founding Fathers, advocated for an executive that would both promote the will of the people and cultivate and refine public opinion. As Tulis notes, “Wilson attacked separation of powers in an effort to improve leadership for the purpose of fostering deliberation.”86 Enhanced rhetorical leadership coupled with a more integrated role for the executive in lawmaking would allow for the errors of the Founders to be corrected and a more fully democratic vision to be realized.
The Progressive vision for executive power extended not just to the presidency but to state executives. For one, there was a recognition that governors had a capacity to connect with the people of their states directly. Lord Bryce, addressing the nation’s governors in 1910 noted that:
It used to strike me, when I was trying to understand your history, that there had been a certain diminution at one time in the authority and power and influence of the State Governor, and that that great power and influence which unquestionably belonged to him in the first fifty years after the foundation of your government, had begun to some extent to decline; and I think it is no less interesting to observe that of late years the tendency seems to have been for the power and influence and authority of the State Governor to increase and to be revivified - not increased in the way of giving him any larger statutory powers in the States as against the legislatures than he formerly enjoyed, but increased in this sense; that your people seem to be looking more and more to your Governor as the representative of the consciousness and conscience of the people of the State; that the Governor is felt to be more and more the representative of the State just as truly as the members of the legislature, and that the people of the State look to the Governor as the man who is to continually watch and observe their sentiments and their opinions, and to endeavor to devise what is best for the State. Therefore, where a State Governor recognizes that responsibility now, and takes a part in advising his legislature and in
85 Hawley, Joshua David. 2008. Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness. New Haven: Yale University Press. 133. 86 Tulis, Jeffrey K. 2018. “The Two Constitutional Presidencies.” In The Presidency and the Political System. 11th Ed. Michael Nelson Ed. Thousand Oaks: CQ Press. 17. 62
voicing the sentiments of the people of the State, that Governor enjoys, and deserves to enjoy, a very great influence.”87
Lord Bryce’s remarks reflect the rise of a “stewardship” model of executive leadership championed by Roosevelt. Governors could, and would more and more, use the media, much like presidents, to foster connections with their constituencies. Governors could speak on behalf of the entirety of the people of their states.88 That is, part of the rise of the governorship was based on informal powers, augmenting the public presence of the governor.
Yet, contrary to Lord Bryce’s commentary, the office of governor had begun to be formally enhanced. Herbert Croly drew on early municipal and state level reforms as inspiration for his own proposals. Of particular concern was the relationship between legislative and executive institutions. In his chapter on “State Institutional Reform” he calls for a reorganization to “be founded on a different relation between the executive and legislative branches and a wholly different conception of the function of a state legislature.”89 At the root of Croly’s critique of state legislatures was a lack of unity of purpose and organization.90 In a speech before the American Political Science Association in 1911, Croly argued that “the organization of the
American state has hampered in every possible way the expression of any prevailing collective interest.”91 Governors embodied state collective interests as the sole officials elected by the entirety of the state’s voting public to state-level office.
87 Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the Governors of the States of the Union. Held at Washington D. C., January 18-20th, 1910. Lakewood: The Lakewood Press. 87. 88 In this way there is a parallel between the development of the “rhetorical” presidency and the empowerment of governors during the Progressive Era. Tulis, for instance notes that “popular or mass rhetoric has become a principle tool of presidential governance.” Tulis, Jeffrey K. 1987. The Rhetorical Presidency. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 4. 89 Yarbrough, Jean M. 2012. Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press. 319. 90 These arguments are reflected in contemporary critiques of legislative, especially congressional politics. See for instance Howell, William G. and Terry M. Moe. 2016 Relic: How Our Constitution Undermines Effective Government – and Why We Need a More Powerful Presidency. New York: Basic Books. 91 Croly, Herbert. 1911. “State Political Reorganization.” 1911. Proceedings of the American Political Science Association. 8: 131. 63
Legislative authority was, hence, to be replaced with enhanced capacities of state executives. Governors were to be granted “legislative initiative,” particularly in terms of setting the policy agenda, allowing it to be a statement of the collective will.92 He recommended that
“the governor should be empowered not merely to suggest legislation to the council but to introduce it into the council.”93 This would bring the United States closer to a parliamentary system, a move encouraged at times by Woodrow Wilson.94 Additionally, for Croly, the veto
“becomes a mere instrument of obstruction,” a relic of the original Constitution which was used to preserve the privilege of existing groups.95 Executive power was meant to instigate reform, not block it. Writing in 1912, Fairlie noted that “on an examination of these specific powers shows that, as in the case of the President, the governor has some in legislative matters, and also some authority in judicial as well as executive administration; while his control over the executive administration of the State is far from complete.”96 Energy in the executive was needed to promote Progressive ideals.
Progressive Era governors were often at the forefront of the notion that state executives were meant to further programmatic visions. Several governors took steps to enhance the powers of the office. La Follette in Wisconsin, for instance, enacted several proposals that expanded the capacities of the state, rooted in progressive notions of a reliance on expertise. For example, he backed the Wisconsin Idea, which advocated for university research to be used in crafting legislative proposals. He expanded the state’s regulatory capacities on railroads, going beyond those enacted by the federal government. He also fought for, and achieved, the enactment of a
92 Ibid. 132. 93 Croly. 1909/1993. The Promise of American Life. 330. 94 See Wilson, Woodrow. 1908. Constitutional Government in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press. 95 Croly, Herbert. 1914/1998. Progressive Democracy. 294. 96 Fairlie, John A. 1912. “The State Governor: I.” Michigan Law Review. 10.5: 376. 64 major tax overhaul, including a major tax increase on railroad companies, and the institution of a direct primary law.97 Wilson, as governor of New Jersey, enacted a corrupt practices law, workman’s compensation legislation, and inaugurated a commission to regulate state utilities.
Progressive governors, in sum, were activist governors. Their desire to augment the powers of the office were tied to more far-reaching ends.
Progressive Era reforms led to some meaningful changes in the powers of the American governorship over the next several decades. As noted above, the governors’ ability to veto legislation became nearly universal by 1960. By 1950, only 10 of the then 48 states did not grant budget-making authority to the executive branch.98 Gubernatorial staffs and their levels of professionalization also increased during the 1950s.99 By 1960, the governors had become active in expanding their powers and in state reorganization more broadly. The Council of State
Governments’ 1959 Book of the States illustrates a heightened “extent to which Governors have taken the initiative in proposing administrate reorganization.”100 In sum, reform movements provided an impetus for increased gubernatorial authority and by the 1960s many changes within state-level executive branches had been realized. The capacities of state executives were on the rise and governors were actively working to promote their own powers.101
97 See, for instance Thelen, David P. 1976. Robert M. La Follette and the Insurgent Spirit. Little, Brown; Unger, Nancy C. 2000. Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer. The University of North Carolina Press. 98 Sabato, Larry. 1978. Goodbye to Goodtime Charlie. 85. These developments also reflected changes in presidential power that occurred within this time period. The passage of the 1921 Budget and Accounting Act significantly enhanced the powers of the president relative to Congress on issues relating to the power of the purse. For example, it created the Bureau of the Budget. 99 Sprengel, Donald R. 1969. “Patterns of Organization in Gubernatorial Staffs.” In Gubernatorial Staffs: Functions and Political Profiles. Sprengel, Donald R. Ed. Iowa City: University of Iowa. 308-30. 100 Council of State Governments. 1961. The Book of the States. 116.
From Dual to Cooperative Federalism: Governors Get Involved in National Politics
Developments in the powers of the governorship within the states have occurred concomitantly with developments in intergovernmental relations. These developments have been constitutive and mutually reinforcing of each other and are rooted in inherent tensions built into the nation’s constitutional framework. As Madison notes in Federalist 39, the Constitution “is in strictness neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.”102 This has allowed for the character of American federalism to change a great deal over time. As Derthick notes, “great nationalizing surges destroyed the old constitutional doctrines . . . Dual federalism fell, as did the precept that state officers were not subject to federal commands.” Further,
“Constitutional commands emanating from the courts, statutory commands emanating from
Congress and reinforced by judicial interpretation, and regulations emanating from regulatory agencies flood the land, constraining virtually every state and local act.”103 Put another way, changes in constitutional doctrines surrounding American federalism created new opportunities as well as challenges for state-level politicians, including the nation’s governors.
Early involvement by governors in national politics was largely the result of actions taken by national political actors dealing with pressing and immediate circumstances. During the Civil
War, for instance, northern governors were instrumental in efforts to maintain the Union’s war machine, including through the promotion of enlistment efforts.104 The war effort imposed new sets of responsibilities on state governments which were needed to achieve national goals.
Governors needed to grapple with what new demands meant for the conduct of state-level
102 Madison, James. Federalist 39. The Federalist Papers. New York: Bantam Dell. 233. 103 Derthick, Martha. 2001. “The Paradox of the Middle Tier.” In Keeping the Compound Republic: Essays on American Federalism. Washington D. C.: Brookings Institution Press. 47. 104 See Engle, Stephen D. 2016. Gathering to Save a Nation: Lincoln and the Union’s War Governors. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 66 politics, including new responsibilities for state bureaucracies, the political legitimacy of the state, and often their own electoral fortunes.
Generally, the late 19th century was a return to a state of “dual” federalism, especially as the end of Reconstruction brought forward the doctrine of “non-interference” by the national government in the affairs of the Southern states. The Compromise of 1876 and a series of
Supreme Court cases including U.S. v. Cruikshank, the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, and Plessy v.
Ferguson stymied federal encroachment on the states.105 The Southern states in particular emerged as a number of “enclaves” that operated largely independently from the federal government.106
Urbanization, industrialization, and the growth of interstate commerce during the Gilded
Age provided motivations for changes in intergovernmental relations. For one, coordination was needed across states in order to allow commerce to expand and thrive. Railroad tracks, for instance, were streamlined and made uniform across state lines during the Civil War in order to make travel and the movement of much needed war materials easier. Additionally, industrialization provided new externalities such as pollution and migration that needed solutions that did not end at state lines. In 1892, for instance, the Uniform Law Commission was created in
New York to promote state cooperation on issues ranging from railroad regulation to marriage licenses.
Progressivism, as Derthick and Dinan argue, did not abandon the idea that states could work together in solving collective problems but it provided a three-pronged attack on the understanding of federalism as “a constitutional doctrine that prescribed state sovereignties.”
105 See for instance Sutton, Robert P. 2002. Federalism. Westport: Greenwood Press. 11. 106 See Mickey, Robert. 2015. Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America’s Deep South, 1944-1972. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 67
Progressives “both challenged the Constitution as a governing instrument and propounded radically different new ways of interpreting it that would have virtually abolished any limitation on the powers of the federal government. Second, by propounding an explanation of the causes of centralization that blamed the victims – the states – it justified and facilitated further centralization. Third, it began constructing a social and philosophical conception of federalism as a substitute for the legalistic one that had dominated American political thought.”107
Between the Progressive Era and 1960 the governors were “pulled” into national politics in order to grapple with public policy problems in much more regular and systematic ways. The adoption of cooperative federalism, particularly during the New Deal, created a tighter relationship between the national government and the states. States became avenues for the national government to achieve public policy goals. State governments offered resources that the national government often lacked – they could help implement nationally crafted policies within their jurisdictions. State governments also needed federal financial resources, which became much more significant during and after the New Deal era. Ultimately, states became involved in the joint financing and/or implementation of unemployment, welfare, Social Security, and disability insurance, just to name a few.108 As Patterson notes, “a few states went beyond mere cooperation and enacted ‘Little New Deals.’”109 Thus, state reorganizational reforms provided models for reorganization efforts at the national-level but the increased activity of the national government promoted additional reforms in the states. The theories espoused by the Progressives
107 Derthick, Martha and John Dinan. 2001. “Progressivism and Federalism.” In Keeping the Compound Republic: Essays on American Federalism. Washington D. C.: Brookings Institution Press. 107. 108 See for instance, Haskins, Ron. 2008. “Governors and the Development of American Social Policy.” In A Legacy of Innovation: Governors and Public Policy. Ethan G. Sribnick, Ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 76-103. 109 Patterson, James T. 1967. “The New Deal and the States.” The American Historical Review 73.1: 72. 68 had practical – fiscal, institutional, and policy – implications that altered expanded the formal and informal powers of the governors in the states and in intergovernmental relations.
Gubernatorial Involvement in Cooperative Federalism - The National Governors’
Conference: A National Venue for Governors
Specific involvement by the governors in cooperative federalism took multiple forms.
Some of the governors’ involvement came through direct participation in boards and commissions created by law or through executive action. For instance, Congress passed, and
President Dwight Eisenhower signed, a law creating the Kestnbaum Commission, also known as the Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, which sought to enhance coordination between the national government and the states. Governors Alfred E. Driscoll of New Jersey and John
Battle of Virginia, for instance, served on the Commission. Ike later created the US Advisory
Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) in 1959, which included four governors among its members. This form of engagement, again, pulled governors into national political discussions.
A second form of engagement between governors and the national government came through the establishment of state-based lobbying groups. New York and Connecticut, under the leadership of Governors Herbert Lehman and Robert Hurley, established the first state-based lobbying offices in Washington.110 Regional associations also first emerged during this period, with the now defunct Southern Governors Association founded in 1934. These organizations were established largely in part because state politicians recognized that, while many of national programs being established were meant to deal with real and palpable problems, these programs established new costs on the states and that there were meaningful but limited federal resources
110 Jensen, Jennifer. M. 2016. The Governors’ Lobbyists: Federal-State Relations Offices and Governors Associations in Washington. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 38-51. 69 available in order to achieve the goals of said programs. Governors, in sum, could use their positions and these offices to protect the interests of their states as these programs were being developed in Washington and they could do so beyond the traditional avenues of influence individual states had on the legislature – gubernatorial interaction with the states’ congressional delegations.
A third form of engagement brought all of the governors together (at least they were all always invited and de-facto members) to grapple with emerging national problems – the National
Governors’ Conference. The establishment of the Governors’ Conference clearly demonstrated, and was perhaps one of the earliest instances of, the move from dual to cooperative federalism.
The NGC built on changes to gubernatorial leadership discussed in the previous sections. For one, the meetings gave the governors a national platform to discuss policy with their peers.
While the office’s administrative capacities were being augmented, the Conference meetings offered the governors the opportunity to share their knowledge and experiences in dealing with specific policy issues from urbanization, to poor relief, to interaction with municipal governments and beyond.
Second and relatedly, it provided governors with a national microphone. The meetings of the governors’ received ample media attention. Between the Progressive Era and the New Deal,
Woodrow Wilson, Senator Warren Harding, and Franklin Roosevelt, for instance, contributed regularly in discussions over a wide range of policy issues during the NGC’s plenary sessions.
Though I would not go so far as to argue that the Conference cemented the presidential ambitions of these three governors, their participation in these meetings certainly elevated their national stature and their active involvement in these meetings was, to be sure, strategic.
70
Third, the Conference brought the governors together with members of the national
Administration as well as congressional leadership. In this sense, the Conference became a forum for national politicians and administrators to bring their concerns to the governors.
Likewise, the Conference allowed the governors to bring their concerns over national political issues of the day to national officials. These interactions became routine in part thanks to the regularity of these meetings, first annually then twice a year. Taken together, the meetings of the
Conference provided the governors with three audiences: each other, national political elites, and the mass public.
Recent research illustrates that presidents often look to the states in order to implement desired policy outcomes.111 This was true in 1908, when what is today the National Governors
Association was founded.112 In 1907, essayist William George Jordan published a pamphlet entitled The House of Governors; a New Idea in American Politics Aiming to Promote Uniform
Legislation on Vital Questions, to Conserve States’ Rights, to Lessen Centralization, to Secure a
Fuller, Freer Voice of the People, and to Make a Stronger Nation. As the title of the piece denotes, Jordan sought to “defend the authority and integrity of the states against the inroads of the national government.”113 However, the organization was imbued with a national purpose.
The Conference was called for, not by a governor, but by a former governor - the President of the
United States. Roosevelt, in the opening address of the first meeting of the Conference put forward conservation of natural resources as a crucial issue that the governors could help the nation address. He noted that:
111 Jacobs, Nicholas F. and Connor M. Ewing. 2018. “The Law: The Promises and Pathologies of Presidential Federalism.” Presidential Studies Quarterly. Forthcoming. 112 The NGA has undergone a series of name changes over the course of its existence. It was originally called the Governors’ Conference, then the National Governors Conference and finally the National Governors Association. 113 Brooks, Glenn E. 1961. When Governors Convene: The Governors’ Conference and National Politics. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press. 9. 71
With the rise of peoples from savagery to civilization, and with the consequent growth in the extent and variety of the needs of the average man, there comes a steadily increasing growth of the amount demanded by this average man from the actual resources of the country. And yet, rather curiously, at the same time that there comes that increase in what the average man demands from the resources, he is apt to grow to lose the sense of his dependence upon nature. He lives in big cities. He deals in industries that do not bring him in close touch with nature. He does not realize the demands he is making upon nature.114
In truth, the establishment of a Governors’ Conference exemplified the tension between greater uniformity of laws and resistance to federal encroachment on state prerogatives, a tension that remains at the heart of American federalism. In a speech before the Conference, then
Secretary of the Interior James R. Garfield argued that “We act as a People together, not divided.
The State lines mean much; but the State lines have been overlapped by the work of the men and women of this country. Trade itself has wiped out in many ways the State lines. The use of our natural resources and their preservation must necessarily wipe out for some purposes the State lines.”115 Elihu Root, then Secretary of State, similarly argued that “As the population of our
States increases; as the relations between the People of each State and other States grow more frequent, more complicated, more important, more intricate, what every State does becomes more important to the People of every other State.”116
Several of the governors in attendance, however, voiced concern over the potential implications of these arguments. Republican Kentucky Governor Augustus Willson, while admitting the potential “usefulness” of the Conference for the governors, sought to remind those in attendance that “This Conference has not a shred of legal power as a body, whatever some individual members may have of legal power. As a Conference this Conference rests on the
114 “Proceedings of a Conference of Governors.” In the White House, Washington D. C., May 13-15, 1908. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1909. 3. 115 Ibid. 180. 116 Ibid. 55-6. 72 power of reason and moral suasion. It has no legal authority, and yet it may be in its final result and in its constant usefulness from year to year quite as valuable as a body based on constitutional or statutory power.”117 In sum, while the organization was constituted by governors, Willson and others maintained that the legal authority of these individuals did not extend to the Conference and that the legal authority of its members did not extend over each other’s’ domains. The meetings were not venues to decide on policy initiatives but rather a means of exchanging ideas that could be implemented by the governors within their own states.
The Conference should not, according to this view, be a means of imposing new responsibilities by the federal government onto the states.
The organization’s authorities were limited by the governors even as future Conference meetings were planned. Republican Governor Charles Evan Hughes of New York, at the second
Conference meeting in 1910, argued that:
the relation and proper limitations of our efforts should be recognized. We are here in our own right as State Executives. We are not here, I assume, to deal with questions which are admitted to be of exclusively national concern. These are matters to be dealt with by the Federal Government. The people of the States in their capacity as citizens of the United States are represented by the President and Congress. We are not here to accelerate or to develop opinion with regard to matters which have been committed to Federal power. How the Federal administration shall be conducted is not a matter which concerns State Governors in their official capacity.118
Hughes continued, noting that “The scope of these conferences may be deemed to embrace at least three groups of questions: The first relates to uniform laws; the second relates to matters of
State comity where, if absolute uniformity may not be expected, causes of friction may be avoided and the general welfare may be promoted by accommodating action; the third relates to matters which though of local concern can be better treated in the light of the experience of other
117 Ibid. 217. 118 Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the Governors of the States of the Union. Held at Washington D. C., January 18-20th, 1910. Lakewood: The Lakewood Press. 13-4. 73
States.”119 Willson and Hughes, in sum, were in favor of the Conference being a “Conference” and not a “House” of Governors. Restricting the scope of these meetings to state and local issues was thought to help maintain the independence of the governors, and the notion of dual sovereignty more generally.
However, national issues were discussed at these meetings, and though resistance to the idea of the Conference being a part of a state “lobby” that could interact with Congress continued, the governors were forced to grapple with important national issues. An early instance of this came in discussion of the proposed 16th Amendment in 1910. Willson, speaking at the third Conference meeting held in his home state of Kentucky, voiced concern that expanding
Congress’ ability to levy taxes could affect state capacities to tax, as both levels of government were drawing from the same sources of revenue.120 Hughes also spoke out against the proposed amendment, which had gained support among Democrats, Populists, and Progressive
Republicans.
The participation of the US in World War I caused the governors to not hold a meeting in
1917. However, the war effort brought governors into an intimate relationship with the national government. Secretary of War Baker noted in 1918 that:
There were agencies built up from Washington largely as a result of conference and consultation with the Executives of the several States, and I enumerate among those agencies the State Councils of National Defense and the very extraordinary machinery which was built up in the several States for the application and administration of the Selective Service Law, but in each of these instances, instead of attempting, from Washington, to appoint local representatives of the Federal Government, the call went out to the State Governments, the Governors and subordinate State officials, to select the members for the Councils of Defense, to be made up of persons known to them.121
119 Ibid. 15-6. 120 Proceedings of the Third Meeting of the Governors of the States of the Union held at Frankfort and Louisville Kentucky. November 29, 30 December 1, 1910. Lakewood: The Lakewood Press. 27. See Oates, Wallace E. 1972. Fiscal Federalism. New York: Harcourt Brace for a fuller discussion of the fiscal implications of federal constitutional design. 121 Proceedings of the Tenth Meeting of the Governors of the States of the Union held at Annapolis. Maryland. December 16-18, 1918. Lakewood: The Lakewood Press. 24-5. 74
The Conference allowed for discussion between governors and national leaders on an increasing number of issues. During the 1930s, for instance, FDR used the meetings as a means of getting the governors on board with his New Deal initiatives. At the 1933 meeting in San
Francisco, Secretary of War George Dern noted that “If the [National Industrial] Recovery Act is to be as effective as it should be in eliminating the sweat shop and cut-throat competition, it may have to be supplemented, as I said before, by similar legislation in the States.”122 A resolution expressing support for FDR’s efforts to deal with the effects of the Depression was approved by voice vote.
During World War II, the Governors’ Conference was again focused predominantly on the ways in which state governments could contribute to the war effort and how the conflict was affecting governance in the states. The 1942 meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, for instance, featured speeches on the wartime powers of governors, state revenue collections during the war effort, rationing and price controls and training of the state guards.123 Two years later, the governors passed a resolution requesting that employment services be decentralized as the economy transitioned from wartime to peacetime, a move that was undertaken in 1946 after the war ended.
By the end of the 1950s, the NGC helped to foster active gubernatorial involvement in foreign affairs outside of war efforts. A contingent of governors, made up of the NGC’s
Executive Committee, embarked on a trip to the Soviet Union. Under the chairmanship of
Democratic Florida Governor LeRoy Collins, the NGC also helped to organize trips by a number
122 Proceedings of the Twenty-fifth Annual Conference of Governors of the States of the Union Held at Sacramento and San Francisco, California. July 24-26, 1933. 17. 123 Proceedings of the Governors’ Conference. 1942. Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting at Grove Park Inn. Asheville, North Carolina. June 21-24, 1942. 75 of its members to Latin America that focused on the implications of international trade on state economies.
As Brooks notes, the New Deal era began a transition for the NGC “from a passive organization into an aggressive institution dedicated to the solution of state, national, and international problems.”124 By 1960, “the image of governors as militant foes of the national government – and especially of federal programs that touch on state responsibilities,” Brooks notes, was “simply not accurate, for the governors have frequently supported joint federal state enterprises and extensive national control.”125 Governors were not simply advocates of a system of “dual” sovereignty.
To be sure, tensions between the increasing scope of federal activity and gubernatorial prerogatives often took center stage. At the 1946 NGC meeting, for instance, the Conference agreed that competition between the national and state governments over the same bases of tax revenue was often detrimental to the states.126 Yet, the business of the Conference largely maintained a non-partisan character. FDR, Dewey, Harding, and others clearly benefitted from the media attention the Conference offered, and the annual meetings of the NGC allowed some governors to discuss partisan politics outside of the plenary sessions of the annual meetings.
Ultimately, however, the liberal consensus of the era was manifest in the NGC through the
1950s. This consensus would be challenged as the scope of policies discussed at the meetings continued to grow and as the role of the governorship in an evolving federal system continued to
124 Brooks, Glenn E. 1961. When Governors Convene: The Governors’ Conference and National Politics. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press. 30. 125 Ibid. viii. 126 See for instance Mehrotra, Ajay K. and David Shreve. “‘To Lay and Collect’: Governors, Fiscal Federalism and the Political Economy of Twentieth-Century Tax Policy.” In A Legacy of Innovation: Governors and Public Policy. 2008. Ethan G. Sribnick, Ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 48-75.
76 develop. The war efforts and the Depression did raise important concerns over the extent of changes in intergovernmental relations during this time and broader questions over the extent of governing authority more broadly. However, the severity of these crises also promoted comradery and cooperation among the governors and between state executives and national political elites.
Governors and the Transformation of American Party Politics
The development of the partisan governors’ associations is also rooted in the emergent autonomy of governors relative to state party organizations and the increased importance of national partisan politics to affairs within the states. The development of stronger gubernatorial capacities and the rise of cooperative federalism were mirrored, and helped constitute, developments within the infrastructure of the Democratic and Republican parties. As discussed above, the expansion of constitutional and administrative gubernatorial capacities augmented the formal capacities of state executives. The weakening of local and state-level party organizations further propelled gubernatorial autonomy. And, like many of the reforms to state constitutions and the executive reorganization movement, governors played key roles in advancing reform efforts. In doing so, they cemented their places atop state party organizations, mirroring the trend in the relationship between the president and the national party organizations.
However, like the parallel developments of burgeoning state bureaucracies and an increasingly active national state, the 20th century saw the rise of two trends concerning the role of governors in partisan politics. Enhanced gubernatorial autonomy at the state-level was coupled with an increasingly nationalized party system rooted in many of the same trends that enhanced the powers of governors relative to state parties: new forms of communications
77 technologies, the rise of modern campaign techniques, and a more direct attachment between elected officials and voters.
The Liberation of Governors from the Clutches of Jacksonian Democracy
The emergence of Jacksonian democracy in the early 19th century compounded the constitutional inadequacies of state executives. The convention system established by Martin
Van Buren produced a system which promoted compromise among state and local party officials, often at the expense of ambitious seekers of the presidency.127 The decentralized party system extended the logic of Madison’s separation of powers in terms of reducing the risk of a demagogue rising to power through direct appeals to the people. On a practical level, the widespread use of the long-ballot, the submergence of elected executive leadership to political party organizations and the proliferation of boards and commissions created by legislatures made executive administration unwieldy.
Under the Jacksonian party system, gubernatorial leadership was subsumed by the prerogative of party bosses, who asserted a form of leadership diametrically opposed to that of the modern chief executive. For one, the power of bosses was rooted in informal networks and norms of reciprocity while governors derived their authority from constitutional provisions, statutes, and the outcomes of elections. The power of bosses was rooted not in their ability to rouse and motivate public opinion behind a particular governing agenda but in their ability to get things done behind closed doors. Characterizing this form of leadership, Solomon argues that:
Most bosses try to avoid publicity. They usually never make public speeches. The bosses don’t usually give away the secrets of their trade. Boss O’Connell [of Albany, New York] has never liked to be interviewed because he thinks this is bad business. . . No publicity is good publicity for the bosses. An interview requires the boss to put himself on recording as saying something, unless, of course, he is evasive or refuses comment.
127 See Ceaser, James W. 1979. Presidential Selection: Theory and Development. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 123-69. 78
The boss does not usually like to commit himself to a candidate until the last moment. Such a position gives the boss the flexibility he desires.128
Bosses were often courted by those seeking office and their endorsements carried weight beyond being a signal to voters. Support from a boss meant direct support from delegates at nominating conventions as well as organizational support on Election Day. Bosses exerted power through informal channels and controlled access to resources sought by the electorally ambitious.
They operated in the “smoke-filled rooms” of the convention halls, often from hundreds of miles away if they were not in attendance themselves. In this sense, the bosses operated in ways which made the governors the “creatures of parties.” Elected officials often owed their electoral success to the bosses’ organizations at conventions and their efforts on Election Day.
Governors played critical roles in the assault on local party organizations, even before the
Progressive Era. In 1876, for instance, the two presidential nominees, Rutherford Hayes of Ohio and Samuel Tilden of New York, won their parties’ respective nominations in part due to their standing as reform minded governors but also in part through the strength of party machines.
Tilden had used his standing as governor to break up the “Canal Ring” in New York and used this reputation to draw a distinction with the corruption-laden Grant administration. Hayes, who eventually won the presidency in one of the most controversial deals in American history, had also developed a reputation for honesty during his tenure as governor. However, the general election ended because of the strength of party machines, not in spite of them. Control of party organizations and electoral commissions, particularly in Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana
128 Solomon, Noal. 1975. When Leaders were Bosses: An Inside Look at Political Machines and Politics. Hicksville: Exposition Press. 8. 79 gave the election to Hayes despite Tilden winning the national popular vote and the vote counts of each of those states being heavily disputed.129
Grover Cleveland, who went on to win the presidency twice, also garnered support due to his critiques of machine politics. Despite using the spoils system to his own advantage at times, as Governor, Cleveland, a Democrat, often quarreled with the bosses of Tammany Hall, and in one instance prevented the nomination of Thomas Grady, a confidante of then Tammany Boss
John Kelly, to a position in the New York State Senate. Cleveland, as president, continued his efforts at reform, including by employing merit as a criterion in making appointments, explicitly rejecting the spoils system, and rejecting numerous private pension bills passed by Congress.
However, governors, and presidents for that matter, were, again, limited through the nomination process and governing arrangements. The convention process forced negotiations among party bosses, including at the state-level, and governors remained reliant on party organizations to conduct electioneering efforts on their behalf once their nomination was secured. This propelled a number of Progressive Era governors to seek changes to the nomination process. Many progressives backed direct primaries as the alternative to convention proceedings. La Follette, for instance, in a speech at the Chicago University, became an early proponent of direct nominations, noting that:
Beginning the work in the state, put aside the caucus and convention. They have been and will continue to be prostituted to the service of corrupt organization. They answer no purpose further than to give respectable form to political robbery. Abolish the caucus and the convention. Go back to the first principles of democracy; go back to the people. Substitute for both the caucus and the convention a primary election – held under the sanctions of law which prevail at the general elections – where the citizen may cast his vote directly to nominate the candidate of the party with which he affiliates and have it canvassed and returned just as he cast it . . . Then every citizen will share equally in the
129 See for instance Milkis, Sidney M. and Anthony Sparacino. 2017. “Pivotal Elections.: In A Companion to the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. McKnight Nichols, Christopher and Nancy C. Unger Eds. Malden: Wiley Blackwell. 323-338; Morris Jr., Roy. 2003. Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876. New York: Simon and Schuster. 80
nomination of the candidates of his party and attend primary elections as a privilege as well as a duty.130
Progressive Era governors were, once again, at the forefront of the assault on traditional party organizations. La Follette successfully instituted a primary election law in 1902. In New
Jersey, Wilson signed the Geran bill, drastically expanding the use of primary elections in the state, at the expense of boss-dominated conventions. Wilson had garnered the backing of multiple local organizations in his bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination but ultimately became a staunch opponent of state-level machine politics. In one high profile move,
Wilson refused to support the Senate candidacy of James Smith Sr., a former senator and party boss who was pivotal in Wilson becoming the Democratic nominee for New Jersey Governor in
1910.
By 1960, gubernatorial primaries were used in almost every state and the use of patronage, while far from extinct, had fallen significantly from its hey-day in the 19th century.
The decline of patronage, Sabato notes, has been “a boon for governors, since it has liberated them from a tedious, time-consuming, and frustrating chore that is outmoded in the modern political system. At the same time the governor has gained appointive powers where it really matters, at the top-level in policy-making positions.”131 Governors, in sum, embraced popular leadership as a means of legitimizing their authority, liberating themselves from the clutches of
Jacksonian parties.
Governors in National Partisan Politics: The New State Party Bosses
Just as governors were increasingly interacting with national political actors within the context of intergovernmental relations, their activities within national partisan politics were also
130 Cited in La Follette, Robert M. 1911/1919. La Follette’s Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences. 3rd Ed. Madison: Blied Printing Company. 197. 131 Sabato, Larry. 1978. Goodbye to Goodtime Charlie. 89. 81 on the rise over the course of the early-to-mid 20th century. Sitting governors from both parties have become increasingly likely to attend their parties’ national conventions as delegates (see
Figures 2.1 and 2.2). At the conventions, “most governors are leaders of their state parties and are influential in casting a state’s delegation votes.”132 Governors often served as “favorite son” candidates from their respective states and played kingmakers during the conventions.
Republican governors, including and especially Dewey, were, for instance, instrumental in obtaining the Republican nomination for Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. By the middle of the 20th century, in those states employing the unit rule (specifically in Democratic nomination contests) a governor’s support was seen as critical to a candidate’s chances of winning delegates from the state.
Moreover, the governorship has often been a springboard for those seeking the presidency. During the first half of the 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson,
Calvin Coolidge, and FDR all became president after having previously served as governor.
Several “losers” of general election contests during this period included former governors as well, including Charles Evan Hughes, Alf Landon and Dewey on the Republican side and James
Cox, Al Smith and Adlai Stevenson for the Democrats. Governors ability to rally potential delegates from their own states in tandem with increasing media attention on the office allowed them to be pivotal players and strong candidates during these contests.
132 Brooks, Glenn 1961. When Governors Convene. 131. 82
However, the seeds of a weakening of gubernatorial influence on national partisan politics through their place in a decentralized national convention system were planted during the
Progressive Era and some of the same changes that enhanced gubernatorial leadership within the states limited their influence within the national parties, specifically through the national conventions. As Shafer notes, in the mid-20th century the national convention was undergoing a transformation from “an institutional mechanism to institutional arena.”133 The traditional use of the convention, arriving at a consensus over the presidential nominee, was giving way to an emphasis on providing a means of articulating a coherent party message. Televising the conventions, and broader changes to the presidential selection process altered the roles of party elites within the nomination process.
133 Shafer, Byron E. 2010. “The Pure Partisan Institution: National Party Conventions as Research Sites.” In The Oxford Handbook of American Political Parties and Interest Groups. L. Sandy Maisel and Jeffrey M. Berry Eds. New York: Oxford University Press. 272. 83
The implementation of primary elections in presidential contests curbed the extent to which some governors could directly control delegate votes from their states. In part, this came directly from the fact that certain delegates were bound, or at the very least strongly encouraged, to vote for a candidate because of their success in the primary, despite a potential lack of support from the state’s governor, or other state party leaders for that matter. Additionally, despite the vast majority of delegates not being chosen through primaries through the 1960s, the partial use of primary elections allowed candidates to make the case that their support in these contests indicated that they had developed attachments to voters that went beyond traditional partisanship
– that developed through connections between voters and state and local party organizations, including the governors.
These “outside” strategies were not often successful in the first half of the 20th century.
However, the use of primary elections challenged the traditional party apparatus which had, since the dawn of mass-based political parties in the 1830s, controlled national presidential
84 nomination contests. Candidates now had the opportunity to circumvent state-based party organizations in their quest for the White House and this often meant that they could circumvent the states’ governors. These outside strategies were part and parcel of an emergent “candidate- centered” approach to elections in the post-war era which included, again to varying degrees across the states, a trend toward voters identifying as independents.134
The rise of more programmatic national parties also presented challenges for governors.
By 1950, political scientists and other pundits worried that the two-party system was ineffective for dealing with major public policy issues in the modern world. E. E. Schattschneider, who chaired the APSA Commission on Responsible Party Government, advocated for parties to offer coherent programs on the national-level. The parties could no longer simply be an amalgamation of local organizations that interacted occasionally during conventions in disputes over presidential nominees. “Intraparty conflict,” the report argued, “will be minimized if it is generally recognized that national, state and local party leaders have a common responsibility to the party membership.”135 On this note, there were instances in which intra-party conflict had become manifest, particularly between the president and members of Congress. In 1938, for instance, FDR engaged in a “purge” campaign against conservative Democrats in Congress who had opposed elements of his New Deal agenda. FDR did not exert his energies against governors then, but the tension between national leadership and representatives of the states in Congress became vivid.136
134 See for instance, Aldrich, John 2011. Why Parties?: A Second Look. 266-69. 135 American Political Science Association. 1950. “Toward a More Responsible Party System: A Report of the Committee on Political Parties.” 2. See also Schattschneider, E. E. 2004. Originally Published 1942. Party Government. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. 136 See for instance Dunn, Susan. 2012. Roosevelt’s Purge: How FDR Fought to Change the Democratic Party. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. See also, Milkis, Sidney M. 1993. The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System Since the New Deal. 75-97. 85
Roosevelt’s attempts to develop a more “presidential party” were challenged in 1939 with the proposal of the first Hatch Act. The law “removed the influence of all federal administrative officials who made policies of nationwide application from elections or nominating efforts for
President, Vice President, or members of Congress. The Hatch Act also reduced presidential control over nominating conventions by precluding the participation of most federal administrative officers.”137 Allegations of patronage and corruption, especially related to appointments to the Works Progress Administration and FDR’s attempted purge campaigns the previous year, prompted the reform. New Dealers called on the president to veto the bill. FDR ultimately signed the law. The following year, the Second Hatch Act extended the reforms to cover state and local employees that were paid in connection with federal funding.138 Thus, while the reforms originally challenged executive aggrandizement at the national, the ultimate effect of these laws were to further weaken the decentralized party system, including the ability for governors to wield the tool of patronage.
The APSA Commission more broadly called for more emphasis on the development of a coherent party program, one which could be adapted in between conventions. One means of achieving this was through a proposal for a Party Council, on which governors and gubernatorial candidates would sit alongside members of Congress and party organization heads, which could interpret the party platform in between national nomination conventions. The parties, in short, needed to “catch up” to the national government in terms of the scope of its activities and abilities to discuss national policies. Governors, as increasingly active agents in formulating and implementing policy on the state level and as representatives of the states in the formation of national policy, had a stake in this endeavor. Their role was recognized in the APSA Report.
137 Milkis. 1993. The President and the Parties. 137. 138 Ibid. 139. 86
However, the extent of their influence over the development of national policy was yet to be determined and other party officials, including presidents and members of Congress, had a more direct stake in this process as they were clearly situated in Washington D. C. and had direct say as to for what the national party stood.
The APSA Report was the culmination of a new “idea” of party rooted in much older developments. As Klinghard notes, men like Mark Hanna “advocated an active national policy agenda and were frustrated when the Jacksonian mode empowered subnational elites who were willing to sacrifice coherent national politics to maintain the local basis of power that was the source of their position in the national organization itself.”139 This new formulation of party he continues, “enabled the parties to explain themselves, and the new organizational mode enabled them to comport themselves, in ways that reflected the new kind of popular demands being made on the national political system.”140 The APSA report did not seek to wipe away the influence of states and localities. Rather, the representatives of those elements of the American political system were to be actors with programmatic political ambitions, including governors. The impact of the report was far from complete but it did provide a call for a more integrated party system in which governors were a critical part – a call that the governors themselves would act on even if not because of the report itself.
Conclusion: Emboldened State Executives at a Crossroads
The early-to-mid 20th century has often been painted as an era of weak governors. By modern standards, this view is certainly true and weak executives have a long history rooted in
American political thought. Yet, this understanding overlooks important developments that
139 Klinghard, Daniel. 2010. The Nationalization of American Political Parties. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 8. 140 Ibid. 9. 87 occurred during this time period that contributed to the rise of executive leadership at the state- level and the significance of said leadership within intergovernmental relations and national partisan politics in their current forms.
For one, governors’ roles within state politics were enhanced in terms of constitutional and statutory authorities as well as more informal powers. The formal capacities of the office were expanded relative to state legislatures, bureaucracies, and even local governments.
Governors, especially those associated with the Progressive movement, were often at the forefront of efforts to consolidate power within their office and this often meant engaging in attempts at state reorganization efforts. Ultimately, these efforts, though differing drastically across the states and rarely going as far as their proponents would have hoped, allowed governors to become more central to the formation of policy programs at the state-level.
Secondly, developments in American federalism pulled governors into national political discussions to an extent that had previously been unimaginable. Governors, through the NGC and other organizations, not to mention on ad hoc bases, were engaging with national politicians on issues ranging from welfare provision to the conduct of war efforts to the development of national tax policies. The rise of the national state was not always met with approval from state executives. However, in many cases, the governors promoted a more activist national government, and sought to obtain national resources from these developments. Governors were increasingly acting to advance public policy goals and the national government precipitated such behavior in a number of respects. In this sense, trends in state politics and intergovernmental relations were constitutive and reinforcing of each other. Even during the New Deal, and the centralizing tendencies that are often attributed to it, FDR, as Derthick notes, “was sympathetic to the institution [of federalism] and was simultaneously and deliberately both a centralizer and
88 decentralizer.”141 Indeed, Roosevelt, in attempting to achieve his ambitious agenda, used grants- in-aid for numerous programs, giving states a critical role in the recovery process. Again, this ensured that governors, as heads of state governments, had a stake in national political decision- making.
Lastly, up until the 1960s, the governors’ engagement within the national parties was also on the rise. Governors had become the heads of state parties in practice if not in name (The state parties had separate party chairmen who oversaw the party as organization). They were often at the forefront of battles against traditional party organizations and the form of rhetorical and administrative leadership at the heart of the modern state executive challenged that of the traditional party boss. This rise within the states had implications for the role of governors in national party politics. Governors increasingly sought out publicity at national conventions and had more to offer the national parties in crafting more programmatic agendas. The stage was being set for them to be more fully integrated into the national party apparatus, allowing them influence over national party programs but also giving them the capacities to help implement national party agendas. They could now become both agents and influencers of national partisanship.
Despite the empowerment of the office during this time, the seeds of future tensions were being sown. The increased presence of the national government across a realm of public policy issues offered much room for disagreement between governors and national officials. This is true within the parties as well. The idea of a more national coherent party, one with a clear, and understandable, agenda was not opposed by many of the governors. It did, however, raise questions as to what the national party agendas should be, who gets to determine exactly what it
141 Derthick, Martha. “Roosevelt as Madison: Social Security and American Federalism.” In Keeping the Compound Republic. Washington D.C: Brookings Institution Press. 123. 89 should be, and how it should be implemented, not to mention at what level of government it should be implemented. In the final analysis, these developments brought room for much contestation in addition to cooperation. Gubernatorial involvement in national politics coupled with an inherent sense of independence and autonomy within the office do not sit easily together and parties became important venues in which this tension would manifest.
90
CHAPTER 3: BEYOND A DECENTRALIZED PARTY SYSTEM: ORIGINS OF THE REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS ASSOCIATION, 1960-1968
The 1960s marked an important moment during which Republican governors became much more intimately and consistently involved in national programmatic partisan politics. Since the Progressive Era and especially the New Deal, the nation’s governors had been increasingly pulled into national politics. They increasingly had to grapple with national governing programs, particularly those of presidents; they were increasingly prominent actors at the state-level in terms of their place atop growing state bureaucracies, the media attention the office of governor was receiving, and through numerous assaults on traditional state and local party organizations; and they had institutionalized means of personally engaging with national policymakers through the NGC, numerous state-level lobbying groups, and a host of boards and commissions instituted by the federal government. Within the context of the states, the position of governor was becoming increasingly prominent. In terms of intergovernmental relations, the demands placed upon the office were on the rise.
However, the governors’ increased strength within state parties and more active engagement in national politics did not necessarily translate into increased influence within the national parties. In the early 1960s, Republican governors recognized that changes within the party system had not empowered them to successfully deal with the effects of national partisan contestation on their own political fortunes. The flaring of partisan tension on the issue of civil rights within the NGC made vivid the vulnerabilities of national partisan contestation on the party’s governors, especially those in states, such as Michigan and New York, which had large urban centers with significant minority populations and were then led by Republican governors.
Put simply, the civil rights issue demonstrated that nearly everything going on in national politics had ramifications for the governors at the state-level, both in terms of policy and
91 electoral considerations. Moreover, governors found that they could not rely solely on the traditional avenue of decentralized parties to deal with the effects of national partisan conflict in state-level considerations. Governors’ engagement with the national parties through state party organization was too atomized and inconsistent to be effective. They now needed a new means of furthering their interests in Washington. They recognized that they were part of a national partisan team and that partisan politics at the national-level had important effects on state-level policy and electoral outcomes.142 A more nationally oriented party system, one that centered on presidential and/or congressional leadership, threatened the independence and assertiveness that have come to define gubernatorial leadership.
The governors took several steps to assert themselves within the national party. These moves had three main effects on the development of the Republican Party. First and foremost, they altered the national party as organization, promoting a more integrated and coherent party.
They created the RGA, through which became heavily involved in the selection of RNC
Chairman Ray Bliss in 1965, and contributed to party building and branding activities through the Republican Coordinating Committee (RCC). 143 In effect, they circumvented the preexisting decentralized party system, engaging the national party in new and innovative ways.
142 Investigations of state-level election returns indicate that governors are rightly concerned about national partisan politics on voter perceptions of policy outcomes relative to partisanship. See, for instance Niemi, Richard, Harold W. Stanley and Ronald J. Vogel. 1995. “State Economies and State Taxes: Do Voters Hold Governors Accountable.” American Journal of Political Science. 39.4: 936-57; Bishop, Bradford H. 2018. “Federal Complexity and Perception of State Party Ideology in the United States.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism. 48.3: 559-85; Rogers, Steven. 2016. “National forces in state legislative elections.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 667.1: 207–225. 143 In this way, the party’s governors contributed to the rise of the service party model most closely associated with RNC Chairman Ray Bliss. See for instance Aldrich, John. 2011. Why Parties? A Second Look. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 281-287; Conley, Brian M. 2011. “States and the Making of the ‘Service Party: The Case of the Postwar Ohio Republican Party.” Journal of American Studies 45.3: 519-37; Conley, Brian M. 2013. “The Politics of Party Renewal: The ‘Service Party’ and the Origins of the Post-Goldwater Republican Right.” Studies in American Political Development 27 (April): 51-67. 92
Table 3.1 GOP Conditions and Effects Present, 1960-1968
Conditions Effects
Strong Governors Increased Participation by Governors in National Partisan Discourse, Party as • Rockefeller, Romney, Reagan as Organization Presidential Contenders • Increased Formal/Informal Authorities • Partisanship in the NGC of Office by 1960 • National Branding Activities by Governors through RGA Intergovernmental Relations • RNC Chairman Election • RCC Involvement • Civil Rights Nationalized • 1968 Convention Involvement • LBJ’s Creative Federalism New Resources Available to Governors Programmatic Party Politics • RGA as Organization • Split within GOP on Civil Rights • Funding by RNC • Diminished Influence by Governors • RGA Staffing, Campaign Events, on Convention Outcomes (1964) Meeting Publicity • Tension between governors and RNC, GOP congressional leadership, and Gubernatorial Influence on Party Program, Goldwater Brand
• New Federalism in GOP Platform • Keynote Address by Dan Evans • RGA Policy Statements, Platform Hearings
Second, through the RGA, they moved to enhance their role in the presidential nomination process and national convention politics. Their direct participation, as delegates, in convention politics reached a zenith in the 1960s. Additionally, by 1968, the governors moved to ensure that they received important positions within the convention. They acted not simply as state-level political brokers but as shapers of the national party program and as national party spokesmen. They took part in the convention as media spectacle and not just as a venue for
“smoke-filled” back room deals. And, they did so before the onset of the reform era that is often depicted as part of the catalyst for the nationalization of American party politics. 93
Third, they promoted a logic for national party concern for state politics and electoral outcomes. Concern over state control of congressional redistricting was and remained a core concern of the national Republican party, especially given its chronic minority status in Congress since the New Deal. These concerns manifested in the conversations between the governors and national party officials that took place at RGA meetings during and after the period covered in this chapter. However, this new logic included a re-envisioned deference to state governments in policymaking within the Republican platform. The states were not to be considered isolated spheres but sites which the party could look toward for assistance in carrying out, and even potentially help develop, a national party program. It also included newfound investment of national party resources, through the extension of the “party in service,” in the governors, including through the RGA.
In doing so, they ensured that governors, as an emerging class of state level policymakers and administrators, had a place in a party system that has been increasingly analyzed as being more “presidency-centered” and, therefore, more oriented around Washington. In sum, the governors contributed to the development of a more national Republican party as organization, but one that remained committed to states, and governors’ offices in particular, as important centers of the development and implementation of the party program. Table 3.1 summarizes the conditions present and effects achieved by the GOP governors through the RGA during the
1960-1968 period.
To be sure, the governors were not unopposed in their efforts to shape the Republican party, in this case by conservative leadership within the congressional wing of the party. As
Herrnson notes, “Politics are about deal making and compromise. Party politics are no different.
Shared goals and interlocking relationships provide some of the foundation for the teamwork that
94 exists among individuals and groups that belong to different layers of a party’s coalition.
Exchanges among politicians, sometimes referred to as quid pro quos, also are important.”144
Civil rights, once again, was important in terms of the governors’ quest for more say in national party affairs. Many of the governors who were active in the RGA during the early-to-mid 1960s represented states in the Northeast and Midwest which had large urban centers and sizeable minority populations. The candidacy of Barry Goldwater, and the desire of a number of party officials to win over more conservative Southern whites, was seen as a threat to the “big-tent” party that was manifest in the election of the likes of George Romney, William Scranton, and
Nelson Rockefeller. Thus, the division within the Republican party on the civil rights question, combined with its rise to the top of the national agenda, necessitated gubernatorial action within the party. Indeed, several of the governors had been active in promoting civil rights at the state- level while the national party drifted rightward on the issue. Again, the civil rights issue provided an impetus for the formation of the RGA because the issue was no longer one confined to the states but now resulted included federal and state involvement coupled with renewed pressures for the national parties and state leaders to address the issue.
This chapter analyzes the developments of the RGA through the presidential election of
1968. I first discuss the sparks that drove the creation of the RGA – the partisan confrontation between Democratic and Republican governors within the NGC. I proceed to discuss the three effects of the actions of the governors on the Republican party through 1968 – a transformation of the national party as organization, a new role for governors in presidential selection and convention politics, and an assertion of gubernatorial prerogative in Republican politics. In the following chapters, I demonstrate that these actions proved consequential for how governors
144 Herrnson, Paul S. 2009. “The Roles of Party Organizations, Party-Connected Committees, and Party Allies in Elections.” Journal of Politics. 71.4: 1215. 95 engaged in national partisan politics after 1968. The actions taken during this period helped to ensure that future governors continued to have a role in the development of the Republican party program, that governors received the attention of, and commitments and resources from national party officials, and that the party provided an avenue through which governors could advance their political careers and policy objectives.
The Origins of the RGA
Republican governors were in a unique and powerful position within the national
Republican party during the New Deal era. The GOP had, since its founding in the 1850s, been the party associated with stronger national governing authority. After the Civil War, the party often deployed “waving the bloody flag” in its electoral appeals. The party, continuing the Whig legacy, promoted the interests of business under the leadership of Presidents McKinley, Harding and Coolidge. Teddy Roosevelt, proved to be an exception to this general rule, but still favored the expansion of national governing authority to deal with the social ills associated with the
Gilded Age. Gerring, for instance, argues that up until 1928, the GOP, now the party of limited government, was in a “National epoch” in terms of its general governing philosophy.145
Factional splits were on full display within the GOP during the Progressive Era and the
New Deal. In particular, a split emerged between the party’s conservative wing, led by the likes of “Mr. Republican” Senator Robert Taft and the Northeastern Establishment, led by the likes of
New York Governors Thomas Dewey and, later, Nelson Rockefeller. During the New Deal,
Republican governors were at the forefront of the national party. Kansas Governor Alf Landon and then Dewey became the GOP standard-bearers in 1936, 1944 and 1948. In 1948, as
Rosenfeld notes, “With two big-state governors – Dewey and California’s Earl Warren – on the
145 Gerring, John. 1998. Party Ideology in America, 1828-1996. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. See pages 57-124. 96 ticket and another big-state moderate, Hugh Scott, installed as RNC chair, 1948 was the apogee of the Dewey wing’s power within the party.”146 Dewey had won only two of that year’s eleven primary contests but captured the nomination easily on the third ballot after his chief rivals, Taft,
Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen and Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg. That year’s platform included a call for federal civil rights legislation and the elimination of the poll tax. It was also the first GOP convention to be broadcast on television.
Governors were particularly active, and successful, in the 1952 presidential contest which culminated in the nomination of General Dwight Eisenhower over Taft, who, unlike many
Republican governors at the time, was firmly opposed to the New Deal on a philosophical level.
In 1952, as DiSalvo notes “for the fourth straight time, the Republicans selected the most electable candidate rather than the one who reflected the party’s mainstream.”147 That year, GOP governors, led by Dewey, tipped the scales in favor of the General and away from the more rigidly conservative Taft. He, along with a number of conservative Republicans, criticized
Dewey and others, including Ike, of “me-tooism.” Dewey and others had embraced elements of the New Deal under Roosevelt and Truman but critiqued the emergence of the national administrative state on its efficiency and cost.
Taft had won a plurality of votes in Republican primary contests that year. Dewey and
Governor Arthur Langlie of Washington, with the help of moderates from the Northeast, pushed through a “fair-play” rule, blocking a number of Southern delegates from being seated. The move had gained the support of the majority of GOP governors at that year’s NGC meeting.
Though Eisenhower’s personal popularity contributed significantly to the idea that he was in fact
146 Rosenfeld, Sam. 2018. The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 61. 147 DiSalvo. 2012. Engines of Change. 76. 97 the strongest potential Republican nominee, the rule did hurt Taft. The senator came in just 95 delegates below the General during the first round of balloting. Dewey, leading his state’s delegation, delivered 93 of New York’s 96 delegates to Eisenhower, the largest state delegation at the convention that year. And, once again, the platform took a firm stand on civil rights, including calling for federal action on lynching.148
In sum, the 1940s and 1950s were a time in which Republican governors carried a good deal of weight within the national party, though they did so through their involvement in the traditional state party organizations – being able to control votes of state delegations at national party conventions. This would change dramatically once the General left office and was replaced by Democratic presidents who were willing to take up national civil rights legislation, including on issues of voting rights.
Partisanship in the NGC: Civil Rights and Minority Party Status
The RGA first emerged out of rising partisan conflict within the NGC which has long prided itself on being a non-partisan organization. Republican governors sought to use their participation in the Conference to further the presidential ambitions of one of their own and the splinter their Democratic counterparts on the issue of civil rights, which had reemerged on the national scene. The party’s governors saw the Democrats seek to undermine the potential presidential candidacy of Rockefeller and their attempts to have the Conference take a national stand on civil rights, that could split the Democratic majority, defeated.
148 See for instance Greene, John Robert. 2017. I Like Ike: The Presidential Election of 1952. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas and Donaldson, Gary A. 2017. When Americans Liked Ike: How Moderates Won the 1952 Presidential Election and Reshaped American Politics. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. On Dewey’s role in the 1952 contest in particular see Smith, Richard Norton. 1982. Thomas E. Dewey and His Times. New York: Simon and Schuster. 98
The Conference had, since its inception, embodied the idea that governors were problem- solvers, ones which could come together to discuss policy proposals in a manner that was disengaged from the partisan rancor that the Progressives saw in legislative bodies. In theory, the partisan balance among the governors did not matter and the Conference was a site of deliberation and exchange of ideas, not grandstanding on a national stage. Rarely did the
Conference, before the 1960s, engage in taking stands on behalf of its membership, and when it did the message was something on which the vast majority, if not all, of the governors could agree.
However, this was not true in the early 1960s, at which time Republicans were clearly the nation’s minority party despite being, ideologically, a “big-tent.” Democrats, according to the
Pew Research Center, had a seventeen-point advantage in terms of the public’s partisan identification in the aftermath of the 1960 presidential election.149 Senator John F. Kennedy’s narrow victory over then Vice President Richard Nixon returned the White House to the
Democratic Party after Eisenhower broke a twenty-year streak of Democratic control.150
Democrats retained large majorities in the House of Representatives (262-175) and the Senate
(64-36), giving them unified control of national governing institutions. Republican governors numbered only 16 after the 1960 elections to the Democrats 34 (see Figure 3.1). Control of state legislative chambers was also notably slanted in favor of the Democrats. Further, though
President Eisenhower had made inroads in the South in 1952 and his 1956 reelection, the region
149 The Pew Research Center. 7 April 2015. “Trends in Party Identification, 1939-2014.”
Civil rights, once effectively kept off of the national agenda through Southern leadership in Congress, rules of the Democratic nominating conventions, and FDR’s attempts to maintain the breadth of his coalition, had reemerged as a national partisan issue and was on the agenda of
President Kennedy and later President Johnson.151 Republicans, as the party of Lincoln, could claim a degree of progressive leadership on the issue leading into the 1960s. Numerous GOP governors in the New Deal era had maintained outreach to minority communities, especially those in the Northeast. Brown v. Board of Education was decided by a high Court led by Earl
Warren, a former Republican governor, and Eisenhower had taken action to enforce the decision.
151 For discussions of the implications of civil rights legislation in the South see Perlman, Michael. 2001. Struggle for Mastery: Disenfranchisement in the South, 1888-1908. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press. See also, Key, V. O., Jr. Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949; Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, 1877–1913. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951.
100
Republican party platforms continued to espouse a commitment to minority rights through 1960 thanks in part to the likes of Dewey and Rockefeller.
The GOP governors’ minority status began to manifest within the confines of the NGC in
1961. This first occurred in a contest over leadership of the organization. The Governors’
Conference customarily alternated the chairmanship of the organization by party, leaving it to the party’s membership to nominate a candidate from among its ranks. At the annual meeting in
Honolulu however, “the sixteen Republican Governors were shown in sorry disarray.”152
Democrats used their majority to influence the selection of the next chairman.
Rockefeller, a liberal Republican with presidential aspirations, “whose views on pragmatic governance and on the healing potential of economic growth closely matched those of the liberal mainstream,” was put forward as the Republicans’ choice to be the next chairman of the Conference.153 Democrats, along with a few conservative Republican governors, selected
Republican Wesley Powell, governor of New Hampshire, as the next chair despite his initial absence from the conference. Powell flew to Honolulu to accept the nomination in order to comply with the Conference’s bylaws and constitution.154 In a letter to then RNC Chairman
William Miller, Governor Mark Hatfield of Oregon noted that “we have seen the Democratic leadership through John Bailey, [Hyman] Raskin and others move in on what had for the most part been non-partisan activities in years prior to the Kennedy administration. Governors prided themselves in these Conferences that they went to the heart of state problems and party
152 The Republican Governors Association: A Case for a Third Force. A Ripon Society Report with Recommendations to the Republican Governors Meeting in Denver. December 4-5, 1964. Box 99. Folder 748. John H. Chafee Gubernatorial and Secretary of the Navy Papers, 1962-1975. University of Rhode Island, Special Collections. Providence, Rhode Island. Page 2. 153 Phillips, Sarah. 2008. “Resourceful Leaders: Governors and the Politics of the American Environment.” A Legacy of Innovation: Governors and Public Policy. 2008. Ethan G. Sribnick, Ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 39. 154 The Republican Governors Association: A Case for a Third Force. A Ripon Society Report. Page 3. 101 partisanship was cast aside.”155 Hatfield and Robert Smylie, of Idaho, publicly pointed a finger directly at the Kennedy administration who they argued had their hand in Powell’s nomination through DNC Chairman Bailey’s participation in the meetings.156 The Democratic governors, in coordination with national party leadership, acted, in the opinion of the GOP governors, as members of a national team, bent on reducing the influence of their partisan opponents.
After the Honolulu meeting there was talk of mobilizing the Republican governors in order to counter the Democrats’ maneuvering, but little was done outside of creating a formal
GOP caucus with the expectation that the party’s governors would huddle before the official start of annual NGA meetings. Little changed as a result of this action leading into the following year’s conference.
Rockefeller and other Republicans, in part in response to the Democratic maneuverings of the previous year, advanced several resolutions in order to drive a wedge among the
Democratic governors. In 1962, a civil rights resolution, favored by Rockefeller, was eventually passed as a diluted statement of “American values.” Democratic Governor Fritz Hollings of
South Carolina stonewalled proposals for a more potent civil rights statement, much to the chagrin of Rockefeller. Hatfield compared the 1962 NGA meeting’s debates on a civil rights resolution to a Senate filibuster.157
Governor Michael DiSalle, a Democrat from Ohio, noted during the 1962 Governors’
Conference that “at a conference of this kind, we no doubt would come out with some sort of a
155 Letter from Mark O. Hatfield to William E. Miller. 14 July 1963. The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 11. Folder. “Republican Governors’ Association Correspondence. 1963- 1966.” Not Numbered. 156 Bailey received credentials to be part of the Connecticut delegation despite his position in the DNC. While administration officials regularly participated in NGC meetings, officials employed by the national parties did not. 157 Proceedings of the Governors’ Conference 1963. Fifty-fifth Annual Meeting. Hotel Deauville, Miami Beach, Florida. July21--24, 1963. Chicago: The Governors’ Conference. 15. 102 watered-down civil rights resolution that is supposed to be weak enough to permit the Southern
Governors to go home safely and the Northern Governors to go home with at least a face-saving device.”158 The Democrats, in brief, by preventing or watering down a civil rights resolution, worked to maintain the broad New Deal coalition that was threatened by the nationalization of the civil rights issue. By advancing the issue at the NGC meetings, GOP governors could highlight the divisions within the Democratic party and do so under the watchful eye of the national media, who were willing to hone in on the implications of these meetings for the presidential ambitions of the likes of Rockefeller.
The GOP governors, for their part, argued that they were crowded out of the process.
Moderate Republican groups including the Ripon Society noted that a lack of organization and coordination was detrimental to the party’s governors at these meetings and advocated for the party’s governors to coordinate to avoid being logrolled by the Democrats at future conferences.
A year later, at the Governors’ Conference in Miami, Republicans put on a much more united front. Governors Smylie, John Love of Colorado and Hatfield, took the lead on civil rights, calling for legislation in Congress and for the Governor’s Conference to inaugurate a committee on the issue. Democrats reacted by attempting to silence their Republican colleagues, first by recommending a “gag rule” which took the form of a proposal that all resolutions be voted on unanimously rather than a two-thirds majority. Nevada’s Democratic Governor Grant
Sawyer eventually forced through a motion to eliminate the Resolutions Committee, preventing any statement on the civil rights issue from being released. The motion carried by a vote of 33-
16.159
158 Proceedings of the Governors’ Conference 1962. Fifty-fourth Annual Meeting. Hotel Hershey, Hershey Pennsylvania. June 30-July 4, 1962. Chicago: The Governors’ Conference. 54. 159The Republican Governors Association: A Case for a Third Force. A Ripon Society Report. 5-6. 103
In response, Rockefeller argued that “the proposed amendments would do more than gag the expression of collective judgment by this Conference - they would discourage any consideration by this Conference of questions as to which a diversity of view exists.”160 Hatfield added that “It is our [the Republican governors’] position [that] civil rights as a subject should be discussed, debated if you will, and the consensus of the Conference should be attained through an expression by vote. Those who insist on state prerogatives should welcome this expression to the Congress, to our constituencies, and indeed to the world which watches so carefully the various interpretations that are here given to that great word: freedom.”161 Partisanship ran high throughout the 1963 meeting and procedural debates over the issuing of resolutions continued over the next several years.
At the end of the 1963 meeting, the RGA was formalized with Smylie, then the most tenured of the GOP governors, elected as chairman. The governors resolved to meet the following month in Denver to develop the RGA as an organization that could assist coordination among the party’s governors in between meetings of the NGC as well as foster conversation among the governors, the RNC, and congressional leadership.
Governors, The Southern Strategy and the 1964 Election: Civil Rights Inverted
Leading into the 1964 election the national partisan script on civil rights had flipped.
President Kennedy proposed federal civil rights legislation in the summer of 1963 and Lyndon
Johnson saw the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act in July of 1964. While Republicans in
Congress gave strong support for the legislation in both chambers, Barry Goldwater voted against the law and as did the overwhelming majority of Southern MCs, despite their partisan allegiance. Goldwater’s ascendancy to the Republican presidential nomination brought the
160 Proceedings of the Governors’ Conference 1963. 21. 161 Ibid. 123. 104 national party’s stand on civil rights into tension with the public stand of, and in many cases specific actions taken by, the Republican governors.
Conservatives, especially within the congressional wing of the party, viewed attempts to organize by the governors with suspicion. RNC chairman William Miller, later Senator
Goldwater’s running mate, noted that the RGA could provide the GOP “organizational muscle” in state and local elections but Goldwater supporters and advocates for the “Southern strategy” viewed the strong civil rights stand taken by the GOP governors with misgiving.162
Conservatives within the congressional wing of the party felt Congressman Fred Schwengel’s meeting with GOP governors in Miami to discuss minority staffing in the House of
Representatives was an intrusion on the congressional party’s territory. Further, the Ripon
Society went as far as accusing Miller of attempting to persuade congressional party leaders to avoid an RGA meeting in Denver in 1963.163 A national organization providing a mouthpiece to the likes of Rockefeller, Romney and Hatfield represented a potential challenge to the conservative wing of the party which at the time had a greater representation in Congress than among the party’s governors.164
The tension that emerged between the Goldwater conservatives and the Rockefeller
Republicans was not resolved before the general election. A so-called “Unity Conference” was held in Hershey in August. The attendees included Goldwater, vice-presidential nominee Miller, new RNC Chairman Dean Burch, Eisenhower, Nixon, and a number of governors and members
162 “Statement of Republican National Chairman William E. Miller Issued Prior to the First Meeting of the Republican Governors’ Assn.” 13 September 1963. Page 2. The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 8. Folder Unnumbered and Untitled. 163 The Republican Governors Association: A Case for a Third Force. A Ripon Society Report. 10. 164 To be sure, not all of the Republican governors at the time were members of the party’s more liberal faction. Paul Fannin of Arizona, for instance, was a staunch Goldwater supporter in 1964 and, after replacing Goldwater in the Senate, voted against the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972. He was also a staunch advocate of business deregulation. 105 of Congress. Goldwater spent a good deal of time fighting off the notion that he was an extremist. The GOP nominee promised to consult with Eisenhower and Nixon concerning cabinet appointments and especially on issues relating to foreign affairs.
The notion that Goldwater’s candidacy could hurt the party was deeply tied to
Goldwater’s stance on civil rights, which was questioned repeatedly throughout the meeting as was his Southern Strategy. Goldwater promised “faithful execution” of the 1964 Civil Rights
Act.165 Romney felt that Goldwater’s stand on the issue was lukewarm and overly legalistic, failing to convey a clear moral stand on the subject. Rockefeller questioned Goldwater on his apparently tacit acceptance of Ku Klux Klan support, noting “you [Goldwater] don’t seek their support, but you don’t reject their support. And it can very well be said by smart editorial writers that they don’t seek it, but they don’t say they won’t accept it.”166 Ultimately, those within the gubernatorial ranks advocated a more broad-based, less ideologically cohesive party, one less at risk of alienating minority and urban voters, particularly those in large states. In other words, the governors promoted a national electoral strategy that had worked in their own states, one consistent with the definitive civil rights stand they had taken over the past few years and one that maintained a commitment to a “big-tent” GOP.
The issue of Goldwater’s relationship with the traditional party apparatus was also discussed, with Rockefeller raising the matter of the Citizens for Goldwater organizations circumventing the party within the states. The New York governor noted that “the county chairmen are calling now increasingly about the organization of the Citizens for Goldwater and
165 “Confidential Proceedings of Closed Session Meeting of Republican Unity Conference.” Hotel Hershey. Hershey, Pennsylvania. Wednesday August 12, 1964. Transcript of Meeting. The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 7. Folder Unnumbered. Entitled “Folder: Republican Governors’ Association 1964. Page 30. 166 Ibid. 98. 106 other Goldwater organizations in their counties; that they are not being consulted as to the membership or the leadership of committees and they don’t know to whom to talk. Many of the people who are leading these organizations locally are the ones who have fought the organization.”167 Rockefeller added that the Conservative Party of New York, which was backing Goldwater, was running over fifty candidates for statewide and local offices, and likely diminishing the GOP’s chances of success down-ballot.168 In short, Goldwater’s supporters were operating outside the state party organizations and were, thus, outside the sphere of influence of
Republican governors. Goldwater’s candidacy highlighted not just the factional divide among party elites but the increased ease by which these conflicts could transcend existing party infrastructure. That is, Goldwater’s candidate-centered campaign illustrated that the traditional decentralized party organization did not empower governors, whose eyes were increasingly on national politics, but were a limitation on their influence.
Nixon, appearing statesmanlike, largely abstained from intra-party strife and called for unity. He also noted that the governors could be strategic assets for the national party: “We hope to have right in this room several Governors who are not coming up for election, who can be very helpful. Governor Scranton has a national reputation. Rocky has a national reputation. We have several others in that category. Use them. And I think this supplement will take some of the burden off our national candidates so that they can concentrate where they are needed, concentrate in those States, the swing States, to win.”169 In Nixon’s eyes, what made the governors powerful was not their place within state party organizations but their reputation among voters within the states.
167 Ibid. 38-9. 168 Ibid. 75. 169 Ibid. 104. 107
Republicans netted one pickup in gubernatorial seats with several high-profile governors re-elected by respectable margins, including Romney, John Chafee in Rhode Island and Daniel
Evans in Washington (see Figure 3.2). Yet, Goldwater suffered a massive defeat and
Republicans lost 37 seats in the House and two in the Senate, giving Democrats veto-proof majorities in both chambers.
After the election, Romney, in a sternly worded letter, argued to Goldwater that “the party’s need to become more broadly inclusive and attractive should be obvious to anyone.”170
He went on to argue that Goldwater was complicit in extremist attempts to infuse racial conservatism into the platform, noting that “A leading Southern delegate in private discussion with me, opposing my civil rights amendment after it was introduced but before it was offered, made it clear there had been a platform deal that was a surrender to the Southern segregationists, contrary to the entire tradition of the party. And it appeared that there was a willingness to
170 Letter from George Romney to Barry Goldwater. 21 December 1964. In The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 7. Folder Not Numbered. Entitled “Republican Governors’ Association 1964.” 2. 108 accept, perhaps even welcome, the support of irresponsible extremists such as those you clearly reject in the December 21, 1964, U.S. News interview.”171
Goldwater’s loss, then, precipitated renewed conversation about the party’s national brand and the relative strength of the governors gave them reason for believing their approach within their respective states should be adopted nationally. As Heersink notes, “Who within the national minority party decides what groups the [national] committee targets is a product of the party’s electoral performance.”172 Certainly, the aftermath of the 1964 election gave Republican governors a more substantial opportunity to shape the party. The magnitude of Goldwater’s loss had discredited the conservative stalwart. Moreover, the relative success of Republican governors served as a vindication for their right to help shape the party in the lead-up to the 1966 midterms and the 1968 presidential election, at least in their own minds. As Smylie noted, “we are a leaderless party because no one has earned the right to that leadership by winning an election.”173 Governors sought to fill what they perceived as a dire leadership void. They did so through organizational developments within the party and by attempting to shape the party program.
At a December 1964 meeting in Denver, Republican governors drafted and unanimously agreed upon Articles of Association for the RGA and issued the “Denver Declaration.” In the
Declaration, the 17 governors and governor-elects argued that “The 1964 election made it abundantly clear that national party policies have momentous impact on the ability of the
Republican Party to win elections within the States. Republican governors, therefore, have a
171 Ibid. 6. 172 Heersink, Boris. 2018. “Party Brands and the Democratic and Republican National Committees, 1952- 1976. Studies in American Political Development (April): 81. 173 “Authorized Advance of the Opening Remarks of Governor Robert E. Smylie, Chairman, to the Republican Governors’ Association. 4 December 1964. The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 7. Folder Not Numbered. Untitled: Republican Governors’ Association 1964. 8. 109 clear-cut duty to participate with other leaders of the Party in formulating positive policies with broad appeals to bring before all the American people.”174
The governors noted the potential for the national partisan label to be a potential drawback when the national ticket was unpopular. Governors were quick to tout their ability to go beyond the base of the party and obtain support of “split-ticket” voters. They recognized, however, that state-level officials were not immune to national waves. The national party brand, one now seen as conservative on civil rights relative to that of the national Democratic party, mattered and the governors felt that they had a stake in shaping that brand. In the final analysis, conflict within the NGC and the 1964 election hastened the party’s governors to find a means of asserting themselves more vigorously in national partisan affairs. The RGA provided a means to this end.
The RGA and The Republican Party as Organization
The most immediate and direct impact of the governors’ activities on the national party as organization was the addition of a new and permanent national organization. Through the RGA, the governors contributed to the development of the modern party in service. The governors, concerned with the direction the national party was taking, turned their attention to the national party organizations.175 Three areas of focus for the governors were the RGA, a fight over the chairmanship of the RNC, and the party-building activities conducted through the RCC.
The RGA: Governors Organized in Washington
174 The Denver Declaration. Proposals by the Republican Governors’ Association toward a Party that Wins Elections and Serves America. December 9, 1964. John H. Chafee Gubernatorial and Secretary of the Navy Papers, 1962-1975. University of Rhode Island, Special Collections. Providence, Rhode Island. Box 99. Folder 738. Page 1. 175“National party organizations,” Heersink notes, “in the eyes of party leaders, have considerably more relevance than the dominant view among political scientists of the committees being mere service providers would have us believe.”175 See Heersink, Boris. 2018. “Party Brands and the Democratic and Republican National Committees.” 82. On the weakness of party organizations see Cotter, Cornelius P. and Bernard C. Hennessy. 2017/1964. Politics Without Power. New York: Routledge. 110
The governors structured the RGA in order to establish the group as an important force in national party building efforts and in establishing their policy credentials at the national-level.
Once established, the RGA moved to provide electoral services to the governors and gubernatorial candidates, publicize its membership’s accomplishments to a national audience, critique partisan opponents, and coordinate and promote its members’ activities in national party affairs. The governors agreed to the RGA having an executive committee, including the chairman, who was to be elected annually, and at least two other sitting governors.
The RGA chairperson became a leadership position within the party. The chairperson provided Republican governors with a national spokesperson, one that regularly spoke at national conventions, and would be tasked with bringing the party’s governors together regularly. Smylie was re-elected to the position. The chairmanship has been held by a number of prominent governors over the years. Ronald Reagan, for instance, filled this role between 1968 and 1970. Many others entered presidential races, particularly within the last decade including
Rick Perry, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker. Still others went on to serve in presidential administrations (see Table 1.2). Within the period under investigation here, several governors serving as RGA chair were considered as presidential running mates, including Love and Chafee.
A policy committee, tasked with issuing policy papers and resolutions concerning the affairs of the national party, and a gubernatorial campaign committee which aided both
Republican gubernatorial and state legislative candidates, were also established. Though the staff was small initially, the RGA did reach out to academics, including political scientists Robert
Huckshorn and Cornelius Cotter, in filling these positions.176 Political scientist Walter Devries,
176 “Seven Educators Named to Advise GOP Governors.” 4 March 1965. The Washington Post. A29. 111 for instance, was tapped to lead campaign school sessions on winning over independent voters.177
Additionally, the RGA instituted seminars for gubernatorial candidates up for election in
1964, circulated RNC sponsored research on congressional redistricting and its potential effects on the 1964 election and had its own suite, with RNC provided staff, at the 1964 Republican
National Convention in San Francisco.178 Smylie noted during one of the campaign “schools” in
Denver that this was “the first time I think in the history of either political party in the United
States to coordinate and to be of some assistance on a national basis to gubernatorial candidates in the several states.”179 These seminars set a precedent for the organization, one which contributed to governors becoming national party builders.
By 1966, the RGA had a full time Executive Director, a public relations officer and a research coordinator, with staffing assistance also provided by the members of the Association.
The staffing of the organization included political operatives who had worked for other
Republican organizations. Richard Fleming, who assumed the role of Executive Director in 1967 had worked for the RNC’s research division. The staffing of the organization, thus, reflected and built on preexisting networks among GOP political operatives.180
177 Loftus, Joseph. “G.O.P. Candidates Told How to Sway the Ticket-Splitter.” 19 August 1964. The New York Times. 22. 178 “Confidential Information Memorandum Relative to the Proposal for Conducting Gubernatorial Seminars.” Undated; “Memo on the Status of Congressional Districting for 1964.” From the Research Division of the Republican National Convention 8 April 1964. Undated; “Memorandum for Members of the Republican Governors’ Association.” 22 April 1964. In the Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 8. Folder Not Numbered. Entitled “Republican Governors Association Meeting April 10-11, 1964. Washington D.C.” 179 “Republican Gubernatorial Candidates’ Campaign Conference.” Malibu Motor Hotel, Denver, Colorado. August 19-20, 1964. In the Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 8. Folder Not Numbered. Entitled “August 1964. Republican Gubernatorial Candidates Campaign Conference. Denver, Colorado.” Page 1. 180 This is in line with studies of more contemporary party networks. See for instance Skinner, Richard M., Seth E. Masket and David A. Dulio. 2012. “527 Committees and the Political Party Networks.” American Politics Research. 40.1: 60-84. 112
Further, the Articles of Association called for semi-annual meetings of the governors with the hope that these gatherings would serve as a means of developing comradery as well as provide opportunities for them to engage with national party leaders. The meetings were almost always attended by the chairman of the RNC, representatives from congressional party leadership and, later, members of GOP presidential administrations. During the mid-1960s, the
Association held at least two meetings per year and continued to allow the GOP governors to huddle during the annual NGC meetings. The meetings became media events in themselves, thus elevating the governors’ national media profiles.
The RNC: Party Growth and National Investment in the Governors
The RGA became a venue through which the governors exerted influence over national party organizational affairs. Republican governors became active agents in trying to wrestle control of the RNC from Goldwater and Burch. They joined Kentucky Senator Thruston Morton in calling for the replacement of Burch as RNC Chair. Even Eisenhower argued that in attempting to keep Burch in his current position, Goldwater “desires to read out of the party counsels nearly all the Republican governors. I am convinced that this is not an effort to create unity, but merely an insistence on personal control by the Goldwater cabal.”181
The 1964 RGA meeting in Denver was generally seen as a repudiation of Goldwater and
Burch.182 Leading members of the RGA promoted ousting Burch leading into an RNC meeting in January. RGA Chairman Smylie sent a letter to members of the RNC, arguing that the Denver
Declaration provided “a foundation on which the Party can rebuild toward a substantial victory
181 Postcard from Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon to Robert Smylie. 3 December 1964. The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 8. Folder Not Numbered. Entitled: Republican Governors Conference. Denver CO. December 4-5 1964. 182 Otten, Alan L. “Control of the GOP: Governors Opposing Goldwater Win First Round, but Long Fight Remains.” Wall Street Journal. 7 December 1964. 2. 113 in 1966.”183 Scranton, in a letter to Eisenhower, noted that “if the Goldwater group believes that they do not have the votes to keep Burch by the time January 22nd comes around, I believe that a
‘nice way’ of arranging Burch’s resignation could be worked out before the meeting, but if the pressure lets up between now and then, I believe they will try to retain him on some plan or other, or at least try to continue to control the National Committee.”184
Burch expressed his intent to stay on as chairman, noting that “I am not staying on simply because Senator Goldwater wants me to stay. And I’m not staying on because Governor Smylie wants me to go.”185 Perhaps seeking to appease the governors, Burch endorsed the Denver
Declaration but focused his support on the formation of a campaign committee by the group.186
Ultimately, Burch and Goldwater’s efforts were fruitless. Ray Bliss, the chairman of the Ohio
State Republican Party, was selected to replace Burch. Bliss had developed a reputation as a non- ideological party man, focusing his energies at developing the party as organization.
Characterizing his work as State Chairman, Conley notes that “Bliss believed that developing a
‘sound organization,’ and electing Republicans, offered the most reliable means of ensuring that the party and its conservative policies remained viable in a changing Ohio.”187
Replacing Burch with a non-ideological RNC Chairman built on the governors’ place atop state parties, a recognition that a stronger national service party could benefit the governors on an organizational level, and the idea that governors would be allowed to experiment with
183 “Smylie’s Oust-Burch Call Mailed to Committeemen. The Washington Post. 23 December 1964. 184 Letter from William Scranton to Dwight Eisenhower. 9 December 1964. The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 7. Folder Not Numbered. Entitled: Republican Governors’ Association 1964. 185 Address by the Honorable Dean Burch, Republican National Chairman, before the National Press Club. January 8, 1965. The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 7. Folder Not Numbered. Entitled: Republican Governors’ Association 1964. 186 Press Release. Statement by GOP Chairman Burch on Republican Governors’ Association Paper. 7 December 1964. The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 7. Folder Not Numbered. Entitled: Republican Governors’ Association 1964. 187 Conley. 2011. “States and the Making of the ‘Service’ Party.” 520. 114 public policy ideas at the state-level. Conley notes that “other than the removal of Burch, the purging that did occur was short lived, and did not entail a broad-based effort to politically reform the party. Instead, the national party leadership, on the whole, despite itself being divided by the deepening liberal and conservative schism within the party, chose party unity over continued internal ideological warfare.”188
This was true for the governors. Removing Burch could be accomplished through gubernatorial influence on the states’ members of the RNC.189 The organizational approach rested on the governors’ strategic place within the party. Conservatives, who were developing a grassroots movement, were an ascendant force within the GOP but adopted an opposing strategy.
Indeed, as DiSalvo notes, “Liberal Republicans [which again, at the time, included most of the governors] were primarily a pragmatic and strategic faction that did not seek to fully revamp the party intellectually, but rather only to smooth its rough edges. Liberal Republicans were not short on policy ideas but they were without an overarching ideology.”190
The relationship between Bliss and the RGA proved to be symbiotic. Rowland Evans and
Robert Novak noted that “the goal [was] not so much party unity as party growth.”191 Bliss granted the RGA office space within RNC headquarters and, after the 1966 midterms, expanded the RNC’s expenditures for the RGA, offering $100,000 a year as an operating budget.192 This
188 Conley. 2013. “The Politics of Party Renewal.” 55. 189 Ibid. See also Donald Critchlow. 2007. Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 190 DiSalvo. 2012. Engines of Change. 43. See also Reinhard, David W. 1983. The Republican Right in 1945. Lexington: University of Kentucky. 157-8. The same was also said of Rockefeller in particular. See Connery, Robert H. and Gerald Benjamin. 1979. Rockefeller of New York; Executive Power in the Statehouse. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 191 Evans, Rowland and Robert Novak. “Inside Report: The Republican Governors.” The Washington Post. 28 July 1965. A21. 192 Ted Knap. “GOP Governors Score Another Victory.” Rocky Mountain News. 21 December 1966. Page 50. In the Governor John Love Papers. The Denver Public Library WH1084. Western History Collection. Series 2. Box 5. Folder 37. 115 more than doubled previous RGA outlays and offered the RGA the opportunity to expand its staff as well as open its own headquarters.193 The additional funding also allowed the RGA to replicate its gubernatorial campaign schools in 1966 and 1968. Bliss, thus, invested in the RGA and state parties while promoting a national party image that allowed for active gubernatorial leadership capable of expanding the base of the party at the state-level.
The RCC: Gubernatorial Involvement in Party Branding
The governors promoted the idea of establishing a Republican Leadership Council, a proposal which ultimately led to the creation of the Republican Coordinating Committee. The
RCC was created in order to develop new policy proposals, and the governors sought to make sure that their policies were not overshadowed by the congressional wing of the party. Governors were given five slots on the committee and sent Smylie, Rockefeller, Romney, Scranton and
Love as their representatives.194 The governors’ delegation to the RCC was expanded to eight the following year. The delegation had a distinctive moderate bent and all of the original gubernatorial participants, with the exception of Smylie, were often touted as potential presidential or vice-presidential contenders. They were also very involved in the RGA.
The establishment of such a committee was not unprecedented in American party history.
In fact, the GOP was acutely aware of the Democratic Advisory Council when the group was formed. For our purposes, the inclusion of governors, and their emphatic desire to participate, in the RCC is telling. Karl Lamb has illustrated that gubernatorial involvement in previous national party-building efforts had been uneven and often rather meager. The Ogden-Mills Commission, formed in 1919, drew less than ten percent of its 173 members from state and local government
193 Financial Statement. July 1-, 1965 to June 30, 1966. John H. Chafee Gubernatorial and Secretary of the Navy Papers, 1962-1975. University of Rhode Island, Special Collections. Providence, Rhode Island. Box 99. Folder 739. 194 “G.O.P. Governors Name 5 to Coordinating Group. The New York Times. 26 February 1965. 32. 116 officials. The Glenn Frank Committee, established at the height of the Democrats’ New Deal electoral success, included only three state and local elected officials. The Mackinac Conference was somewhat exceptional by including the 24 GOP governors elected in 1942. The Percy
Commission, established with the blessing of President Eisenhower, included only 4 members of state and local government out of 43 spots.195
The inclusion on the governors on the Committee was largely welcome but others within the party did not want them to dominate the group. Senator Everett Dirksen, for instance, argued that “The only elected Republican officials of the Federal Establishment are the 32 Republican members of the United States Senate and the 140 members of the House of Representatives.
Obviously and beyond dispute, they will guide Republican Party policy at the national-level, in the absence of a Republican President and Vice President, by the record they write in the
Congress. It is their responsibility.”196 The governors, and others invited to participate on the
Committee were, according to Dirksen, “an additional repository of advice.”197
Klinkner notes that the RCC “provided an internal forum for discussion between party factions and thereby helped to unify a badly divided party” and “produced a steady flow of reports and statements spelling out constructive, if not exciting Republican positions on the issues and criticisms of the Johnson administration.”198 He goes on to argue that “the mortal wounds of the liberal and moderate Republicans were less apparent than they have become in hindsight” and that “an organizational response was the best they could hope for given their
195 Karl A. Lamb. “Program Committee and the Nationalization of Republican Policy.” The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 7. Folder Not Numbered. Entitled “Republican Governors Association. Denver Colorado September 14, 1963.” 196 Statement by Senator Dirksen. The Joint Senate-House Republican Leadership. Press Release. 11 January 1965. The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 11. Folder Not Numbered. Entitled “Republican Coordinating Council. 1/65-6/66.” 197 Ibid. 198 Klinkner. 1994. The Losing Parties. 85. 117 diminished influence.”199 Nevertheless, the governors’ participation in the RCC tightened their place within the national party and gave them a means of participating over the direction of the national party brand.
Governors and National Partisan Contestation: Going After LBJ
The governors’ moved to highlight their disagreements with President Johnson and the
Democratic Congress, including through their participation at NGC meetings, which, again, received a great deal of national media attention.
The formation of the RGA did not result in formal changes to the NGC’s constitution or bylaws. It did, however, contribute to partisanship structuring the processes by which the organization operated. For instance, at the end of the 1965 meeting in Minneapolis, and for the first time in the Conference’s history, the nominating committee for officers of the 1966
Conference issued two reports, one by the Republicans, the other by the Democrats. Governor
Pat Brown of California lamented that “There never, to my knowledge, has ever been any move to amend these Articles of Organization by providing that the Republican Governors shall caucus and the Democratic Governors shall caucus and then the Nominating Committee shall just be a tool of the respective political caucuses of the political parties. It seems to me that the thing that is really fraught with danger is the use of this great Conference for the purpose of some political advantage to either one party or the other.”200 The NGC had developed into “a forum for the heated discussion of national programs and federal-state relations,” one which now had clear partisan demarcations.201
199 Ibid. 87. 200Proceedings of the Governors’ Conference 1965. Fifty-seventh Annual Meeting. Radisson Hotel, Minneapolis, Minnesota. July 25-29, 1965. Chicago: The Governors’ Conference. 156. 201 Brooks, Glenn E. 1961. When Governors Convene: The Governors’ Conference and National Politics. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press. 33. 118
This was true even with regard to foreign affairs. In 1965, Democrats asked for the NGC to issue a statement supporting the remarks made by the President in a televised speech which occurred during the annual meeting. Romney worried that using the Conference in this way, without limiting support to the intent of American action in Southeast Asia would bolster support for the Democrats. Governor Burns, a Democrat from Florida, responded by noting that “at this time that all partisanship must be laid aside and that a word of patriotism must be substituted. We have elected through the democratic processes a leader for this nation. I think that it behooves the people of this nation, certainly the Governors of this nation, to stand as one, united, in support of the action that has been announced on behalf of this nation. We as Governors are not informed in the field of diplomacy nor are we informed of the give and take at the negotiation table. We, like every other citizen of these United States, have our allegiance to the nation and to its leadership.”202
GOP governors attempted, however, to develop legitimacy in discussing foreign affairs.
The NGC had sponsored trips by governors earlier in the decade to Japan and Latin America.
The development of the party organization promoted partisan discourse on issues of international relations. This was particularly true in the case of Vietnam. Smylie, who was governor of a small
Midwestern state, used his position as head of the RGA to criticize LBJ’s Southeast Asia policy on the television show “Your Right to Say It.”203 Love, elected chairman of the RGA in 1966, traveled to Vietnam, angering Republican Colorado Senator Pete Dominck whose simultaneous trip to Southeast Asia was overshadowed by that of the governor. James Foster noted that “the war is a political issue. Any public figure who can identify himself with any degree of expertise
202 Proceedings of the Governors’ Conference 1965. Fifty-seventh Annual Meeting. Radisson Hotel, Minneapolis, Minnesota. July 25-29, 1965. Chicago: The Governors’ Conference. 93. 203 “ASIA POLICY SCORED BY IDAHO REPUBLICAN.” The New York Times. 11 April 1966. 3. 119 on Vietnam stands to gain political mileage.”204 While on his trip, Love announced support for
US led bombing campaigns and the blockade of the North Vietnam port of Haiphong and went as far as to say that “the ultimate answer” for the conflict “has to be political.”205 Romney also traveled to Vietnam, though this visit proved detrimental to his presidential ambitions.
The RGA began to act as a mouthpiece on behalf of GOP governors on national political issues outside of the NGC as well. The Association, for instance, issued a statement supporting the ratification of the 24th Amendment, touting the fact that states with GOP controlled legislatures were much more supportive of the prohibition of poll taxes than were states controlled by Democrats and criticizing President Johnson for opposing previous attempts to eliminate the practice.206 The Association also publicly condemned the activities of Democratic operative Bobby Baker, who was then being investigated for bribery by the Senate.207
LBJ’s Great Society was constantly in the headlights of GOP governors as well as other elected officials within the party. Chafee, in a speech in Michigan celebrating Lincoln’s birthday, argued that the Great Society treated individuals as “economic units” who were “to be escorted from poverty by the grace and charity of a fatherly federal government.”208 He also took on LBJ on the issue of crime, noting GOP gubernatorial leadership on the issue, including that of
Rockefeller in New York who had called for five times the increase in police ranks in New York
204 James Foster. “GOP Faction Irked Over Love’s Trip.” Rocky Mountain News. 24 May 1967. In The Governor John Love Papers. The Denver Public Library WH1084. Western History Collection. Series 2. Box 5. Folder 47. 205 “Love Favors Blockade of Haiphong.” Rocky Mountain News. 24 May 1967. Page 28. In The Governor John Love Papers. The Denver Public Library WH1084. Western History Collection. Series 2. Box 5. Folder 47. 206 “Statement of the Executive Committee of the Republican Governors’ Conference – Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.” Undated. The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 8. Folder Not Numbered. Entitled “Republican Governors Association Meeting April 10-11, 1964. Washington D.C.” 207 Loftus, Joseph A. “G.O.P. Governors Call Inquiry On Baker an ‘Affront’ to Nation. The New York Times. 11 April 1964. Page 10. 208 Speech given in Michigan on Lincoln’s Birthday – February 1967. John H. Chafee Gubernatorial and Secretary of the Navy Papers, 1962-1975. University of Rhode Island, Special Collections. Providence, Rhode Island. Box 108. Folder 838. 120
City than did the president.209 The GOP governors also responded directly to LBJ’s 1968 State of the Union address. Chafee led a press conference separate from that held by the congressional wing of the party.210 Several others attacked the President’s seemingly bloated budget.211
In the final analysis, the RGA fostered the Republican governors’ involvement in party branding activities, allowing them to draw distinctions with the policies stemming from
Washington, particularly those of President Johnson. In doing so, the governors often pointed to potential alternatives developed within the own states. Fiscal conservatism and active agendas on crime and civil rights were themes that the governors emphasized during this time, and would become important parts of the Republican party’s agenda, at the state and the national-levels, over the coming decades.
Governors and the Transformation of National Convention Politics
Gubernatorial involvement in presidential nomination politics changed notably after the formation of the RGA. Put simply, by 1968 the governors shifted their emphasis from being brokers of delegates and favorite son candidates, roles that were relatively atomized, to shapers of the national platform. The battles of Republican convention politics, and gubernatorial involvement in the same, shifted from emphasizing credentials to emphasizing the party program.
By the time of the 1960 convention, Vice President Richard Nixon had the nomination secured. Goldwater gave a rousing speech calling for conservatives to become a greater force in the party. Rockefeller, who took over for Dewey as the leader of the liberal wing of the party,
209 Reply to State of the Union Address, January 19th, 1968. Handwritten notes given to Washington DC Press. John H. Chafee Gubernatorial and Secretary of the Navy Papers, 1962-1975. University of Rhode Island, Special Collections. Providence, Rhode Island. Box 109. Folder 843. 210 Pincus, Walter, and David S. Broder. “GOP Leaders Map Reply to LBJ Talk.” The Washington Post. 17 January 1968. A2. 211 Irwin, Don. “GOP Governors Differ in State of Union Attack: 7 Question $186 Billion Budget, While 2 Appear Ready to Accept Tax Increase.” The Los Angeles Times. 19 January 1968. 16. 121 successfully pushed Nixon to adopt several progressive planks in the 1960 party platform, a negotiation that became known as the “Treaty of Fifth Avenue.” The negotiations with
Rockefeller included an affirmation of the party’s commitment to civil rights and the party platform that year praised the party’s record on the issue under Eisenhower. Goldwater labeled
Nixon’s agreement with Rockefeller “the ‘Munich’ of the GOP.”212 Through 1960, more atomized participation by the governors allowed for them to influence outcomes of interest at the convention.
1964: Governors Cannot Block Goldwater
The governors’ desire to shape the party grew during the 1964 presidential contest.
Goldwater’s nomination signaled the diminishment of the influence held by the party’s moderates whose organization was inadequate to block the Arizonan’s nomination. General
Lucius Clay, who had supported Eisenhower’s candidacy in 1952, argued that “the sheer lack of anybody doing anything has got us where we are. It’s a good lesson in how not to select a president.”213 This marked a drastic shift from previous Republican conventions.
In 1964, there were only sixteen GOP governors, three of whom – Tim Babcock of
Montana, Fannin, and Henry Belmon of Oklahoma - were staunch Goldwater supporters.214 The lack of numbers was especially detrimental to a proposal by Governors Love and Elmer
Anderson of Kansas to change convention voting procedures and allow delegates to vote in secret on the convention floor, with the intent being to free “weak-kneed” delegates from the pressures of Goldwater loyalists.215 The proposal was rejected by voice vote in committee.
212 Ibid. 76. 213 In Skipper, John C. 2016. The 1964 Republican Convention: Barry Goldwater and the Beginning of the Conservative Movement. Jefferson: McFarland and Company. 150. 214 In Skipper, John C. 2016. The 1964 Republican Convention. 150-1. 215 “Love Loses Again in Secret Ballot Move.” 14 July 1964. Newspaper Unknown; Dan Thomasson. “Love Plan for Secret Ballot Soundly Beaten.” 13 July 1964. Rocky Mountain News. Page Unknown; Leonard Larsen. “Colorado Goldwater Boosters ‘Defeat” Love on Delegate Plan.” Denver Post. 13 July 1964. Page 122
A lack of numbers was not the only problem the moderates faced in the nomination contest. They also lacked a designated alternative to Goldwater. Rockefeller had entered several primaries but drew nearly a million fewer votes than the Arizona senator. Romney used an NGC meeting in Cleveland, a month before the GOP convention, as a venue to lambast Goldwater, but did not enter the race officially at that point. Scranton emerged as a late challenge to the conservative frontrunner after meeting with Eisenhower in Gettysburg before the conference in
Cleveland. However, Ike never publicly endorsed Scranton, seeking to stay above the fray of factional politics.216 Further, thanks to Goldwater’s performance in the primaries and the veracity of conservative activists, including Clifton White and the Citizens for Goldwater groups, it is not clear that an organized challenge could have overcome the senator’s bid. Ultimately,
Goldwater’s first-ballot nomination with 883 of 1308 delegates and his acceptance speech signaled that conservatives had captured the party, at least for the time being. Goldwater was seen as speaking directly to the moderates when he said that “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”217
In sum, in the 1964 nomination race, the governors could not use traditional means of influencing the selection of the nominee – credentials contests and control of state delegations - as they had in previous contests. Goldwater’s organization, which had begun to operate long before the Convention in California, and his success in primaries demonstrated the weaknesses
Unknown. In The Governor John Love Papers. The Denver Public Library WH1084. Western History Collection. Series 2. Box 5. Folder 10. 216 Loftus, Joseph A. EISENHOWER ACTS TO KEEP SCRANTON IN G.O.P. CONTEST: They Talk for 85 Minutes in Gettysburg -- Governor Agrees to Accept Draft GOLDWATER FOES AIDED But Moderates at Meeting of Governors Fear Move May Have Come Late EISENHOWER ACTS TO AID SCRANTON.” New York Times. 7 June 1964. Page 1; Skipper, John C. 2016. The 1964 Republican Convention: Barry Goldwater and the Beginning of the Conservative Movement. Jefferson: McFarland and Company. 152-3. 217 Goldwater, Barry. Acceptance Speech. 16 July 1964. In Skipper, John C. 2016. The 1964 Republican Convention. 216. 123 of the governors. Their elevated place within state party organizations was insufficient to block the Arizonan’s nomination and even their unprecedented level participation at the Convention did little to alter the outcome of the race. The decentralized nature of party organization did not empower governors at the convention.
1968: Governors Beyond a Decentralized Party System
The 1968 presidential election saw governors mobilized in a fundamentally new way – one which emphasized the importance of party program, the leadership qualities of the governors and the power of collective action. The governors played important roles leading into and during the 1968 Republican National Convention, not as presidential kingmakers but as candidates, shapers of the party platform and featured members of the convention as spectacle. Despite their inability to push one of their own to the top of the ticket, gubernatorial participation at the convention was high by historical standards (see Figure 2.1). In 1968, twenty-one of the twenty- six sitting governors served as delegates.218 This is in spite of the fact that the convention’s outcome was not in question once the convention began.
The national press often framed the RGA meetings as venues for potential challengers to
Richard Nixon, often seen as the GOP front-runner despite his disastrous run for governor of
California in 1962, to capture national attention. The notion that governors could be kingmakers through influencing delegates on the floor had not died within the minds of journalists. 1968 was still an election within the era of a “mixed” system of presidential selection in which party elites retained a large degree of latitude in determining the presidential nominees.219 However, in 1968
218 The presidential contests of the 1960s saw a dramatic increase in the share of governors serving in this role. Before 1960 the largest share of governors to serve was sixty percent in 1956. In the 1960s it topped eighty percent and remained above sixty percent through 1976, the last instance in which the GOP nomination was in question going into the convention. Love and Rockefeller, two of the most active members of the RGA, did not serve as delegates in 1968 but both were in attendance at the Convention. 219 See for instance Ceaser, James W. 1979. Presidential Selection: Theory and Development. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 124 the governors generally refrained from attempting to be presidential kingmakers through the
Association. The schism between the conservative and liberal wings of the party was still fresh in their minds. Love noted at a December 1967 RGA meeting that “Nelson Rockefeller may be our strongest candidate, but I think we can win with Dick Nixon or George Romney too. I think any one of them could win it and be a good President. I just don’t want to wind up with a candidate who will lose to the Democrat, whether it’s Lyndon Johnson or Bobby Kennedy.”220 A number of states sent uninstructed delegates to the convention.221
Romney emerged as an early potential opponent to Nixon but his challenge was short- lived. The Michigan governor boasted early poll figures demonstrating strength among
Republican primary voters relative to Nixon and general election voters relative to President
Johnson. However, Romney “inflicted a mortal wound on his own campaign” at the end of 1967 when he was quoted as saying “‘when I came back from Vietnam, I just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get when you go over to Vietnam, not only by the generals but also by the diplomatic corps over there.’”222 He dropped out before entering a single primary.
Rockefeller, who along with numerous other GOP governors had originally voiced support for Romney, entered several primaries but won only that of Massachusetts. As chair of the policy committee of the RGA, Rockefeller led an effort to shape national party policy on the race riots plaguing American cities in the summer of 1967. A meeting in NYC by the committee produced a fifteen-page document, one that was criticized in the press for being vague.223 By
220 Broder, David S. “GOP Warned on 'Pushing' Rocky: Implicit Warning Conditions for Draft Romney Absent,” The Washington Post. 8 December 1967. A3. 221 “Governors Drop Plan for Nixon Opponent.” The Washington Post. 24 March 1968. A5. 222 Gould, Lewis L. 2010. 1968: The Election that Changed America. Chicago: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 27. 223 “8 GOP Governors Set Riots Parley in N.Y.” The Washington Post. 9 August 1967. A6; Aarons, Leroy F. “GOP Governors Chart Action Against Riots: Problem Analysis Denies It to Rush Job.” The Washington Post. 11 August 1967. A1. 125
June of 1968, only Raymond Shafer of Pennsylvania was contemplating endorsing Rockefeller at an RGA meeting in Tulsa.224
Nixon’s last challenge came from Reagan, who had become a leader of the conservative wing of the party, especially after his acclaimed televised “A Time for Choosing” speech in support of Goldwater in 1964. Nixon, however, won the vast majority of that year’s Republican primaries despite refusing to enter those in Ohio and California, which were captured by the states’ sitting GOP governors, James Rhodes and Reagan. Ultimately, Nixon lost the meaningless national primary popular vote, mainly due to Reagan being the only name to appear on the California GOP primary ballot. What these gubernatorial entrances into the presidential contest signifies is that governors had emerged as more nationally oriented partisans.
The Association did not make an official endorsement of any candidate that year. This became a precedent for elections in which an incumbent president was not running (until the
2000 election). With three governors potentially running, an endorsement by the organization could not be reached. Without unanimity, or near unanimity, among the members, a formal endorsement by the organization risked isolating its members. The organization allowed for its members a venue to further their presidential ambitions but it did not push any of them over the finish line.
The governors also used the RGA as a means of ensuring they received prominent places in the convention as spectacle. Daniel Evans of Washington was given the keynote address at the convention that year. Evans’s speech called for robust Republican leadership and reflected the governors’’ approach to racial justice and environmentalism. Evans noted that “There is no place in that [the American] dream for a closed society, for a system which denies opportunity because
224 Broder, David S. “Republican Governors Seek Unity: GOP Governors Convene in Tulsa.” The Washington Post. 15 June 1968. A1. 126 of race, or the accident of birth, or geography or the misfortune of a family. Only when everyone has a stake in the future of this country; only when the doors of private enterprise are opened to all - only then will each person have something to preserve and something to build on for his children.”225 Governors could lead on these issues given their increasing importance in the construction of public policy at the state level.
The 1968 Platform: Activism at the State-Level
Leading into and during the convention the governors focused their efforts on developing the party program through a sustained effort to craft that year’s platform. Governors played a central role on the platform committee. Senator Dirksen was, to the chagrin of Chafee, named chairman. Chafee had written Chairman Bliss requesting Shafer be given the position of co- chair.226 Ultimately, Chafee, not Shafer, was named deputy chairman and Governors Walter
Hickel of Alaska and Louie Nunn of Kentucky were named vice chairmen.227 This marked something of a win for the RGA, given that the last sitting governor to serve on the platform committee was Tom Heany in 1948.228
Chafee argued that the governors sought “a bold and imaginative platform,” one that did not isolate independent voters or minorities.229 The RGA organized nine regional platform hearings to take place in May. Shafer led the task force on the platform hearings and seventeen of the twenty-six governors participated in them. In a report issued by the task force, Shafer
225 Daniel Evans. 5 August 1968. “Keynote Address.” The Republican Hour. 680. 226 Letter to Raymond Shafer. March 25, 1968. John H. Chafee Gubernatorial and Secretary of the Navy Papers, 1962-1975. University of Rhode Island, Special Collections. Providence, Rhode Island. Box 99. Folder 739. 227 “Bliss Announces Appointment of Temporary Convention Resolutions Committee.” Republican National Committee News. 29 May 1968. Ray Bliss Papers. The Ohio History Connection. Columbus, Ohio. MSS 768. Box 135. Folder 21. 228 Ray C. Bliss. Press Interview. Palm Beach Florida. 7 December 1967. Ray Bliss Papers. The Ohio History Connection. Columbus, Ohio. MSS 768. Box 134. Folder 30. 229 “Statement by Governor John H. Chafee of Rhode Island. 29 May 1968. Ray Bliss Papers. The Ohio History Connection. Columbus, Ohio. MSS 768. Box 103. Folder 6. 127 noted that “this is an historic effort by Republican Governors because they have never before attempted to make their power and influence in the Party collectively felt in the drafting of a platform.”230
The RGA’s policy committee compiled a 200-page document entitled the “Handbook of
Suggested Solutions to Selected Domestic Issues.” Chafee, in a speech before the Platform
Committee at the convention, made a series of policy recommendations stemming from this document, some of which would move the party in a more moderate direction including a proposal allowing welfare recipients to save a portion of the money they received from the federal government, a negative income tax and “racial balance” in schools.231 He also pushed for a number of planks relating to federal-state relations, asking that the federal government “give the states greater latitude in the disbursement of federal funds that come to them.”232 He argued that “an ever increasing percentage of the actions of the National Administration and Congress affect the states in every conceivable area; roads and welfare, education and health, Medicare and Medicaid, upgrading police and rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents, caring for the mentally retarded. The list runs nearly the entire gamut of state services.”233
Republican platforms often invoke federalism. In 1964, federalism was invoked as a means of preserving individual liberty: “And year after year freedom, diversity and individual, local and state responsibility have given way to regimentation, conformity and subservience to
230 “Toward a Republican Platform that Means Something. The Republican Governors’ Task Force Hearings.” A Report by Raymond P. Shafer, Governor of Pennsylvania. Undated. Ray Bliss Papers. The Ohio History Connection. Columbus, Ohio. MSS 768. Box 135. Folder 21. The hearings would take place in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Albuquerque, Denver, Boston, Little Rock, Pittsburg and Baltimore. 231 David Broder. 15 June 1968. “Republican Governors Seek Unity: GOP Governors Convene in Tulsa. The Washington Post. A1. 232 “Statement by Governor John H. Chafee of Rhode Island, Chairman of the Republican Governors Association to the Republican Platform Committee.” Fontainebleau Hotel. July 31, 1968. John H. Chafee Gubernatorial and Secretary of the Navy Papers, 1962-1975. University of Rhode Island, Special Collections. Providence, Rhode Island. Box 109. Folder 846. Page 3. 233 Ibid. Page 1. 128 central power.”234 Moreover, “the Federal Government should act only in areas where it has
Constitutional authority to act, and then only in respect to proven needs where individuals and local or state governments will not or cannot adequately perform.”235 The platform made vague allusions to cooperation between federal and state government. However, the emphasis was on the relationship between the size of the federal government and individual liberty.
In comparison, that of 1968 presented a far more programmatic, even activist, vision. “A new, vital partnership of government at all levels,” the party argued “will be a prime Republican objective.”236 The 1968 platform pledged “presidential leadership which” would “buttress state and local government” initiatives to deal with “the crisis of the cities.”237 The party called for funding of state and local programs dealing with juvenile crime and greater cooperation with state and local law enforcement officials.238 The format funding to states would take would also borrow from proposals of the RGA. The platform stated that the party was “particularly determined to revise the grant-in-aid system and substitute bloc grants wherever possible. It is also important that state and local governments retain the historic right to raise funds by issuing tax-exempt securities.”239
Though these policy ideas did not originate with the governors, federal-state relations were a perennial theme of RGA meetings and they were furthered by gubernatorial involvement in the national conventions. In 1965, for instance, the RGA and the Ripon Society issued a joint
234 Republican Party Platform of 1964. The American Presidency Project. < http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=25840>. 235 Ibid. 236 Republican Party Platform of 1968. The American Presidency Project.
Scranton noted in a fundraising speech in South Dakota, “we are the conservative Party in this
Nation and we are proud of it. But we are a conservative Party which understands what Edmund
Burke meant when he said that ‘a state without the means of some change, is without the means of its conservation.’”242 The governors were important stakeholders in the national party’s stand on issues related to federalism. The ideas put forward by these organizations had a sympathetic audience in the governors. Nixon and the governors could agree on a form of “cooperative” federalism, but one that was distinct from that of LBJ. The states, rather than municipal governments such as through Johnson’s Model Cities program, were to be given a more central place under Nixon.
In the final analysis, while Republican governors did not succeed in capturing the 1968 presidential nomination for one of their own, they contributed to shaping the party platform and utilized the RGA as a venue for coordination across states and with national party actors. The emphasis on federalism in the platform may not have caused Nixon to adopt a “New
240 “Government For Tomorrow: A Proposal for the Unconditional Sharing of Federal Tax Revenues with State and Local Governments.” A Research Paper issued jointly by the Republican Governors’ Association and Ripon Society. June 1965. The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 10. Folder. 1965. Tax Sharing, Ripon Society/Republican Governors Association. 241 “The New Federalist Papers: Part 1 Synergistic Federalism.” Trumbull Society of New York. The Papers of Robert E. Smylie. The Idaho Historical Society. MS 280. Box 8. Folder. Republican Governors Conference. Denver CO. December 4-5 1964. 242 Speech by William W. Scranton, Governor of Pennsylvania. Republican Fundraising Dinner. Aberdeen, South Dakota, Tuesday October 19, 1965. The Ray Bliss Papers. The Ohio History Connection. Columbus Ohio. MSS 768. Box 103. Folder 5. Page 6. 130
Federalism,” but it did foreshadow Nixon’s looking to the states, and the party’s governors, in pursuit of his domestic agenda. At the convention, governors moved beyond brokering delegates.
They were active in securing important roles at the convention that allowed them to have influence over the direction of the party beyond simply choosing the candidate. They emerged as members of a more nationalized programmatic party. They also, at the time of the convention, made up a majority of the nation’s governors (see Figure 3.3).
Conclusion: The RGA and the Emergence of Programmatic Conservatism in the GOP
The party’s governors’ influence on the development of the GOP during the 1960s is often overlooked. When viewed purely through the lens of factional conflict within the GOP the key actors promoting the development of the RGA are often seen as on the wrong side of history.
According to this narrative, Rockefeller, Romney, Smylie, Hatfield, and the other moderate GOP governors continued to lose influence over the national party relative to the New Right.
However, viewing the history of this period through a purely factional lens undercuts the legacy
131 of these individuals and specifically the importance of the governorship within a transforming party system.
The RGA expanded the infrastructure of the national Republican Party. Indeed,
Republican governors assisted the RNC in developing the modern party-in-service, and actively promoted it. As discussed above, the RGA worked with the RNC in promoting the election of
Republican governors and individual members of the Association participated in these efforts through fundraising, campaigning, and leading campaign schools. Scholars of party organizations have long pointed to the tenure of Ray Bliss as a pivotal point in the strengthening of the RNC from a resource standpoint and the professionalization of party organizations more broadly.243 What is clear from the above discussion is that Republican governors contributed to these developments. The governors were strategic assets to the national party in this regard, helping to build the modern party in service and in directly assisting in electing gubernatorial candidates across the nation.
Additionally, through these organizational developments Republican governors contributed to a more programmatic Republican Party. For one, the governors used the RGA as a vehicle for influencing the affairs of national party organizations and elected officials within the party. It also provided a means of coordination for the Republican governors within the NGC. In this setting, the RGA actively promoted the party brand by allowing the party’s governors to draw sharp distinctions with their Democratic counterparts and critique the Johnson administration. The NGC was no longer a “club” of the nation’s governors. Rather, it provided a venue for governors to enhance their national reputations and take partisan stands.
243 See for instance Aldrich. 2011. Why Parties? A Second Look; Cotter, Cornelius P., James L. Gibson, John F. Bibby, and Robert J. Huckshorn. 1989. Party Organizations in American Politics. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press.
132
Collective action through the RGA proved vital to gubernatorial efforts to influence the writing of the 1968 GOP platform, the selection of Ray Bliss as RNC Chairman and ensuring that governors had a place on the RCC. The RGA also allowed the governors to speak collectively and on national political issues, thus extending their national political reputations. In this sense, the RGA became a means for governors to influence national party affairs, especially by advocating policies that related to American federalism. At the same time, the RGA also gave national party elites the chance to engage with the governors. Members of the party’s congressional caucus and proponents of Goldwater and Nixon brought their own agendas to
RGA meetings. They sought to unite the party on their own terms and bring the governors on board with their objectives. RGA meetings were sites of coordination between the governors and other members of the party.
Ultimately, the development of the RGA marked a transformation of the decentralized party system that had been under assault since the Progressive Era. While the governors had previously gained power relative to state-level party organizations, the development of the RGA demonstrated that the governors had a stake in national party affairs that could not be resolved solely through traditional party channels. The RGA came about as governors were becoming increasingly powerful within their states but more heavily influenced by national policy and party affairs. The RGA’s development rested on the tension between gubernatorial prerogative and the nationalization of partisan contestation, particularly as it concerned civil rights.
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CHAPTER 4: THE REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS ASSOCIATION IN A NATIONALIZING PARTY SYSTEM, 1969-1980
The activities of the RGA during the 1960s provided a foundation on which future
Republican governors would build. The RGA provided the governors with a full-time staff dedicated to keeping them abreast of national governmental and party affairs. It also provided a venue through which GOP governors could contribute to national party building efforts and consistently engage national party leaders. Republican governors, in the aftermath of 1968, became much more integrated into the national party through their participation in the RGA.
In two important ways, the conditions under which the GOP governors created the RGA were maintained in the time period under consideration here. Governors were increasingly powerful at the state-level. The patterns discussed earlier in terms of increases in the formal authorities and responsibilities of the governors continued. State reorganizations, for example, continued after 1960. Moreover, a number of governors remained politically ambitious during this time period, including the now very familiar faces of Nelson Rockefeller and Ronald
Reagan. The governors’ engagement in national politics generally was also maintained. The
NGC, for instance, was retooled in 1967 as the National Governors Association, its staff expanded, and its policy expertise enhanced.
The context in which the organization operated after 1968, however, differed from that in which it originated in terms of the state of partisan politics. The election of a Republican president altered the GOP party apparatus, filling a leadership vacuum - a feature which governors used to legitimize their assertiveness before Nixon’s victory, especially in the aftermath of Goldwater’s crushing defeat in 1964. Milkis has argued that the American party
134 system has become more “presidency-centered,” especially since the New Deal.244 This transformation has had implications for how other actors within the party system operate, including those situated in the states and particularly in terms of how they grapple with programmatic presidential partisan politics.
This chapter examines the relationship between the RGA, its members, and the national
Republican Party from the Nixon presidency through the Carter years. The RGA has consistently brought governors in close conversation with national party elites throughout the period under examination here. However, having a president of the same party occupy the White House created a set of opportunities and challenges for the party’s governors, ones which the governors’ associations offer a means of addressing, though certainly not always successfully. The RGA itself developed organizationally, but the trajectory of its growth was uneven in the period under analysis here.
On the one hand, incumbent presidents are a resource for the party, including the party’s governors. Presidents are an important source of fundraising for the national party, spending increasing amounts of time and energy filling the coffers of the party committees.245 They provide unified leadership in a way that congressional leaders cannot, especially in terms of establishing the national governing agenda. They offer a means of entry for party officials into national politics. Cabinet posts and ambassadorships, for instance, are high profile positions that members of the party often seek, including the party’s governors. Further, presidential leadership of the federal bureaucracy has implications for how and where federal money is spent, including the distribution of said funds among the states. In this sense, when a party controls the
244 See, for instance, Milkis, Sidney M. 1993. The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System Since the New Deal. New York: Oxford University Press. 245 See, for instance, Doherty, Brendan J. 2012. The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign. Lawrence: University of Kansas. 135 presidency it provides several resources for ambitious politicians who seek careers in national politics. Presidential leadership, whether rhetorical or administrative, thus, presents opportunities for the party to further their governing and electoral agendas. This would be true for the governors and the resources at their disposal through the partisan governors’ associations.
On the other hand, presidential leadership of a party has some significant pitfalls for governors.
For one, presidential popularity has become strongly tied to the electoral successes of the party more broadly, including the governors even during midterm elections. As noted earlier, scholars of parties and elections since Schattschneider have identified the emergence of a more nationalized electorate over the course of the 20th century.246 Governors, therefore, are not immune from the political ill will of voters toward a President or presidential candidate and his party. At the very least, unpopular presidents, and presidential candidates, can become scapegoats for others within the party. Discussions over presidential coattails were to become a hallmark of conversations of RGA meetings during and after the 1970s.
Relatedly, the president’s influence over the national party as organization is outsized relative to other actors. Presidents and presidential candidates choose the chairman of the parties’ national committees and thus have a large degree of influence over how party resources are used.247 Lastly, the agenda the president seeks to implement is not necessarily the same as that favored by other actors within the party. This, too, has implications for the party’s governors who must grapple with the standing of the national party and the implications this has for their own electoral prospects as well as the policy implications of national partisan agendas on the
246 See, for instance, Schattschneider, Elmer Eric. 1960. The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 247 See Galvin, Daniel. 2010. Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 136 states. In short, in a nationalized polity, presidential leadership has implications for how governors conduct themselves in government and campaigns and through their Associations.
Put simply, the activities of the RGA, are shaped by presidential leadership – by national politics
- in addition to the desires of the Association’s membership. During periods in which a co- partisan occupies the Oval Office the RGA’s activities emphasize coordination and integration, often with the intent of bringing the governors on board with the President’s agenda. That is not to say that the views of governors are totally ignored by co-partisan presidents. In truth, presidents are invested in maintaining the support of actors within the party and they often seek out the support of governors for various aspects of their agenda. Presidents want their party, including their party’s governors, to help sell their agenda to the public. Governors can also bring valuable ideas concerning policy to the table that can be adapted at the national-level and implemented at the state-level. However, when the White House is not occupied by a co-partisan, the potential for governors, through the RGA, to exert leadership at the national-level is more pronounced, particularly in terms of the party as organization. Their status within the national parties looks more like that of “full” partners during these periods.
In sum, the role of the RGA has not been to decentralize authority to the state-level.
Rather, gubernatorial involvement in the RGA has a consistent focus on national politics throughout this period. The ways in which the RGA helps to incorporate governors into national politics, however, is dependent on the nature of national partisan and especially partisan- presidential leadership. Tables 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 outlines the conditions underlying the developments of the RGA and gubernatorial involvement in party politics during the Nixon, Ford and Carter presidencies respectively. In the analysis that follows, I illustrate this pattern. I pick
137 up with the relationship of Nixon with the party’s governors and trace the activities of the RGA through the Carter era.
Table 4.1: GOP Conditions and Effects Present, The Nixon Years
Conditions Effects
Strong Governors Resources for Governors
• Rockefeller, Reagan, Milliken, etc. • RNC/RGA Financial Partnership • Continued Increases in Formal • White House/RNC Campaign Authorities of Office Research
Intergovernmental Relations Gubernatorial Involvement in National Party Politics • Rollout of Nixon’s New Federalism • RGA Intergovernmental Advisory Nationally Programmatic Parties Board • Responding to Watergate • Sitting GOP President • Agnew as Gubernatorial Liaison • Midterm Losses Down-ballot • Linwood Holton National Tour • Watergate Scandal and GOP Down- ballot losses Influence on Program
• Maintain Commitment to Revenue Sharing • New Federalism Proposals
Nixon and Republican Governors
The roller coaster of the Nixon presidency illuminates the tightening but often contentious relationship between governors and national partisan elites. The ascension of Nixon to the White House transformed the GOP, pitting a single person as the clear leader of the party.
This presented new opportunities and challenges for the Republican governors. In terms of opportunities, the capture of the White House by the party offered potential career prospects. As noted in the previously, Spiro Agnew, governor of Maryland, was nominated as Nixon’s Vice
President. John Chafee, the outgoing RGA chairman, was appointed as Secretary of the Navy.
138
George Romney became the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.248 John Volpe of
Massachusetts was named Secretary of Transportation. The governors were also, through the
RGA, able to interact with a sitting president in the formation of policy. On this front, the party’s governors overwhelmingly supported Nixon’s New Federalism but sought to direct federal money through state rather than local agencies, thus giving them a say in how these resources were used and allowing them to take credit for policy outcomes in their states.
In terms of challenges, governors had to deal with Nixon’s political failures as well as attempt to feed off of his successes. In this sense, Nixon’s presidency was an extreme case. The
Watergate episode was among the most devastating moments in Republican party history, and this deeply affected governors, forcing them to reevaluate the activities of the RGA. The governors’ influence over national party committees was also severely mitigated relative to that demonstrated between 1964 and 1968. While Nixon engaged in a series of party-building efforts, he did little to strengthen the RGA as an organization.
Ultimately, Nixon sought to incorporate his party’s governors into his governing agenda.
The RGA operated as a venue through which this integration took place. The failures of Nixon contributed to governors being pulled up into national party politics in an attempt at damage control. Nixon’s leadership and his failures pulled the governors more fully into the national partisan arena but did so in different ways.
New Federalism and the Potential for Presidential-Gubernatorial Partnership
The Nixon presidency started with promises for a new partnership between governors and the President, and among the federal, state, and local government more broadly. As Milkis notes,
“Nixon envisioned and partly achieved a New Federalism that took seriously for the first time
248 Broder, David S. “Chafee Selection Laid to Ability, Not Politics.” The Washington Post. 7 January 1969. A6. 139 since the 1930s a plan eventually to devolve administration of these [New Deal] programs to the local and state governments.”249 “The principle legacy of Nixon’s federalism agenda” was general revenue sharing, which was enacted into law in the State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act in 1972, though it certainly was not an idea original to Nixon.250 Revenue sharing was tied, in particular, to welfare reform. Nixon, as Reeves notes, “had contempt for traditional custodial welfare” and saw revenue sharing as a means of reforming the New Deal program while simultaneously promoting the break-up of the New Deal coalition.251 Nixon’s agenda, thus, served partisan and policy motives.
The President’s attempts to decentralize federal programs and empower state and local governments was met with resistance on numerous fronts. Congress remained firmly in the hands of Democrats and the bureaucracy acted as an impediment to swift reforms. Democratic committee chairs feared that congressional authority, the “power of the purse,” was undermined by giving the executive branch and other levels of government more leeway in how federal appropriations were spent. House Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur Mills, for instance, was
“opposed to revenue sharing because it separated the authority for spending public funds from the responsibility for raising taxes. Another complaint was that revenue sharing threatened to weaken congressional authority to allocate funds and determine their specific uses.”252 In this case, weakening congressional authority on fiscal issues offered the GOP an enhanced opportunity to lead on said issues, including at the state-level.253
249 Milkis, Sidney M. 1993. The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System Since the New Deal. New York: Oxford University Press. 225. 250 Conlan, Timothy. 1988. New Federalism: Intergovernmental Reform from Nixon to Reagan. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution. 65. 251 Reeves, Richard. 2001. President Nixon: Alone in the White House. New York: Simon and Schuster. 100. 252 Conlan, Timothy. 1988. New Federalism. 66. 253 Nixon’s fiscal policies resulted in the passage of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. GOP governors were largely supportive of Nixon’s impoundment policy during this time but the issue 140
The result of New Federalism was increased centralization of governing authority within the executive branch coupled with questions over which level of government, state or local, would be awarded federal funds. As Nixon noted in his 1971 State of the Union Address,
“whenever it makes the best sense for us to act as a whole nation, the Federal Government should and will lead the way. But where State or local governments can better do what needs to be done, let us see that they have the resources to do it there.”254
The question became whether state or local governments were better vehicles to achieve the programs’ ends. Vice President Agnew, in a speech before the U.S. Conference of Mayors noted that “I do ask you [the mayors] to regard your governors as allies, not as enemies.” He went on to highlight a request he made to the governors “to initiate statewide conferences with mayors and county officials to design a state urban development policy.”255 Speaking before the governors, Agnew noted that “The mayors need to be reassured through deeds and definite programs that the governors do care about the problems of the city and that they recognize the power of the big city constituency.”256
New Federalism provided a unifying force for the party’s governors and Nixon, at least early on and in terms of general principles. In part, this stemmed from what New Federalism
was largely overshadowed as a topic of discussion at RGA meetings by the ongoing Watergate scandal. In fact, governors often sympathized with presidential attempts to stunt congressional spending and numerous states offered their own chief executives similar powers to that of the president. Such debates would reemerge in the 1990s over Clinton’s use of the line-item veto. For a full discussion of impoundment see Pfiffner, James P. 1979. The President, the Budget, and Congress: Impoundment and the 1974 Budget Act. Boulder: Westview Press. 254 Nixon, Richard. “Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union.” 22 January 1971. The American Presidency Project.
The result has been a creeping paternalism that has violated our Federal system, sacrificed the integrity and capacity of state governments, and reduced citizen participation in the political process.”257 Nixon echoed these sentiments in a televised address on August 8th, 1969, in which he noted that “power and responsibility have flowed toward Washington, and Washington has taken for itself the best source of revenue. We intend to reverse this tide.”258 As Conlan has argued “Nixon’s New Federalism sought to rationalize the intergovernmental system by restructuring the roles and responsibilities of governments at all levels.”259
New Federalism was built on a critique of Johnson’s Great Society, one which brought together conservatives who opposed the Great Society in principle and moderates who, while approving of a larger role of government, were wary of centralization of power at the national- level. Moderates, like Rockefeller, appreciated that the revenue sharing program “was designed to reward active and innovative state and local governments,” a policy in line with much of the federalism related rhetoric emerging from the RGA since its inception.260 In short, Republican governors were a natural constituency for this appeal.
Vice President Agnew was unofficially appointed as the liaison between Nixon and the
RGA. Agnew promised “that he would provide them [the governors] with an open channel to
257 Summary of Proceedings. Republican Governors Association. December 6th and 7th, 1968. Appendix A. “Speech by Governor Spiro T. Agnew.” Given during the First Business Session of the Republican Governors’ Conference, Palm Springs, California on Federal, State and Local Relations. December 6, 1968. Palm Springs, California. Box H. C. 1. Folder 1. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 1. 258 Quoted in Reeves, Richard. 2001. President Nixon: Alone in the White House. New York: Simon and Schuster. 112. 259 Conlan, Timothy. 1988. New Federalism. 3. 260 Ibid. 28. 142
Mr. Nixon, insuring that state problems with the Federal bureaucracy would receive personal consideration from the new President.”261 Further, Agnew argued “as a former governor, I will appreciate the capacity of state government, and I intend to articulate your frustrations over impediments which prevent state administrations from working at their full potential.”262 As
Vice-President, Agnew noted that his role would be one of “bridging the communication barrier” between state governments, Congress and the President.263 This capacity was formalized when
Agnew was tasked with leading the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, created by Nixon through executive order.
Nixon succeeded in getting some policy passed along these lines, including the
Comprehensive Employment and Training Act in 1973. Agnew was also praised by the
Association for his role in reforming the Office of Emergency Management. Particularly,
Nixon’s support for revenue sharing in his 1971 State of the Union, in the form of block grants, was especially welcomed by many GOP governors – as a general principle. Conlan notes that, with regards to fighting for block grants, “governors were often slow to organize, take a position, and advocate it in Congress.”264 However, the RGA touted the formation of bloc grants at the
Association’s December 1968 meeting, adopting a number of resolutions relating to federalism including one explicitly calling for the consolidation of a number of Johnson Era categorical grants into bloc grants.265 Nelson Rockefeller went as far as recommending that the President be
261 Weaver Jr., Warren. “Agnew Heartens G.O.P. Governors. The New York Times. 6 December 1968. 42. 262 Summary of Proceedings. Republican Governors Association. December 6th and 7th, 1968. Appendix A. “Speech by Governor Spiro T. Agnew.” Given during the First Business Session of the Republican Governors’ Conference, Palm Springs, California on Federal, State and Local Relations. December 6, 1968. Palm Springs, California. Box H. C. 1. Folder 1. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 2. 263 Ibid. Page 3. 264 Conlan, Timothy. 1988. New Federalism. 59. 265 Summary of Proceedings. Republican Governors Association. December 6th and 7th, 1968. Appendix W. Resolution Adopted by the Republican Governors Association. Palm Springs, California, December 7, 1968. “Making the Federal System Work – Some Priority Suggestions.” Box H. C. 1. Folder 1. Governor Arch A. Moore 143 given the authority to “make these consolidations on his own initiative, unless his proposals are rejected by either House of Congress within a specified period.”266
The details of particular policy proposals were a matter of debate within the RGA, as was the case within the intergovernmental lobby more generally. On the issue of welfare reform,
Rockefeller publicly endorsed federally determined standards for receiving benefits. Reagan, who assumed the chairmanship of the Association, favored state control of such programs, particularly when it came to the issue of establishing residency requirements for benefits.267
Reagan disagreed with the administration on this issue in 1969 when Nixon unveiled the Family
Assistance Plan, which included requirements on levels of benefits received by welfare recipients. Reagan opposed the plan, noting that “I believe that the government is supposed to promote the general welfare. I don’t believe it is supposed to provide it.”268 On these policy details, the ideological divide within the party became manifest and the role of the states was an important part of these debates.
New Federalism allowed the governors to become active in policy discussions concerning such policies on the national stage. On this front, The RGA allowed governors to make their own suggestions to GOP leaders in the capital. The RGA’s Advisory Commission on
Intergovernmental Relations, led by Governor Shafer, made several recommendations which
Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 266 Summary of Proceedings. Republican Governors Association. December 6th and 7th, 1968. Appendix G. Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller – Federal, State and Local Relations in Health, Education and Welfare. Friday December 6, 1968. Box H. C. 1. Folder 1. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 5. See also Mehrotra, Ajay K. and David Shreve. “‘To Lay and Collect’: Governors, Fiscal Federalism and the Political Economy of Twentieth-Century Tax Policy.” In A Legacy of Innovation: Governors and Public Policy. 2008. Ethan G. Sribnick, Ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.. 267 Broder, David S. “Rocky Urges Federalizing of Welfare: Rocky Urges Welfare Shift.” The Washington Post. 6 December 1968. A1. 268 Cannon, Lou. 2003. Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power. New York: Public Affairs. 352-3. 144 were sent to the White House and congressional leadership. In a report circulated among the governors Shafer recommended “a partial federal income tax credit for state income tax payments; the collection of state income taxes by the US Treasury under plans mutually agreeable to the states.” Shafer also called for revenue sharing to consider state population and state and local tax collection in the law’s funding formulas.269 Though not all of these recommendations were adopted by Nixon, the Advisory Commission illustrates how the GOP governors became engaged in the crafting of national policy.
In the final analysis, “The intergovernmental lobby was not a single entity that marched in lockstep on every policy that promised more decentralized control. It was a coalition of different governments with different interests, which achieved unity on some issues and was bitterly divided on others, depending on the specific policy.”270 The RGA was part of this lobbying effort and it contributed to discussions over the form New Federalism would take. The
RGA served as a venue through which the Administration and the GOP governors could coordinate. Furthermore, through press releases by the RGA and public statements by several the
RGA’s members, GOP governors contributed to Nixon’s selling of New Federalism and stood to gain from its enactment.
Coordination on Policy Beyond New Federalism and a Move Toward a Unified Party
Message
While New Federalism was a centerpiece of the relationship between Nixon and the governors, the RGA served as a venue for coordination between the Administration and state executives on a wide range of issues spanning the foreign-domestic policy divide. Regarding
269 Report by Governor Shafer. Box H. C. 1. Folder 3. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 2. 270 Conlan, Timothy. 1988. New Federalism. 74. 145 foreign policy, the RGA typically served as a venue by which the Nixon administration attempted to get the governors on board with its agenda. While it did not always succeed, there was a propensity toward agreeing on a single message, that coming out of the White House.
Reagan, as chairman from 1968 to 1970 for instance, pushed the RGA to support a Nixon missile defense proposal. Michigan Governor William Milliken, then a rising star within the party, along with numerous congressional Republicans, opposed the measure.271 Milliken argued that this issue was best left for congressional Republicans to handle given that members of Congress, particularly those on defense and foreign relations committees, had expertise on the issue that governors often lacked. The RGA also released a statement during a conference in West Virginia praising Nixon’s trips to Moscow and China, through which he demonstrated a “willingness to do all that is needed to secure a just peace.”272
Deference to the President in RGA messaging was especially prominent concerning the
Vietnam War, an issue which, as shown previously, had caused some angst for several GOP governors, including Romney. Nixon attempted to bring the governors on board with his strategy to scale down military operations in Southeast Asia. Love and Shafer participated in a “Fact
Finding” Commission on South Vietnam in 1970. The Commission issued a report largely promoting the administration’s activities in the region. The report noted that “The clear impression we carry away with us from this brief but intensive survey is that at last in South
Vietnam one can discern a genuine prospect for self-defense, a strengthening promise of political
271 Kenworthy, E. W. “Reagan Wants G.O.P. Governors to Endorse Missile Defense.” The New York Times. 2 May 1969. 17. 272 Statement of the Republican Governors Association at the Republican Governors Conference in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, May 2, 1972. Box H. C. 1. Folder 8. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 1. 146 viability, and a growing spirit of confident nationhood.”273 In the build-up to the 1972 election, the Administration circulated “Talking Papers” among the party committees, including the RGA.
Several dealt with Nixon’s “Vietnamization” policy.274 Johnson had “Americanized” the conflict.
Nixon sought peace by promoting an increased role for the Vietnamese in ending the conflict (at least this was his rhetoric). Part of the message put forward by the Administration was that the intervention in Vietnam, particularly the escalation of the war under LBJ, was contributing to inflation and unemployment on the domestic front.275 George McGovern was also routinely criticized in these releases, especially as it became apparent that he was to be Nixon’s challenger in 1972.
Nixon’s Talking Papers ran the gamut in terms of Administration policies to be defended publicly by the governors. These papers provided fast-facts concerning wage growth increases under the administration, the Tax Reform Act of 1969, a slowdown in the rate of crime increases, increases in the budget of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the creation of a
Veterans Jobs program and reform to the national convention offering greater representation for women, minorities and youth.276
The RGA meetings also saw several administration officials speak before the governors.
In addition to Agnew, Intergovernmental Relations Director Nils Boe, Assistant to the President
273 F1.6. Report of the President’s Fact Finding Commission on South Vietnam June 10, 1970. Box H. C. 1. Folder 6. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 7. 274 Talking Paper. “Vietnam.” Box H. C. 1. Folder 8. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 1. 275 RGA Issues. The Economy. Box H. C. 1. Folder 11. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 1. 276 Talking Papers. “Tax Reform,” “The Economy,” “Employment,” “Black Americans, “Convention Reform.” Box H. C. 1. Folder 8. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 147 for Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman, and Attorney General John Mitchell regularly spoke at
RGA conferences. Ultimately, these interactions promoted gubernatorial support for Nixon’s agenda. At an RGA conference in French Lick, Indiana in 1971, for example, the governors adopted a series of resolutions urging support for Nixon’s New Economic Policy and a Nixon sponsored welfare reform initiative. They also blamed Democrats in Congress for state and local property tax hikes, particularly with respect to the lingering effects of LBJ’s Great Society initiatives.277
The RGA also created an Advisory Board “to advise the President and the Vice President of the views of the Republican Governors on key issues.”278 As early as May of 1969, less than five full months in the administration, the RGA was adopting numerous resolutions urging changes to various proposals by the President. One resolution agreed upon by the governors at a meeting in Lexington, Kentucky requested, at the behest of Governor Richard Ogilvie of Illinois, that the President “‘establish a regular policy of notification and consultation with the governors prior to, and in conjunction with, all policy meetings with officials of major cities of the state, in order that a true Federal-state-local partnership will prevail in meeting the urban crisis.”279 By the late 1970, several governors expressed coolness, even resentment toward the administration.
Louie Nunn of Kentucky, upon taking over as RGA chair for Reagan in December of 1970, noted that “We want to keep ourselves in a position to work for or against legislation – wherever it may come from – according to our own interests. Where we can support the President, we will,
277 Statement by Members of the Republican Governors Association. November 19, 1971. Box H. C. 1. Folder 11. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 278 Letter to all Republican Governors. From Buehl J. Berentson. Undated. Box H. C. 1. Folder 3. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 1. 279 Kenworthy, E. W. “G.O.P. Governors Ask Nixon to Consult.” The New York Times. 3 May 1969. 14. 148 but I don’t think we should go out of here committed to support just anything that comes out of the White House.”280
Ultimately, the RGA provided a venue in which the Administration and the party’s governors could come together to discuss policy issues. The RGA allowed the governors to offer their opinions to the President. However, the administration remained the center of policy development. The administration set the broad contours for policy discussion and came to the
RGA with its own talking points that it sought the governors to espouse. The RGA did give the governors a voice and allowed for them to contribute to some of the details of policy discussion.
In sum, the RGA promoted integration of the governors into policy development and often the selling of policy on behalf on the president and the Republican party more broadly.
Integrating Party Affairs: Presidential Party Building, the RNC and the 1972 Convention
The RGA’s development in relation to other party organizations during the Nixon administration also began as a story of integration. There is general consensus within the field that Nixon sought to reinvigorate the Republican Party and establish a “New Majority.” Galvin notes that Nixon’s “party-building efforts appear in many different shapes and sizes over the course of his five-plus years in office.”281 To be sure, Nixon invested heavily in developing the party as organization, for instance through the Mission 70s Party Organization Program. Nixon sold his party building efforts to the governors as a team effort. New RNC Chairman Rogers C.
B. Morton, at an RGA conference in Lexington, Kentucky, stated that “we’re not going into your state, without clearing it with you and we hope that when we make a mistake, or when we have a
280 Broder, David S. “GOP Governors Show Coolness Toward White House.” The Washington Post. A18. 281 Galvin, Daniel J. 2010. Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 71. 149 program that you don’t like; or when we part our hair on the wrong side, or you have some criticism; that you’ll just level with us. We need that kind of rapport with you.”282
The RGA’s partnership with the RNC was expanded during Nixon’s term in office. In
1969, the RGA established a new “Communications” initiative. This program consisted of a mailing to the Association’s membership highlighting legislation pending before Congress as well as activities of the National Committee and the President. It also circulated studies from the
RNC’s Research Division and the “Talking Papers” discussed above. The RGA also partnered with the RNC on several campaign management seminars, including six in the second half of
1971.283 Governor Milliken became the first RGA chair to speak before the RNC, in December
1971. The financial relationship between the RNC and the RGA also tightened and became more formalized in 1972 with the creation of the National Republican Governors Campaign
Committee, funded by the national committee, though overall funding levels remained relatively stable.284 RGA Chair Linwood Holton, speaking before the National Republican Finance
Committee in 1973, assured that “Republican governors want to accept even greater responsibility within the two-party system generally and the Republican Party particularly.”285
282 “Spring 1969 Republican Governors Conference. Lexington, Kentucky. Remarks by National Chairman Rogers C. B. Morton at May 1 Business Session.” Box H. C. 1. Folder 4. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 4. 283 Memorandum to Governors and Key Assistants. From Governor Richard B. Ogilvie, Chairman. RE: RNC Campaign Management Seminars ’71. July 20, 1971. Box H. C. 1. Folder 11. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 284 Memo to Bill Brock, Ben Cotton, Ted Welch, Bob Perkins, Arlene Triplett, Dick Thaxton, Benton Becker. From Ralph Griffith. 30 July 1978. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 56. Folder 2. 285 Excerpts of Remarks by Governor Linwood Holton. Chairman, Republican Governors Association to National Republican Finance Committee. Washington, D. C. January 19, 1973. Box H. C. 1. Folder 11. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 2. 150
Staffing changes that took place during Reagan’s tenure as RGA chairman also demonstrate the integration of the RGA into the national party. Though a leader of the conservative wing of the party, Reagan did not use the chairmanship of the organization to drastically move the RGA in a conservative direction as some had feared. Reagan replaced
Executive Director Richard Fleming with Beuhl Berentson, a longtime GOP operative.
Berentson had previously worked for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee and his appointment was supported by moderate governors Shafer and Evans.286 While Reagan was often a subject in RGA publications and memoranda during his tenure, the day to day operations of the organization were conducted by a rising class of professional party operatives, often with prior experience in state or national party organizations. The RGA, thus, pulled from a network of GOP aligned political consultants.
The integration of the party’s governors carried over into the nominating convention in
1972. Unlike in 1964 and 1968, the RGA formally endorsed Nixon’s 1972 reelection bid, in a resolution adopted at a November 1971 conference in French Lick.287 Gubernatorial participation as delegates remained above 60 percent, lower than levels during the 1960s but above levels preceding that decade. The RGA once again prepared a proposal for presentation before the platform committee in Miami with Rockefeller taking the lead as chair of the RGA policy committee. The statement mainly focused on federal-state relations but also included statements supporting Nixon’s actions on welfare, drug abuse, and the environment.288
286 Kossen, Sydney. 12 February 1969. “Reagan Miffed Over Loss to Nixon Team: Reagan Fires Director of Governors’ Group. The Washington Post. A12. 287 Republican Governors Conference. French Lick, Indiana. November 18, 1971. Transcript. Box H. C. 1. Folder 9. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 288 Memorandum to Republican Governors From James R. Galbraith, Executive Director. June 30, 1972. Box H. C. 1. Folder 8. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 151
Then RGA Chairman Milliken was also given a speaking slot at the convention. Milliken, not surprisingly but despite some policy disagreements with the administration, praised Nixon’s
New Federalism agenda in addition to a slew of other policies adopted by the White House. He also touted state-level efforts by a number of governors such as welfare reform by Illinois
Governor Richard Ogilvie and infrastructure projects by West Virginia Governor Arch Moore Jr.
In sum, Milliken’s speech signified the idea that Nixon and the governors were united in promoting the same program: “President Nixon and Republican Governors are allied in the effort to complete the unfinished agenda before our Nation, including revenue-sharing, welfare reform, and attainment of a strong educational system that not only assures quality and equality in education for every child but also ends the excessive reliance on property taxes for school financing.”289 Milliken’s speech signified the purposes of the RGA: promote the party in general and the party’s governors in particular.
Causes for Future National Gubernatorial Assertiveness: Presidential Party Predation and
Watergate
Nixon’s Party Predation
Nixon’s party building activities did not, however, always promote harmony within the party.
Among the sins Nixon committed against his own party was, according to Arthur Schlesinger, an abandonment of “Republican governors, senators and congressman to their fate.”290 Further,
Nixon dissolved the RCC and the establishment of the Committee to Re-elect the President
(CREEP) “was but the final stage of a long process of White House preemption of the national
289 “Report of the Republican Governors Association by the Honorable William G. Milliken.” In the Official Report of the Proceedings of the Thirtieth Republican National Convention held in Miami Beach, Florida. August 21, 22, 23, 1972. Published by the Republican National Committee.164. 290 Schlesinger Jr., Arthur M. 1973. The Imperial Presidency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 254-5. 152 committee’s political responsibilities.”291 In 1973 there was an attempt to revive the RCC, a move supported by then RGA Chairman Winfield Dunn.292 The attempt did not win support from Nixon.
Early on, the governors and Nixon diverged with regards to the question of who would lead the RNC. A consensus emerged among the governors in December of 1968 in favor of retaining Ray Bliss as chairman, with Romney especially vocal on the issue.293 Nixon utilized his prerogative as president to install his own choice, Rogers Morton. While choosing the party chairman was generally granted to the president, the appointment of Morton was not the only episode that caused tension with the governors. Nixon appointed California State Assemblyman
John Venaman as Under Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. Reagan was reportedly
“miffed” about the choice due to the party’s narrow hold over the legislative body, a hold that was put at risk by the appointment.294
This incident was an early indication that Nixon cared more about centering the party around himself than simply building it. At the very least, it was sometimes interpreted as such.
This perception was exacerbated by the election results of 1970 and 1972. Leading into the midterms, press reports began to pick up on moderate Republican “resentment” over Nixon’s southern strategy.295 The GOP picked up a governorship in Tennessee with a victory by future
RGA Chairman Dunn but lost control of several key states including Pennsylvania where Shafer
291 Milkis, Sidney M. 1993. The President and the Parties. 233. 292 7.12. Republican Coordinating Committee. Memo. Undated. Box H. C. 7. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 293 Broder, David S. “Retention Of Bliss Indicated: GOP Leader Wins Backing Of Governors Federal-State Relations Offered by Romney Governors Vote Confidence in Bliss.” The Washington Post. 8 December 1968. A1. 294 Kossen, Sydney. “Reagan Miffed Over new Loss to Nixon Team: Reagan Fires Director of Governors’ Group.” The Washington Post. 12 February 1969. A12. 295 Anderson, Jack. 13 January 1970. “Nixon's Aloofness Irks GOP Governors: The Washington Merry-Go- Round.” The Washington Post. 1970. B11. 153 was term limited and Florida where Claude R. Kirk Jr., the first GOP governor of the state since
Reconstruction, lost by over ten percentage points. Winthrop Rockefeller, Nelson’s brother, also lost his reelection contest in Arkansas.
Ultimately, the party lost control of 11 statehouses in the midterms. Vice President
Agnew, at an RGA meeting in Sun Valley, Idaho, defended the president’s involvement in the campaign, seeking to rally the shrunken governors’ contingent behind the president. During a press conference, Agnew was forced to address comments Nixon made concerning his perceived lack of investment in holding gubernatorial seats. Agnew noted that “Yes we took a lacing in the governorships. Then the next question was, Mr. President the governors have a very important part to play, state government does, in redistricting and will it be possible for you to win in 1972, having lost these state houses? Now, the President faced with that remark told his interrogators the holding of state houses isn’t tantamount to winning the state in a presidential election.”296
The “purge” of New York Senator Charles Goodell, a Rockefeller ally, also exemplified Nixon’s attempt to personalize the party.297 This was also true in Nixon’s withholding of support for
Virginia Senate candidate Ray Garland. Nixon’s play was to withhold support for Garland as a means of wooing Harry Byrd into the party, a play that failed.298 The Republican governors were also not appeased by the appointment of John Connally, a Democrat from Texas who would later switch parties, to Nixon’s cabinet.299 Connally, as will be discussed in Chapter 6, had been instrumental in starting the Democratic Governors’ Conference in 1965, had been a strong ally
296 Vice President Spiro Agnew. Press Conference. Republican Governors Association. December 16, 1970. Box H. C. 1. Folder 11. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 297 See Milkis, Sidney M. 1993. The President and the Parties. 228. 298 Mason, Robert. 2012. The Republican Party from Hoover to Reagan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 227. 299 Broder, David S. “Campaign Tactics Defended by Agnew: Nunn Hits Ostrich Policy.” The Washington Post. 16 December 1970. A1. 154 on LBJ, and had presidential aspirations of his own, culminating in a brief run in 1980.
Nixon’s re-election bid two years later also caused tension with the governors. The president was re-elected in a landslide, winning 49 states and over 60 percent of the vote, but lacked meaningful down-ballot coattails. Republicans netted a twelve-seat pickup in the House but lost two Senate seats. They also lost an additional gubernatorial seat (see Figure 4.1). CREEP was criticized for being run outside the traditional party apparatus, leaving governors feeling left out, a sentiment echoing critiques of Goldwater’s 1964 campaign. Nixon’s Southern Strategy was, again, taken by some as the wrong road ahead. Romney and Rockefeller argued that the party needed to do a better job of reaching out to minority voters.300
Virginia Governor Linwood Holton, who chaired the RGA as Nixon entered his second term, planned a national tour in order to strengthen the party’s organization and revitalize the party at the gubernatorial level heading into the 1974 midterms.301 In a letter to Governor Arch
Moore, then RGA Executive Director James Galbraith, in justifying Holton’s travels, argued that
“we see the 1973-74 period as a time when the Republican Governors take their deserved place in the Party family – as participants and sponsors in fund-raising events at the national level and as recipients in the proceeds.”302 This was as an unprecedented step that contributed to the development of the role of RGA chairman as party leader.
300 Dewar, Helen. “Holton to Tour Country to Aid GOP Governors.” The Washington Post. 5 December 1972. A2. 301 Ibid. 302 Letter to the Honorable Arch A. Moore Jr. from James R. Galbraith. January 24, 1973. Box H. C. 5. Folder 6. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 3. 155
Watergate: A National Scandal with State-Level Implications
The final straw for the governors was the Watergate investigation. Significantly, the governors were very active and vocal about the scandal despite it being centered in the White House. They demonstrated that they could not escape dealing with the scandal in some way notwithstanding not being involved in the drama outside of the (R) attached to their name on the ballot.
The governors, like the rest of the party, had to balance between backing their party leader and holding Nixon’s feet to the fire. As events were unfolding, the governors hit the president due to his perceived lack of managing the developing media frenzy. Holton advised the president to hold a series of press conferences to address “unanswered questions.” Milliken “complained of the White House Policy of ‘dribbling out a little bit’ of additional information at frequent intervals.”303 Holton professed that “‘I think the American people will be perfectly willing to let the blame rest only on those who are guilty and not convict others simply because we were
Republicans.’”304 Holton sought to play up that the Watergate break-in was the work of an “ad
303 Broder, Davis S. and Richard M. Cohen. “3 Republican Governors Score Nixon: 3 Republican Governors Hit Nixon Methods.” Washington Post. 6 June 1973. 304 Burks, Edward C. “Guilt of Party Is Rejected at Meeting of Governors.” The New York Times. 10 May 1973. 36. 156 hoc committee” and not the party.305 Rockefeller added that “he did not think that the Watergate affair could affect ‘the Republican tradition in New York State.’”306
In November of 1973, Nixon met with members of the RGA in Memphis in a nearly two- hour session. Nixon’s goal was the ease the governors’ concerns and unify the party. The president fielded questions from the governors and noted his determination not to resign. He went as far as claiming he was unaware of any other “bombs” that could potentially drop in the investigation.307 Two days later a bomb did drop. Reports indicated that tapes released by the
White House concerning conversations between Nixon and former Chief of Staff H. B.
Haldeman had been tampered with. Evans noted that “‘He [Nixon] had probably the most representative and sympathetic audience of any group in the country and he just didn’t square with us, level with us.’”308
The effect of the Watergate scandal on the party was devastating, including in state-level elections. The Democrats gained forty-nine seats in the House and four in the Senate in the 1974 midterms. The GOP suffered a loss of an additional four governorships, bringing their ranks to just thirteen. Ultimately, the Watergate scandal cast a long shadow over the party, one that reached over state as well as national officials.
Part of the effects of the scandal were organizational in nature. The RGA was forced to reduce expenses as the party’s fundraising dried up. Dunn, who took over the chairmanship of the Association, staged a fundraiser in Chicago to make up for the dearth of funds. He also
305 Ibid. 306 Ibid. 307 Lydon, Christopher. “Nixon Assures Governors He Will Allay Public Doubt: Nixon Assures Governors He Will Allay Public Doubt Not Sure on Tapes Still Called Him Wrong Call It a Beginning Not 'Out On a Limb.'” The New York Times. 25 November 1973. 35. 308 “Governors Sore Nixon Over Tape.” The New York Times. 25 November 1973. 35. 157 pushed governors to conduct more independent fundraisers to support candidates in the 1974 midterms.309 The number of annual RGA was reduced to one as a means of reducing costs.
Nevertheless, the RGA became a venue in which governors contributed to conversations about the party’s future. At one meeting, Tom McCall of Oregon went as far as suggesting the party change its name.310 The governors, while trying to put distance between themselves and the president, did not retreat to being state actors. To be sure, the governors sought to distance themselves from Nixon. However, their role within the national party had been cemented.
Discussing Watergate, Missouri Governor Christopher Bond, in a speech before a Republican
Leadership Conference, noted that “To regain the trust of the American people, there must be a visible Republican response. Watergate will not be put behind us as a Party until we take the lead vigorously, everywhere -- at the federa1 level and in each of our separate states-• in reforming our election laws, in tightening our financial disclosure and conflict of interest laws, in opening up government to closer public scrutiny, in safeguarding our law enforcement and security agencies from being politicized, and in securing the basic right of privacy for all our citizens.”311
The affairs of the national party were increasingly becoming the affairs of the party’s governors.
Indeed, the lack of presidential coattails in his landslide reelection and the devastating effects
Watergate had on the party both pushed governors in the same direction – toward greater involvement in national party affairs through the RGA.
The Governors and President Ford
309 Mehler, Neil. “Republican Governors After Funds.” Chicago Tribune. 16 June 1974. 7. 310 Cannon, Lou. “GOP in Danger Unless It Opens Ranks, Governors Told.” The Washington Post. 3 December 1974. A2. 311 Remarks of Chairman Christopher S. Bond. Republican Leadership Conference. March 7, 1975. Washington D. C. The Robert T, Hartmann Files. Box 27. Folder “Republican Governors Association (3).” The Gerald Ford Presidential Library. Page 1. 158
The party’s governors did not have an altogether easy relationship with President Ford in the aftermath of Nixon’s resignation despite their sympathizing with the difficulty of his position. Ford took control of a party plagued by scandal and one increasingly becoming the home of economic and social conservatives, a transformation that had implications for his electoral aspirations in 1976. The RGA’s membership, however, continued to include a strong moderate contingency with Milliken particularly vocal and active in national party affairs during this period. Ford also entered the Oval Office at a time when unemployment was elevated, inflation was rising, and oil prices were skyrocketing. Moreover, Congress, still solidly controlled by the Democrats, sought to reassert its prerogative in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. As noted by Congressman John Brademas, a Democrat from Indiana, before a 1974
NGA gathering in Seattle: “This combination of a Watergate-diminished presidency with a
Congress in substantial control of the opposition party will mean that we shall have, in the years
1975 and 1976, a period of what Woodrow Wilson in another context called ‘congressional government.’ In my view, the responsibility that will accrue in this situation to the leadership of the Democratic party in Congress will be very great, especially in the House, because of the far larger size of that body.”312
Table 4.2 GOP Conditions and Effects Present, The Ford Years
Conditions Effects
Strong Governors Resources Available to Governors
• Bond, Rockefeller, Reagan, Shafer, • Cuts to annual number of meetings etc. Participation by Governors in National Intergovernmental Relations Partisan Discourse, Party as Organization
• New Federalism
312 Proceedings of the Governors’ Conference 1974. Sixty-Sixth Annual Meeting. Seattle, Washington. June 2-5, 1974. Washington D.C.: National Governors’ Conference. 10. 159
• Increased Congressional Assertiveness • New communications with on Federal Budgets congressional leadership • Discussions over effects of FECA Programmatic Party Politics Gubernatorial Influence on Party Program, • Watergate Fallout Brand • Losses in 1972 and 1974 elections • Maintain commitment to New Federalism • Purge Nixon Cabinet • Disagreement over Ford Policies • RGA Platform Committee Leadership and Hearings 1976
The RGA continued to be a venue of conversation between the governors and Ford. However, the brevity of Ford’s presidency, the diminished ranks of the GOP governors (see Figure 4.2) and resources for the RGA, and the inability of the President to truly overcome the legacy of Nixon caused the relationship between Ford and the governors to be more cantankerous than that of the early Nixon years.
Administrative Politics and Policy
160
Ford and the governors sought a clean start for the party, which required bold action by new President. This had to start with, or at the very least include, moving past Nixon. One element of this move included turnover in the White House. Dunn used his last press conference as RGA Chairman to call on Ford to reshape the Cabinet and rid it of Nixon loyalists.313 Ford chose Rockefeller to fill the Vice-Presidential post, giving the party’s liberal wing a prominent spot within the administration. Rockefeller, then a four-term governor of New York, did not mesh well with other members of Ford’s team, a team which took time to build. Like Agnew,
Rockefeller acted as a liaison between Ford and the party’s governors at RGA meetings. Ford also appointed Wyoming Governor Stanley Hathaway to lead the Interior Department and
William Scranton as UN ambassador. Governor Otis Bowen also joined Ford’s Commission on
Federal Paperwork in order to explore reducing costs and promoting efficiency in the federal bureaucracy.314 In short, governors and former governors continued to make the short list for cabinet appointments and those that had been active in the RGA, including Rockefeller and
Bowen, seemed to benefit from Ford’s appointments.
Dunn also noted that Ford’s pardon of Nixon contributed to Republican misfortunes in the midterms though he qualified this criticism by noting that the move “demonstrated that the
President was capable of doing what he thinks right regardless of political considerations.”315
The pardon was not popular, with some claiming that there was collusion between Ford and
Nixon loyalists, including Nixon’s Chief of Staff Alexander Haig. As Gould notes, despite there being no evidence of a deal between Ford and Nixon, “the action came out of the blue and
313 Cannon, Lou. “GOP Governors Challenge Ford.” The Washington Post. 3 December 1974. A2. 314 Republican Governors Association Conference. Wichita, Kansas. November 20-22, 1975. Transcript of Proceedings and Debate. Box H. C. 7. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 87. 315 Ibid. 161 seemed like another example of the insider deals that the voters so disliked about Washington in the mid-1970s.”316 Unlike in past years, the RGA conference in Memphis, which took place in
December, 1974, ended without the passage of “any customary solution in support of the
President.”317 The Tennessee meeting was characterized by the media as focusing on national politics but emphasizing tension among the national and state executives within the party.
The Association continued to advocate for revenue sharing in discussions with Ford and other party leaders. Revenue sharing, as has been demonstrated above, had become a policy area which the party’s governors had largely rallied behind. In 1975, House Minority Leader John
Rhodes began a series of communications with the governors concerning congressional affairs.
Rhodes, in the summer of that year, noted that revenue sharing was likely to be extended, and it was.318 This development strengthened the relationship between the party’s governors and congressional leadership. While the NGA was developing new capacities to influence public policy, such as through the creation of the Center for State Policy and Research in 1974, the partisan organization was tightening the bonds of the governors and party leaders in Congress.
This development had implications for political messaging over public policy. Christopher Bond of Missouri, who assumed the RGA Chairmanship in December 1974, issued a statement attacking California Governor Milton Shapp for making “derogatory remarks” about the policy, which were “totally unrepresentative of the views of almost all of the other Governors of this nation.”319 A resolution against the proliferation of “special interest categorical grants” was
316 Gould, Lewis L. 2014. The Republicans: A History of the Grand Old Party. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 282. 317 Cannon. Lou. “Watergate Haunts GOP Governors.” The Washington Post. 4 December 1974. A2. 318 “Report to the Republican Governors from the House Republican Leader, John J. Rhodes. July, 1975. The Robert T, Hartmann Files. Box 27. Folder “Republican Governors Association (3).” The Gerald Ford Presidential Library. Page 1. 319 “Mail-Gram.” December 11, 1974. The Robert T, Hartmann Files. Box 27. Folder “Republican Governors Association (3).” The Gerald Ford Presidential Library. 162 proposed by Daniel Evans and agreed upon at a 1975 RGA conference in Wichita, Kansas.320
Congressman John Anderson of Illinois noted before the NGA in Seattle that the Conference had been instrumental in pursing revenue sharing in the 1960s.321 Indeed, revenue sharing continued to receive bipartisan support among the governors. However, the RGA shifted the conversation about the policy, attempting to make it a partisan issue.
Beyond revenue sharing, there was a great deal of disagreement among party leaders as to policy proposals, especially in terms of the economy and oil prices. As Governor Moore noted upon taking over as RGA Chair in 1975, “I don’t know how weighty we as a conference should be in the area of policy. We have among our numbers strong differences in terms as we address ourselves to the nation’s challenges.”322 However, policy critiques of Ford also occurred frequently. Dunn, for instance, voiced support for a gas tax to reduce American dependence on foreign oil.323 Ford had opposed a new gasoline tax but later changed his position. Mills E.
Godwin, a conservative governor of Virginia, criticized economic proposals by the new
President, saying they “‘added up to a big zero.’”324
Of course, the RGA continued to voice opposition to Democratic proposals coming from
Congress. One month before the 1976 election, for instance, Governors Robert Bennett and
James Edwards appeared on ABC and attacked Democratic budget proposals.325 In short, Ford’s
320 Republican Governors Association Conference. Wichita, Kansas. November 20-22, 1975. Transcript of Proceedings and Debate. Box H. C. 7. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 140. 321 Proceedings of the Governors’ Conference 1974. Sixty-Sixth Annual Meeting. Seattle, Washington. June 2-5, 1974. Washington D.C.: National Governors’ Conference. 13-4. 322 Republican Governors Association Conference. Wichita, Kansas. November 20-22, 1975. Transcript of Proceedings and Debate. Box H. C. 7. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 145. 323 “Ford Urged to Look at Higher ‘Gas’ Tax.” The New York Times. 2 December 1974. 66. 324 Cannon. Lou. “Watergate Haunts GOP Governors.” The Washington Post. 4 December 1974. A2. 325 “RGA Headlines.” October 1976. The James M. Cannon Files. The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. Box 42. Folder “Republican Governors Association – Miscellaneous.” 163 relationship with the governors was a microcosm of the precarious landscape in which the
President found himself. Though the GOP had a sitting President, the Watergate scandal and a series of policy dilemmas opened discussion among the party’s leaders. Unity became hard to build.
Party Affairs
Ford, like many minority party presidents before him, advocated an “open door” approach to party building. He, for instance, backed the formation of a Republican Mayors
Association modeled on the RGA.326 The “open door” policy included renewed outreach to several minority groups. This approach was advocated by moderate Republican governors, who were once again asserting themselves vigorously within the party and the RGA. Bond argued that “The Republican Party will not long survive let alone prosper unless we practice the politics of expansion, keeping the spectrum of the party wide, anchoring it in the broad center of
American political thought, recognizing the need for capable men and women of diverse backgrounds and ideas.”327 Milliken, Michigan’s “passionate moderate,” echoed these sentiments in a number of speeches, highlighting his own electoral success in urban areas in Michigan.328
Moore, concurring with Ford’s approach to building a big-tent party, in a speech accepting the
RGA Chairmanship, told RNC Chairwoman Mary Louise Smith that the governors had “an absolute adherence to and commitment of working with you, Mary Louise, to see to it that these next months ahead will produce a fine and effective national convention.”329
326 Galvin, Daniel. 2010. Presidential Party Building. 116-7. 327 Republican Governors Association Conference. Wichita, Kansas. November 20-22, 1975. Transcript of Proceedings and Debate. Box H. C. 7. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 6. 328 See Dempsey, David. 2006. William G. Milliken: Michigan’s Passionate Moderate. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 329 Republican Governors Association Conference. Wichita, Kansas. November 20-22, 1975. Transcript of Proceedings and Debate. Box H. C. 7. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 145. 164
However, the partnership between the RGA and the RNC was also rocky during Ford’s presidency. On the one hand, changes in the electoral environment necessitated cooperation among the party’s organizations. During Ford’s tenure, for instance, the RNC and the other party organizations had to deal with the effects of new campaign finance regulation. Chairwoman
Smith noted at an RGA conference in 1975 that “While it [the law] specifically covers only federal elections, we can expect it to have a rippling effect that will touch the entire election process.”330 “The law,” Smith noted “gives national and state parties the responsibility of making direct expenditures on behalf of federal candidates.”331 The RNC needed RGA support in adapting to these changes. The RGA was invited to participate in RNC sponsored seminars on recent Supreme Court rulings on campaign finance.332 The RNC continued to fund the RGA during this period and Winfield Dunn, while Chairman, continued to put on seminars for
Republican gubernatorial candidates and continued to include current governors on the programs of these events.333 The RNC also continued to circulate election polling and research materials through the RGA Communications program.
On the other hand, the standing of the national GOP brought questions over resources going to the RGA from the RNC under increased scrutiny. Galbraith, in a memo to an RNC member discussing the RNC Chair’s participation in a meeting which included RGA officials, noted a “deafening silence” regarding Smith’s comments as to “her extensive plans for next year
330 Text of Remarks by Mary Louise Smith, Chairman, Republican National Committee. Republican Governors Association. November 22, 1975. Box H. C. 6. Folder 14. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 1. 331 Ibid. 332 Memorandum to Republican Leaders from Mary Louise Smith. Re: Federal Election Campaign Law Seminars. February 12, 1976. Box H. C. 6. Folder 15. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 333 1974 RGA Candidates’ Conference Draft Program. Box H. C. 7. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 165
– particularly as they relate to funds to be made available to Gubernatorial candidates.”334 As noted earlier, the operations of the RGA were affected by the Watergate scandal. In 1974 the governors agreed that, moving forward, they would have one annual meeting rather than two.
They also began to seek out more funding from sources other than the RNC. In short, though the
RGA continued to rely on the RNC for most of its financing, the Watergate scandal and differences of opinion among party elites laid the groundwork for the RGA to become more independent with regards to certain party-building efforts, particularly fundraising.
The 1976 Presidential Contest
Former Governor Reagan launched a strong challenge to Ford for the 1976 Republican nomination. That year’s Republican contest was the first to feature primaries and caucuses in all fifty states. Reagan showed particular strength in the South and parts of the Midwest. He also handily carried his home state of California. Ford, ultimately, won the national primary popular vote by a fairly narrow margin but entered the convention without the nomination firmly in hand.
Reagan chose a moderate, Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker, as his running mate in order to woo moderate delegates, a move that backfired. Ford was nominated on the first ballot.
Governors were again not be presidential kingmakers through the RGA though they certainly made their individual opinions on the race well known. In a press conference at the Wichita meeting, Bond expressed hesitancy in terms of endorsing President Ford as a collective body.335
In the 1976 presidential nomination contest nine of the governors signed a letter, written by
334 Memorandum to Tom Craig From Jim Galbraith. November 25, 1975. Box H. C. 6. Folder 14. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 335 Republican Governors Association Conference. Wichita, Kansas. November 20-22, 1975. Transcript of Proceedings and Debate. Box H. C. 7. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 74. 166
North Carolina Governor James Holshouser, backing Ford.336 Reagan had, by that fall, emerged as a rival to Ford and had support from Governors Meldrin Thomson of New Hampshire and
James Edwards of South Carolina.
At the Wichita meeting, Vice-President Rockefeller noted that he “withdrew as Vice-
President for 1976 because I do not wish to be involved in political squabbles nor to allow distracting centering around cults of personalities to distract the President from his all-important responsibilities of dealing with the problems of the people of this nation and the world.”337
Bennett, when asked whether Rockefeller’s remarks were directed at Reagan and his supporters, stated that “I don’t know that it’s directed to and I didn’t necessarily feel that it was directed toward former Governor Reagan but certainly I think as our party selects the standard bearer in
1976, we have got to realize that an isolated totally divergent point of view is probably not one which is going to carry the day.”338 The RGA conference that year, thus, exposed the divisions within the party. The membership was split, preventing the organization from speaking as the collective voice of the governors.
The 1976 election did, however, illustrate the replication of patterns established during the 1960s in terms of gubernatorial participation in national party politics through the convention, participation that was often coordinated through their involvement in the RGA.
Governor Moore noted to RNC Chairwoman Smith that “Governors could serve in a variety of positions which would add to the convention and set the stage for a winning campaign.” He recommended “that Governors serve either as convention keynoter and deputy chairman of the
336 Mehler, Neil. “9 Republican Governors Sign Pro-Ford Letter.” Chicago Tribune. 23 November 1975. 16. 337 Republican Governors Association Conference. Wichita, Kansas. November 20-22, 1975. Transcript of Proceedings and Debate. Box H. C. 7. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. Page 9. 338 Ibid. Page 69. 167 convention, or as chairman of the resolutions committee and temporary chairman of the convention. I would also recommend that two additional governors be appointed to serve on the
Resolutions Committee. In addition, I assume a spokesman for the RGA will be given time on the program to report to the convention delegates.”339
Ultimately, several of Moore’s goals were met. As noted above, gubernatorial participation as delegates declined after 1968 but remained high by historical standards.
Governor Robert Ray of Iowa served as chairman of the platform committee. Milliken gave the speech nominating President Ford and he, along with Bond, offered planks to the platform committee based on public hearings modeled on those leading into the 1968 convention.340 RGA
Chair Moore was also given a speaking slot and reported on the affairs of the RGA and the successes of the governors at the convention. Indeed, the role of RGA chair as mouthpiece for the party’s governors was reified within the context of the convention.
Table 4.3 GOP Conditions and Effects Present, The Carter Years
Conditions Effects
Strong Governors Resources Available to Governors
• Reagan, duPont, Milliken, etc. • New fundraising efforts • Strengthened RGA involvement in Intergovernmental Relations gubernatorial elections/financing • Republican Governors Club • New Federalism • Continuation of Revenue Sharing Participation by Governors in National Partisan Discourse, Party as Organization Programmatic Party Politics • Partnership with RNC LECD • 1976 losses at the National and State • Creation of GOPAC Levels • Concord Conferences
339 Draft Letter to Mary Louise Smith from Governor Moore. Undated. Box H. C. 6. Folder 15. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 340 RGA Headlines. August 1976. Ray Bliss Papers. The Ohio History Connection. Columbus, Ohio. MSS 768. Box 172. Folder 23. 168
• Lingering Effects of Watergate • RNC Policy Advisory Councils Scandal Gubernatorial Influence on Party Program, Brand
• Du Pont leadership on Energy Policy • RNC adopts RGA platform hearings
Out of Power: Governors as Party (Re)Builders
After Ford’s loss, the governors were once again looked to for party building purposes.
RGA meetings in the late 1970s were used to emphasize how governors could contribute to building party strength. Richard Ogilvie, a former governor of Illinois, in an address to the RGA in November of 1976, argued that “the governor is really the chief of his [state] party.”341
Governors have, according to Ogilvie, a responsibility to help develop party candidates for state and congressional races and raise funds for party candidates and organizations.342 Pierre (Pete)
DuPont of Delaware called on governors to support the professionalization of state party organizations. “A governor,” he argued, “cannot be a closet party chairman. He needs a professional to do that job.”343 Dunn captured the change in the role of governor that had begun over a decade earlier, noting that “a proper understanding of the role of a governor in public affairs can’t be gained simply by looking at the executive or the administrative responsibilities that he has.”344 The political role of the governor was taken to be increasingly important as their
341 Richard Ogilvie. “The Role of Governors in a State Party.” In Republican Governors Association Conference. Washington D.C. November 28-30, 1976. Transcript of Proceedings and Debate. The Ray Bliss Papers. Ohio History Connection. Columbus, Ohio. MSS 768. Box 172. Folder 23. Page 115. 342 Ibid. 123-4. 343 Pete DuPont. “The Role of Governors in a State Party. In Republican Governors Association Conference. Washington D.C. November 28-30, 1976. Transcript of Proceedings and Debate. The Ray Bliss Papers. Ohio History Connection. Columbus, Ohio. MSS 768. Box 172. Folder 23. Page 113. 344 Winfield Dunn. The Influence of Governors on the National Party Structure and the Republican National Committee.” In Republican Governors Association Conference. Washington D.C. November 28-30, 1976. Transcript of Proceedings and Debate. The Ray Bliss Papers. Ohio History Connection. Columbus, Ohio. MSS 768. Box 172. Folder 23. Page 131. 169 role in congressional redistricting and in campaigning for candidates outside their state was becoming increasingly important. This reassertion of gubernatorial prerogative was especially true of the RGA Chairmanship. Moore, at a post-election RGA Conference in Washington D.C., noted that “the chairman of the Republican Governors Association should be a strong voice and an equal voice with the National Chairman and the Chairmen of the two national Legislative committees.”345
Calls to expand the base of the party continued to be a key theme at meetings of the RGA in the late 1970s. Reporting on the first RGA conference after the election, Jon Margolis noted that “There seemed fairly general agreement, even from such conservatives as [Senator Robert]
Dole and [former Texas Governor John] Connally, that the Republicans must attract more women, more blacks, and more young people if they are to survive as a party.”346 The move seemed necessary. Dole, capturing the mood of the conference, noted that “‘There is probably a lesson to be learned from the fact that we have more candidates for chairman of the Republican
National Committee than we have Republican governors.’”347
The RGA and the RNC Build Their Organizational Partnership
On an organizational level, the RGA continued to develop its partnership with the RNC in order to rebuild the party leading into the 1980 census. William Brock, the new RNC chairman, built off of the party-building efforts of Ray Bliss. Indeed, Brock’s election as
Chairman of the party, like that of Bliss, represented something of a compromise between the conservatives and moderates of the party. Some, like Senator Jesse Helms, argued that
345 Republican Governors Association Conference. Washington D.C. November 28-30, 1976. Transcript of Proceedings and Debate. The Ray Bliss Papers. Ohio History Connection. Columbus, Ohio. MSS 768. Box 172. Folder 23. Page 13. 346 Margolis, Jon. 1 December 1976. “GOP parley gulps bitter pills.” The Chicago Tribune. 2. 347 Ibid. 170 conservatives should be given a chance to exercise control over the national party organizations.
Others, like Milliken “quickly organized to prevent the Reagan forces from gaining control of the RNC.”348 Other governors echoed the tactical approach to national party organizational leadership. Governor James Thompson of Illinois, for instance, in a speech before the RNC in
April 1977, argued that “rather than dictate uniform policy positions on every conceivable issue, our party should strive to become a recruitment vehicle that find the best candidates and encourages them to run as Republicans.”349 Brock won the chairmanship after James Baker and
John Connally bowed out of the race.
Brock established the Local Elections Campaign Division in 1977 which emphasized training of party workers.350 As illustrated by Bibby, RGA involvement in the 1978 midterms, led by new Executive Director Richard Thaxton, went as far, in some cases, as aiding candidates in the primary process. The Association, for instance, financed a survey for Nevada gubernatorial candidate Robert List.351 The RGA also emphasized helping challengers to incumbent
Democrats. According to Klinkner, the National Committee “made large financial contributions:
$350,000 to fourteen Republican candidates in 1978, and $500,000 plus a variety of campaign services to thirteen candidates in 1980.352 The GOP picked up six governorships that year (see
Figure 4.3). Bibby notes that it was “not possible to attribute this larger than anticipated gain to the efforts of the RNC. The gains did, however, occur simultaneously with an unprecedented
348 Klinker, Philip. 1994. The Losing Parties. 142-3. 349 Speech by Governor James R. Thompson before the Republican National Committee Luncheon. Conrad Hilton Hotel, Chicago, Illinois. 29 April 1977. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 43. Folder 28. Page 3. 350 See, for instance, Klinker, Philip. 1994. The Losing Parties. 142-3. 351 Bibby, John F. 1979. “Political Parties and Federalism: The Republican National Committee Involvement in Gubernatorial and Legislative Elections.” Publius 9.1: 232. 352 Klinker, Philip. 1994. The Losing Parties. 143. 171 involvement by a national party organization in gubernatorial elections and some of the winning candidates have stated that the RGA played a critical role in their campaigns.”353
The RGA also partnered with the RNC and the congressional campaign committees to create GOPAC which “provided a means to funnel corporate contributions into state legislative races, something the RNC and the other Republican campaign committees were prevented from doing by federal election laws.”354 du Pont, who chaired the group, said in a letter to RNC
Chairman Brock that “GOPAC will not be recruiting candidates. It will not be making any philosophical judgments about the candidates. . . Funds will be allocated under a flexible formula that I will be discussing with each Governor for his State.”355
The RGA, simultaneously, began to seriously move to establish more financial independence from the RNC. In 1979, under the leadership of Ralph Griffith the RGA began to investigate options for a fundraising program just for the governors. One option, that was
353 Bibby, John F. 1979. “Political Parties and Federalism.” 233. 354 Klinker, Philip. 1994. The Losing Parties. 144. 355 Letter to Bill Brock from Pierre S. du Pont. 9 March 1979. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 34. Folder 9. Page 2. 172 ultimately launched, was a “Republican Governors Club.”356 The program looked to corporations and wealthy individuals and, in exchange for donations, offered access to governors at RGA meetings and perks associated with the national convention. Governor Richard Snelling explored gaining the RGA access to RNC donor lists.357 The Club was established later that year and one of its first events was a Republican Governors Policy Forum, which all members of the club were invited to attend, after receipt of a $2000 membership fee.358 The RGA also began to host more fundraisers separate from the RNC, including events in Kansas City and Austin, Texas in the fall of that year.359 Thus, the RGA developed as a stronger independent force but one which could complement the activities of the other national party organizations, including the RNC.
Relatedly, questions began to emerge as to the legal relationship between the RNC and
RGA concerning campaign donations to gubernatorial candidates. In New Jersey in 1977,
Executive Director Griffith discussed the possibility of separating the RGA and the RNC according to state law as this would “allow separate contributions” to state-level candidates.360
Another instance occurred in Kansas when a donation to the state party was seen by some to violate state reporting requirements.361 By the late 1970s, the RGA had a separate campaign account. Whether the RGA was separate from the RNC raised an issue as to the disclosure of
356 Memo to Governor Snelling from Fred Radewagen. RE: RGA Major Donors Program. 4 May 1979. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 56. Folder 3. 357 Ibid. 358 Letter to the Honorable William Brock from Otis R. Bowen. 13 June 1979. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 56. Folder 3. 359 Memo to Governor Richard A. Snelling, Governor John N. Dalton, Governor Otis R. Bowen, Bill Brock, Norm Turnette, Arle Triplett. From Ralph Griffith. RE: Activity in the National Republican Governors Campaign Committee Account During 1979. 17 December 1979. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 56. Folder 3. 360 Memorandum to Gordon Strauss from Ralph Griffith. 7 June 1977. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 56. Folder 2. 361 Memo to Bill Brock, Governor Bowen, Governor Snelling. From Ralph Griffith. 7 August 1979. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 56. Folder 3. 173
RNC donors to the state. In sum, differences in state campaign finance laws promoted legal distinctions between the party organizations. However, the drawing of legal lines between these groups was not due to differences in motivations, but rather, a means of overcoming legal obstacles to electoral successes. Again, but somewhat paradoxically, the promotion of legal divisions between the RGA and the RNC allowed the organizations to work more closely toward the same end – the election of gubernatorial and state legislative GOP candidates.
Governors also attempted to shape the party in other ways, in cooperation with other party elites. Several governors voiced support for a Ford proposal to reinstitute the RCC.
Chairman Brock moved to establish policy advisory councils, which “played an important role in formulating the 1980 Republican platform.”362 Pete DuPont of Delaware partnered with Brock in planning the “Concord Conferences” which sought to train party officials in planning and managing campaign techniques.363 These conferences were “designed to bring in young people and professional people who have had minimal or no involvement in the Republican Party and to turn them on to the political process so they could be used as volunteers and candidates in state legislative and municipal races in particular.”364 Governors Atiyeh, Dalton and Quie served as co-chairs of the Conferences.
du Pont’s role in building the party was especially robust. In addition to chairing GOPAC and the Concord Conferences he took a lead on energy policy, sitting on an RNC Subcommittee on Energy Policy which released a policy paper attacking President Carter and recommending reduced controls on crude oil prices, deregulation of natural gas and coal and expedited licensing
362 Klinker, Philip. 1994. The Losing Parties. 144. 363 Ibid. 145. 364 Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Republican National Committee. Capital Hilton Hotel. Washington D.C. Wednesday 18-19 January 1980. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 43. Folder 26. Page 10. 174 procedures for nuclear energy plants.365 The Delaware governor also served as Chairman of the
Republican National Committee Advisory Council on Natural Resources.366 Lastly, du Pont led a panel discussion on Energy issues at the 1979 RGA Conference in Austin.367
The Republican Governors and the RGA in the 1980 Presidential Contest
This inclusive environment developed by Chairman Brock carried into the presidential nominating convention. Reagan was not the overwhelming favorite of the sitting governors at the time. The RGA under the leadership of Robert Ray of Iowa, remain neutral. Other governors expressed reservations about possibly endorsing a candidate that did not have support of voters in their state, including Bowen. Again, Milliken was an exception, supporting Bush extensively in Michigan. David Broder called the governors “champion chumps and patsies” of the campaign.368 The limitation of the governors to act as kingmakers was once again on full display.
As Snelling noted, “I never believed and do not believe now that governors have the capacity to direct events of presidential politics unless they act early.”369
However, the RGA’s involvement in the 1980 nominating convention again illustrates the integration of the governors into the national Republican Party. Bowen served as vice-Chairman of the 1980 Committee on Resolutions.370 The regional platform hearings that the RGA had conducted in past presidential election cycles became the joint responsibility of the RGA and the
365 “Energy Policy, A Carter Administration Failure, A Republican Opportunity.” Policy Paper from the Energy Policy Subcommittee of the RNC. Undated. Draft. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 43. Folder 9. Pages 7-10. 366 Statement by Del. Governor Pierre S. du Pont, Chairman, Republican National Committee Advisory Council on Natural Resources. 19 February 1980. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 56. Folder 9. 367 Agenda. Republican Governors Association. Nov. 18, 19, 20, 1979. Sheraton-Crest Inn 111 East First Street Austin Texas 78701. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 56. Folder 3. 368 Broder, David S. “Grand Old Patsies.” The Washington Post. 25 May 1980. B7. 369 Broder, David S. 15 March 1980. “Republican Governors Still Sing a Song of Might-Have Been.” The Washington Post. A5. 370 Letter to the Honorable Otis R. Bowen from Bill Brock. 12 July 1979. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 56. Folder 8. 175
RNC. Governor Atiyeh voiced surprise when a hearing was scheduled in Washington State rather than his home state of Oregon, and that Bowen agreed to this move.371 However, the organization of these hearings illustrated the desire to expand the party, in this case geographically, not simply to give voice to those states controlled by the party’s governors. In this sense, the governors who participated in these conferences were forced to go beyond the geographical confines of their states – they would have to act as representatives of their party across state lines.
In short, gubernatorial participation in rebuilding the party at the national-level had become a key feature of their role within the party apparatus. RNC Chairman Brock provided an inclusive environment for the governors, several of whom emerged as key leaders, both in terms of organizational party-building efforts and policy program development. The RGA’s capacities were greatly expanded in this period, especially in fundraising and involvement in gubernatorial campaigns. The RGA also served as a springboard by which governors contributed to additional party organization-building, including GOPAC and the Concord Conferences.
Conclusion: Continued Integration in a Changing Polity
The RGA became an institutionalized component of the national party apparatus between the elections of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. From an organizational standpoint, the RGA became increasingly intertwined with the RNC during the Nixon and Ford presidencies even as it developed new fundraising capacities to act on its own. The RGA provided the party’s governors with the latest talking points out of the White House and Congress. RGA meetings continued to bring together governors and members of the presidential and congressional wings of the party as
371 Letter to the Honorable Victor Atiyeh from Roger Semerad. 16 January 1980. William Emerson Brock Collection. University of Tennessee Libraries. Modern Political Archives. MPA. 106. Box 56. Folder 6.
176 well as the leadership of the RNC. This continued despite the temporary dearth of resources in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. The RGA continued its role as an advocate for greater participation by its membership in national party politics. At the national nominating conventions, the RGA sought to obtain speaking slots and committee chairmanships. It also continued to draft recommendations to be presented to the platform committees.
The weakness of Nixon and later Ford at the national-level precipitated the strengthening of the RGA. Dunn’s early fundraising attempts coupled with a new campaign financing landscape pushed the RGA to enhance its fundraising capacities. The troubles of the Republican presidents also allowed GOP governors space to critique national party leadership. The national media often played up these remarks. However, these instances signify the extent to which governors had become spokesmen for the national party. Additionally, the RGA regularly issued statements on national policy matters, especially concerning federalism issues. These statements, made on behalf of the entire membership, tended to downplay disagreement within the party. In short, the RGA was truly a partisan organization, one that brought the party’s governors greater conversation regarding national partisan politics, both inside and outside NGA meetings. While disagreements with national party elites did become manifest, the goal of the RGA remained to bring the governors into alignment with other party elites. The goal was coordination.
The end of the 1970s was an important time for the RGA. Leading into the 1980 census, the RNC more fully embraced the governors as partners in national party building efforts. The
RGA and the RNC partnered in efforts to win elections at the state and local-level. Along with these efforts, the RGA advocated for governors to be granted additional responsibilities within the party. Put simply, the RGA served as a jumping off point for governors to enter national
177 party affairs. du Pont in particular contributed to party building efforts, especially through his leadership in GOPAC and the Concord Conferences.
In the final analysis, the 1970s was a period of the institutionalization of the RGA and this pulled the Association’s membership further into national party politics. While partisan control of the White House altered the development of the RGA, pushing the governors to get on board with the president’s agenda, the trend toward greater involvement of governors in national partisan affairs in quite clear and the RGA continued to provide a venue through which the governors could bring their own electoral concerns and unique vantage point to national partisan elites.
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CHAPTER 5: REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS AS NATIONAL PROGRAMMATIC PARTISANS, 1981-2000
Between 1980 and 2000, the RGA continued to act as a venue for dialogue and coordination between national Republican leaders and the party’s governors. On an organizational level, the RGA adapted to changing electoral circumstances and the initiatives of national party officials in ways which promoted the notion that the Republican party was a unified team on which the party’s governors were important players. Republican presidents, in particular, became more invested in assisting the RGA in electing more Republican governors. In this way, Reagan and George H. W. Bush differed from Nixon’s relative neglect of, and personalistic approach towards, the organization. The bonds between Republican presidents and governors, from an organizational standpoint, were strengthened during these years.
The RGA contributed to a more nationally unified party through its role as a venue for conversation between the governors and the party’s national leadership on policy. To be sure, the governors and the party’s congressional leadership, and Republican presidents, were not always of one mind on policy matters. Reagan’s version of New Federalism, for instance, forced the party’s governors to grapple with the national party’s message on domestic spending cuts and the potential effects such policies could have on state budgets. Ultimately, the RGA provided a means of fostering comradery on the national party’s message. Reagan’s federalism agenda and
Bush’s education initiatives relied on the party’s governors and ensured critical roles for state- level officials in national policy debates. In this way, federalism provided a means through which
Reagan and Bush, like Johnson and Nixon before them, could advance their agendas and the effect of this strategy elevated the standing of Republican governors within the party. Moving policy and administrative decisions to the states allowed GOP governors to develop conservative policy alternatives to the New Deal order, promoting the notion that the party had different and
179 viable programs to deal with a host of policy issues. To be sure, Reagan’s ambitious plans to devolve authority to the states largely failed. However, federalism continued to structure
Republican discourse over the size and scope of government and, as an institutional arrangement, it allowed for individual governors to espouse leadership that could be sold through the RGA.
By the Republican Revolution of 1994, the role of Republican governors and the RGA in crafting the national party’s program reached a zenith. GOP governors played critical roles in developing national party policy on welfare in collaboration with the Republican controlled
Congress; they became central players in critiquing the Clinton administration’s agenda, especially on healthcare; and they cemented their place as national programmatic partisans.
Conservative activism at the state-level provided the new Republican Congress with policy alternatives to those coming from the Clinton White House. The governors, thus, offered the party a means of challenging the Democratic Party’s traditional dominance on issues such as education in the minds of voters. They could use their unique places within state government to develop policy alternatives and then to act as programmatic partisans on the national stage.
Patterns that emerged during the 1960s and 1970s were repeated and extended in the following decades. The conditions present denoting national gubernatorial activism were vividly in place during the 1980s and the 1990s: an emboldened and aspirational class of GOP governors, room for involvement in questions concerning intergovernmental relations, and, particularly during the George H. W. Bush administration, questions over the relationship between electoral outcomes at the national and state-levels. The fact that the RGA was institutionalized and continued to provide the governors a voice distinct from that of the non- partisan NGA proved instrumental in developing a stronger relationship between the governors and national party officials.
180
In terms of effects, the RGA continued to develop on an organizational level. The
Association advanced a more unified national message and the standing of the party’s governors within the party reached new heights. Leading into the 2000 election, the RGA’s influence within presidential politics peaked. The nomination of George W. Bush brought a new form of
“compassionate” conservative activism, nurtured in the governors’ mansions, around which the party’s governors rallied.372 At the dawn of the 21st century, the historical development of the
RGA culminated in a Republican party that valued a form of decentralization but, nevertheless, programmatic politics. These features are summarized in Tables 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3 which cover the time periods of the three presidential administrations discussed during this chapter.
Table 5.1 GOP Conditions and Effects Present, 1981-1988
Conditions Effects
Strong Governors Increased Participation by Governors in National Partisan Discourse, Party as • Sununu, Thompson Organization
Intergovernmental Relations • Presidential participation in RGA meetings • New Federalism • Integrating the 1984 presidential • Domestic spending cuts campaign
Programmatic Party Politics New Resources Available to Governors
• The Republican Party moves Right • Reagan fundraising efforts
Gubernatorial Influence on Party Program, Brand
• Reagan Stage II
Reagan and the Governors: National Roots of State-Level Conservative Activism
372 This was perhaps strongest instance of the “Party Decides” model proposed by Cohen et al. in The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform. 181
Reagan’s election brought the first Republican president to have served as governor since
Calvin Coolidge. Reagan had been active in the RGA and served as the organization’s chair in the late 1960s at the beginning of the Nixon administration. As Milkis notes, “loyalty to party had actually long been characteristics of Reagan.”373 This was true concerning the relationship between Reagan and the governors. He made much of his experience as governor in his interactions with the RGA throughout the course of his presidency. He drew from his party’s gubernatorial ranks in critical positions within his cabinet dealing with domestic policy, appointing South Carolina Governor James Edwards as Secretary of Energy and onetime RGA
Chairman Otis Bowen as Secretary of Health and Human Services. He also became a key partner of the RGA in party-building efforts, especially in terms of the organization’s fundraising.
The conservative stalwart did not always see eye-to-eye with other governors within the party, several of whom were members of the GOP’s more moderate wing. Reagan’s New
Federalism provided an agenda which the party’s governors often supported as a general principle but not always in terms of details, again mirroring patterns emergent during the Nixon administration. Yet, disagreement regarding details was allowed, to an extent, under New
Federalism. Reagan’s attempt to undermine the liberal state offered the opportunity for experimentation at the state-level. By and large, the RGA served as a venue through which
Reagan, and later Bush, sought collaboration with their party’s governors and brought them on board with their agendas. Ultimately, New Federalism and Reagan’s investment in his party’s governors provided the groundwork for a new form of conservative activism in the states and a robust partnership between the Republican president and his party’s state executives.
373 Milkis, Sidney M. 1993. The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System Since the New Deal. New York: Oxford University Press. 267. 182
A Republican Program Across Levels of Government: New Federalism and Executive
Leadership
Like Nixon, Reagan’s domestic policy agenda rested on critiques of Great Society era programs. However, whereas Nixon’s New Federalism increased spending on programs such as welfare, environmental preservation, and healthcare, “Reagan’s New Federalism policies were an expression of a broader philosophical attack on the modern welfare state.”374 In his first inaugural address, Reagan noted his “intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the
Federal government and those reserved to the states and the people.”375 Reagan, at the beginning of his address, referred to the country as “these” rather than “the” United States. Further, Reagan argued that “It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the Federal
Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government.”376
In short, while Nixon’s New Federalism emphasized partnership between the levels of government and, thus, joint involvement in the development of public policies, Reagan’s program emphasized drawing sharper distinctions between federal and state and local roles in the provision of domestic services. As Reagan noted in a telephone conversation with the party’s governors during the 1981 RGA conference in New Orleans: “My dream is that we can return more authority, more autonomy and responsibility to you at the State level and, at the same time, turn back to you tax sources that have been preempted by the Federal Government and which
374 Conlan, Timothy. 1988. New Federalism. 113. 375 Quoted in Conlan, Timothy. 1988. New Federalism. 97. 376 Reagan, Ronald. 20 January, 1981. “Inaugural Address.” The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.
Great Society order.
The shifting priorities of New Federalism promoted new concerns over the development and implementation of policies. As noted by Hill, “New Federalism proposals were never accepted by Congress; many politicians, including the state governors, were suspicious of what was seen as devolved powers accompanied by substantially reduced federal funding. The
National Governors Association concluded that the budget proposals would mean a ‘substantial cutback on the federal involvement in intergovernmental domestic programs in both the near and the long term.’”378 Through the Omnibus Budget and Reconciliation Act of 1981, for instance,
Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Food Stamps, and Medicaid were among the programs singled out for cuts. These programs all involved state-level funding and implementation and were, thus, of the utmost concern for the party’s governors. General revenue sharing, perhaps the most state-friendly program emerging under Nixon’s New Federalism initiatives, was eliminated under Reagan. Additionally, some of Reagan’s proposals included firm government mandates, such as tying highway funding going to the states to raising the drinking age from eighteen to twenty-one. In sum, Reagan’s federalism initiatives were deeply tied to a national conservative programmatic agenda, one which built off of but exceeded that envisioned by Nixon.
377 “Remarks by Telephone to the Republican Governors’ Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.” November 23, 1981. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. 378 Hill, Dilys M. 1990. “Domestic Policy in an Era of ‘Negative’ Government.” 171. In The Reagan Presidency: An Incomplete Revolution?” Hill, Dilys M., Raymond A Moore and Phil Williams Eds. Baskingstoke: MacMillan. 184
Yet, at the first RGA meeting after Reagan’s election, the RGA unanimously passed a resolution endorsing Reagan’s federalism agenda “even if they were not quite certain of just what it is.”379 To be sure, there was disagreement over specifics of the president’s agenda. One issue that exemplified this tension early in Reagan’s tenure concerned welfare reform. Reagan’s initial proposal, built in large part on a plan he enacted as California Governor in 1971 and mirroring some of Nixon’s proposals, called on the states to take over the program, in terms of both funding and implementation. This proposal went against the expressed wishes of the
Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, on which Reagan had served during his time as California governor.380 Welfare was “one program that many officials believe ought to be the full responsibility of the national government.”381 Governor Thompson of Illinois also professed this view toward Medicaid.382
Grants-in-aid was another issue of contention between the nation’s governors and the president. Democratic Georgia Governor Busbee, addressing the 1981 NGA meeting as chairman, noted that “we should serve notice that we will oppose block grants for AFDC [Aid for Families with Dependent Children] and for Medicaid as we oppose the national defense block grant or foreign policy block grant.”383 However, the Republican governors gave early backing to the president’s block grants proposals. At the 1981 RGA meeting in New Orleans, the
Association passed a resolution supporting the President’s first veto which was used to pressure
379 Margolis, Jon. 19 November 1980. “Nation: GOP governors endorse federalism, urge parlays.” The Chicago Tribune. 8. 380 Reagan established his own committees on federalism, the Presidential Advisory Commission on Federalism and the Coordinating Task Force on Federalism, both of which were chaired by conservative Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt. 381 Herbers, John. 16 November 1980. “Governors Press for New State Powers.” The New York Times. 36. 382 Margolis, Jon. 19 November 1980. “Nation: GOP governors endorse federalism, urge parlays.” The Chicago Tribune. 8. 383 Proceedings of the National Governors’ Association Annual Meeting. Seventy-Third Annual Meeting. Atlantic City, New Jersey. 9-11 August 1981. 185
Congress toward additional cuts to domestic spending programs. In remarks delivered by telephone to the RGA, Reagan vowed continued support for block grants, noting that “I'm not going to give up the fight for the block grants, for getting to you more flexibility in spending the money that comes from the national level. And we'll do this while we work and continue to work to get to that point that we can turn actual tax sources over to you.”384
The cuts posed problems for the governors. Governor Dalton of Virginia, then the outgoing RGA chairman, voiced concern over cuts to grant programs and limitations on how the funds received could be spent based on congressional restrictions. Governors Atiyeh and
Thornburgh went as far as proposing that Reagan postpone tax cuts and use that money to shore up programs giving federal aid to the states.385 Governor Thompson argued that reduced domestic spending promoted a “weakening of” the nation’s economy, which could upset the balance of power between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.386
Most of the opposition to Reagan’s New Federalism and economic agendas came from the more moderate governors in the party and several of the concerns raised dealt with the implications of Reagan’s agenda on the party’s electoral standing. After the party lost seven gubernatorial seats in the 1982 midterm elections, several GOP governors, notably Thornburgh and Atiyeh, emphasized that Reagan’s economic policies were costing the party votes from blue- collar and minority communities, two groups that were often hurt by reductions to social welfare programs. Thornburgh pointed to his own diminished support among African Americans,
384 “Remarks by Telephone to the Republican Governors’ Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.” November 23, 1981. 2. 385 Broder, David S. 24 November 1981. “Reagan Gets Edgy Backing from GOP Governors.” The Washington Post. A3. 386 Clymer, Adam. 25 November 1981. “Weinberger Contends States Must Defer to Military Need: Security Needs Held Special.” The New York Times. A16. 186 particularly in Philadelphia area, though he ultimately won reelection that year.387 At an RGA meeting in Des Moines after Reagan’s landslide reelection, Thornburgh voiced concern over a proposed budget freeze and its implications for entitlement programs. Governor Branstad of
Iowa also expressed concern over a proposal eliminating tax exemptions for bonds related to industrial development.388 Again, these arguments mirrored those put forward a decade earlier by the likes of Rockefeller and Milliken.
Nevertheless, Reagan sold his federalism agenda to his party’s governors by emphasizing policies that promoted economic growth and, thus, eased the financial burdens placed on states that resulted from cuts in federal aid. Early in his first term, Reagan established a Presidential
Task Force on Regulatory Relief, chaired by Vice President Bush, that froze a number of pending federal regulations and sought the counsel of state and local officials. He also signed
Executive Order 12291 which placed new burdens on federal agencies that had rule-making capacities. Deputy Under Secretary for International Trade at the Department of Commerce Olin
Wethington noted Reagan proposals concerning export promotion at the state-level. Included in his remarks were proposals to improve data collection on trade at the state-level and increased federal-state consultation on financing mechanisms for state-international trade relations.389 At remarks given at an RGA fundraising dinner, Reagan argued that “it’s true that in the early days many of you faced difficulties as we cut back Federal financing of State affairs. And believe me I know what you were going through, because I've been there. But overall, these 3 and more years
387 Farney, Dennis. 17 November 1982. “GOP Governors: This is a Great Communicator?” Wall Street Journal. 30. 388 Balz, Dan and James R. Dickenson. 3 December 1984. “GOP Governors Support Budget Freeze: Bush Says Putting Pentagon Spending on Ice May Send Wrong ‘Signal’ to Soviets.” The Washington Post. A4. 389 Olin L. Wethington. Deputy Under Secretary for International Trade, US Department of Commerce. Remarks Before the Republican Governors Association. Des Moines, Iowa. December 4, 1984. Box H. C. 1. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 187 of economic expansion have put our States and cities alike in good economic shape. And in the large cities that demand special attention from so many of you, a recent study by the Urban
Institute concluded that budgets are by and large in good condition.”390
A second selling point concerned the innovations possible by the states under New
Federalism. The 1984 GOP platform noted that “The role of the federal government should be limited. We reaffirm our conviction that State and local governments closest to the people are the best and most efficient. While President Reagan has done much to alleviate federal regulatory and bureaucratic burdens on individuals and businesses, Congress has failed to act. The size and scope of the federal government remains much too large and must be reduced.”391 Leadership in achieving Reagan’s national agenda, thus, could be found in the states, in the hands of the governors. And, the party’s governors and Reagan could critique the Democratic House when
Congress did not go along with Reagan’s agenda.
Reagan Stage II and the Coupling of National Programmatic Conservative and State
Executive Leadership
After Reagan’s landslide victory in 1984, the president declared that he had been given a
“mandate” to pursue his conservative agenda. At the December 1984 RGA meeting in Des
Moines, Vice President Bush pushed Reagan’s proposed budget freeze, noting that “the president is as determined on this point as on anything I’ve ever seen him involved in.” He added that
Reagan “will appeal directly to the American people to seek their support” and “was given a mandate in 1984 and is determined to control the federal budget and get this deficit under
390 Ronald Reagan. “Remarks at the Republican Governors Association Dinner.” October 7, 1986. 391 Republican Party Platform of 1984. 20 August 1984. The American Presidency Project.
Deficit Control Act of 1985 and the subsequent Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control
Reaffirmation Act of 1987 which gave the administration the authority to make automatic budget cuts unless Congress acted, again putting political pressure on the Democratic House.
After the election, the RGA published a book, entitled Reagan Stage II, the State and
Local Revolution, that highlighted programs implemented by GOP governors ranging from
“workfare” in California to public-private partnerships on higher education research in
Pennsylvania to “minority opportunity” programs in New Jersey.394 The 1986 RGA meeting centered on the theme of the “Second Stage of the Revolution.” The RGA had issued a resolution in support of the President being granted the line-item veto at the 1983 conference in Chicago.395
In 1987, Reagan, speaking at an RGA fundraising dinner, applauded enterprise zones as a major
GOP policy innovation as well as the fact that, at that time, forty-three governors had the line- item veto.396
392 Balz, Dan and James R. Dickenson. 3 December 1984. “GOP Governors Support Budget Freeze: Bush Says Putting Pentagon Spending on Ice May Send Wrong ‘Signal’ to Soviets.” The Washington Post. A4. 393 394 Taylor, Paul. 29 December 1985. “Only the Center is Holding: As the Fringes Fray, Republicans Look Just Like Democrats.” The Washington Post. B5. 395 “Remarks by Telephone to the Annual Conference of the Republican Governors Association in Chicago Illinois.” November 15, 1983. 396 Ronald Reagan. “Remarks at the Republican Governors Club Annual Dinner.” October 15, 1987. 189
Reagan Stage II required bold state-level executive leadership, not necessarily through devolution of governing authority but in promotion of a more nationally conservative programmatic agenda. The case of the line-item veto, though supported by many Democratic governors at the time, illustrated an embrace of enhanced executive authority by the Republican
Party at the national and state-levels as a means of achieving fiscal responsibility and rejecting liberal spending policies. The line-item veto made it into the 1984 GOP platform, along with a broader critique of legislative budgeting: “The congressional budget process is bankrupt. Its implementation has not brought spending under control, and it must be thoroughly reformed.”397
In 1987, the RGA adopted a resolution proposed by New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, backing Reagan’s stance on federal budget negotiations, noting that: “We, as Republican
Governors, who within our own states have accepted the responsibility of balanced budgets and sound fiscal practices, are deeply concerned by the lack of effectiveness of the current process which has produced a package of federal spending which is based on borrowing for the future.”398 The governors, though risking federal funds coming into their state coffers, used the
RGA to back the president’s proposals, thus contributing to the branding of the party. In this way, the messaging coming from the RGA reflected the integration of the party through a recognition by the governors and the president of a common experience of being a chief executive.
The RGA also continued to serve as a venue for policy discussion between the administration and the governors outside of the broad confines of federalism. The White House
397 Republican Party Platform of 1984. 20 August 1984. The American Presidency Project.
Points papers leading into the 1988 presidential election, for instance, highlighted the passage of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, the Immigration Reform Act of 1986, the establishment of a Presidential Commission on AIDS and the ratification of the INF and START treaties.399
Continuing practices established during the Nixon administration, the president’s agenda was sold to the party’s governors who were expected to tout the administration’s policy goals on the campaign trail.
In the final analysis, Reagan’s New Federalism agenda was a mixed bag for the nation’s governors in terms of its policy implications but it helped to crystallize the party’s governors’ role in a more nationally programmatic party. Indeed, Reagan’s record on intergovernmental relations was decidedly mixed. General revenue sharing was, again, eliminated in 1986. Changes to grants-in-aid, while arguably giving the states more leeway in terms of spending policy, were used by the administration as a means of “defunding” left-leaning interests. As Conlan notes,
“Block grants were intended to force interest groups to focus their activities away from
Washington and thus move the center of policy decision-making to new and presumably unfamiliar terrain at the state and local levels.”400 Perhaps Reagan’s grandest proposal on intergovernmental relations, placing welfare and food stamps firmly in the hands of the states in exchange for a federal takeover of Medicaid, failed. Ultimately, the national executive set the broad contours of the national program with governors able to offer suggestions on policy specifics. Nevertheless, the RGA provided a venue for state-level policies to be highlighted and promoted for adoption across state lines and at the national-level.
399 “White House Talking Points. President Reagan: A Legacy of Accomplishment.” August 24, 1988. Box H. C. 1. Folder 15. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 400 Conlan, Timothy. 1988. New Federalism. 159. 191
Further, RGA policy statements largely supported the president’s initiatives, particularly in terms of the broad principles underlying the proposals. Disagreement was sometimes voiced, especially by more moderate governors, at these meetings, but these disagreements largely centered on the details of policy rather than the guiding principles of these initiatives. By the end of Reagan’s term, “the job of governor has grown, broadened and diversified, and a number of factors – not least the Reagan-era disengagement of the federal government from many domestic programs – has brought the resurgence to full power.”401 The implementation of New Federalism decentralized administrative authority in an increasingly nationalized party system, providing opportunities for a more partisan form of gubernatorial leadership.
To be sure, the Republican governors during this period did not help Reagan achieve a reconstitution of American federalism. Rather, the governors, often through the RGA, assisted
Reagan and a more programmatic form of national conservatism by backing Reagan’s use of federalism rhetoric in his critiques of the national administrative state. Further, where Reagan was able to devolve power to the states, conservative governors were able to experiment with conservative policy alternatives, including enterprise zones. In this way, New Federalism allowed for a coupling of partisanship and state autonomy.
Party Affairs: Investing in the Governors
The RGA, the RNC and Direct Investment by Reagan
At the organizational level, Reagan built on the successes of Chairman Bill Brock during the 1970s. While the President delegated decisions over “nuts and bolts” to his political team, he lent himself to numerous and far-reaching party-building efforts.402 Reagan participated in
401 Stevens, William K. 22 March 1988. “Governors Are Emerging as a New Political Elite.” The New York Times. A16. 402 See Galvin, Daniel J. 2010. Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 120-42. 192 numerous fundraising events for the party, particularly in his second term.403 The RNC under the leadership of Frank Fahrenkoph invested heavily in county party organizations, began a coordinated outreach effort to evangelical voters and Operation Open Door, which sought to persuade Democrats to switch parties in Louisiana, North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania. As
Doherty notes, “Reagan’s patterns of party-building belie the notion that presidents elected under the plebiscitary nominating system will be party predators who have weak ties to their parties.”404
The RGA benefited directly from the president’s party-building efforts. Certainly, the relationship between Reagan and the governors was much tighter and rather more congenial than that between the governors and Nixon. For instance, Reagan became the first Republican president to regularly speak with the Republican governors directly during RGA meetings. In the
1982 midterm season, despite Thornburgh and Atiyeh espousing the view that Reagan’s policies were costing gubernatorial candidates votes, these criticisms fell short of accusing the president of neglecting the party’s candidates on the campaign trail (see Figure 5.1 for the balance of power in the states in 1984). Then RGA Chairman Jim Thompson “said Reagan has done whatever the Republican Governors Association had asked him to do in an effort to hold GOP governorships.”405 This included twelve first-term fundraisers for gubernatorial candidates and twenty-nine on behalf of state parties.406
Reagan regularly spoke at RGA fundraising dinners and his engagement proved to be a boon for the organization. The president’s presence offered the members of the RGA’s corporate
403 Doherty, Brendan. J. 2012. The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. 22. 404 Ibid. 62. 405 Neal, Steve. 10 October 1982. “Politics: GOP girds for loss of 5 governorships.” Chicago Tribune. 6. 406 Doherty, Brendan. J. 2012. The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign. 57. 193 donors’ “club” access not just to the governors but to the President as well. Additionally, under the leadership of Governor Moore, the RGA launched a new fundraising initiative building on
RNC successes with mail fundraising. The proposal asked for the President and Vice President to sign fundraising letters on the organization’s behalf. This was seen as a way of increasing the organization’s fundraising capacities.407 The president’s and vice-president’s signatures were thought to carry greater weight in fundraising appeals than any individual governor.
Enhanced fundraising efforts did, however, lead to inter-partisan bickering at times, establishing precursors to the heightened partisanship seen in the post-2000 period. The RGA’s fundraising efforts nearly caused the cancellation of an NGA meeting in 1985. The RGA had sent out a fundraising letter, bearing Reagan’s signature, attacking Democratic governors for having raised taxes. Democratic officials called for the RGA to rescind the letter, noting that a number of Republicans were also guilty of increasing taxes. Members of the RGA and the DGA met and the RGA’s leadership agreed to rescind the letter allowing the NGA meeting to go on.
Party Integration, the 1984 Campaign and Reagan’s Second Term
The RGA also acted as a site for integrating the governors and the state parties into the president’s reelection bid. Leading into 1984, Reagan and his advisors sought to get the party’s governors involved and invested in the president’s reelection campaign. At the 1983 RGA conference in Chicago, RNC Chairman Fahrenkopf, Ed Rollins and Richard Wirthlin held private meetings with several governors in order to promote coordination between governors, state parties, and the president’s reelection campaign. Thornburgh and Thompson, for their parts, were successful in their quest to chair the Reagan campaign organization within their states.408
407 RGA Finance Report. Box H. C. 1. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 408 Neal, Steve. 14 November 1983. “GOP governors few, hopeful.” Chicago Tribune. A1. 194
Campbell again chaired his state’s efforts on behalf of the president. This reflected the transition from Nixon’s more “predatory” approach to the party to Reagan’s emphasis on party building.
Reagan’s emphasis on party building and coordination was paralleled by the RGA.
During the 1984 Des Moines RGA Conference, for instance, state party chairmen were invited to participate in a closed session. Additionally, panel discussions on grassroots programs were held.409 This move signified that RGA meetings were about more than coordination among the party’s governors. They were opportunities to strengthen the ties of the national and state party organizations.
The governors’ role in the 1984 convention also built on the efforts of the RGA in the
1960s and 1970s. Governor, and future Senator, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee noted surprise
“that some of the Republican governors are not more prominently featured [at the RNC].”410
However, governors did have prominent spots at the convention that reflected the convention’s
409 Iowa 84. Republican Governors Association Conference. Des Moines, Iowa. December 2-4, 1984. Program. Box H. C. 1. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 410 Roberts, Steven V. 23 August 1984. “Some Republican Governors Fear Reagan Is Ignoring Them.” The New York Times. A24. 195 transformation from a venue for selecting presidents to a media event. Thompson and California
Governor George Deukmejian were given prime-time speaking slots. Additionally, Terry
Branstad of Iowa served as chairman of the rules committee.
The 1984 RNC was the first convention which did not see a true primary contest in decades. Reagan’s nomination was assured and, despite some grumblings from the governors that the administration had caught “Potomac fever,” the convention was centered on Reagan from beginning to end. Indeed, the governors did not place anywhere near as much emphasis on influencing the direction of the party platform, which expressed a decidedly conservative message that year, as they had in the past. What the governors sought to ensure was that it provided a means of making the governors more familiar to the viewing audience. The goal was to maintain unity and build upon Reagan’s rhetorical prowess and personal popularity, two assets that were seen as potentially having positive down-ballot effects. The 1984 elections saw the
GOP net one additional governorship. The RGA contributed over $160,000 to seven candidates that year.411 The groundswell of support for Reagan may not have lifted all GOP boats but his party building activities helped to offset the concerns of party predation that had brought Nixon and the governors into conflict after the 1972 contest and later the Watergate scandal.
The partnership between Reagan and the governors through the RGA continued into the president’s second term. The RGA held an event during Reagan’s second inaugural celebration.412 Later than year, the RGA put together brochures outlining initiatives undertaken by the governors that could be used to further campaigns leading into the 1986 midterms, during
411 RGA Activity 1984. Year End Report. Box H. C. 1. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 412 Announcement. Inauguration Activities. January 18, 1985. Box H. C. 1. Folder 12. Governor Arch A. Moore Jr. Papers. A&M 2862. West Virginia and Regional History Center. West Virginia University Libraries. Morgantown, West Virginia. 196 which Democrats defended twenty-seven seats.413 The 1986 midterms brought a net gain of eight statehouses for the GOP. Republican pickups were particularly strong in the South. H. Guy Hunt succeeded George Wallace in Alabama, the first Republican to serve as the state’s governor since Reconstruction. Carroll Campbell was elected in South Carolina and Bill Clements defeated incumbent Mark White in Texas. By 1988, Campbell boasted that “The Democratic bastions in the South are crumbling.”414Additionally, Tommy Thompson was elected in
Wisconsin. Campbell and Thompson in particular became proponents of programmatic conservatism. The 1986 midterms marked, at 24, the most gubernatorial seats held by the party since 1970.415
In sum, Reagan’s party building efforts and his federalism agenda promoted a new form of national conservative activism, one in which Republican governors were critical agents and contributors. As Milkis notes, “Reagan’s firm adherence to conservative principles contributed significantly to the emergence of a new kind of Republican party, one more national and programmatic in its orientation than the traditional GOP.”416 Though Reagan did not achieve a partisan realignment of the magnitude of the New Deal, the conservative stalwart fostered a new relationship between executive power and conservative programmatic governance, and
Republican governors were part of this endeavor. Given Democratic control of Congress, especially the House of Representatives, Reagan’s ability to achieve a more fundamental transformation of the national state required a degree of devolution of governing authority to the
413 Broder, Davis. 10 December 1985. “Virginia Race Seen as Omen for the GOP: GOP Governors Warned to Beware of Conservative Democrats in 1986. The Washington Post. A1. 414 Remarks by Governor Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Southern Republican Leadership Conference. New Orleans, LA. February 13, 1988. Box 3. Folder. Campbell, Speeches, 1988. Feb., f. 1 of 2. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Papers. South Carolina Political Collections. Ernest F. Hollings Library. University of South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina. 415 The party did however lose control of the Senate. 416 Milkis, Sidney M. 1993. The President and the Parties. 262. 197 states, and unilateral actions on the part of executives. Governors became critical agents in promoting the new programmatic conservative agenda. The governors’ role in national politics, thus, became critical not just for their role in state-level politics, but for national partisan politics.
George H. W. Bush, Republican Governors and Intergovernmental Conservatism
Preserving the Reagan Agenda: Governors in the 1988 Republican Presidential Contest
Like all presidents, Reagan’s approval rating fluctuated tremendously over the course of his presidency. After the 1986 midterms, Reagan’s approval rating fell as revelations of the administration’s role in the Iran Contra scandal captured the nation’s attention. The governors at an RGA meeting in New Jersey, hosted by new chairman Governor Kean, who some were speculating could launch a presidential bid in 1988, offered backing for the president despite
Table 5.2 GOP Conditions and Effects Present, 1989-1992
Conditions Effects
Strong Governors Increased Participation by Governors in National Partisan Discourse, Party as • Thompson, Sununu, du Pont, Orr Organization • Conservative state-level policy innovation • Critiques of Dukakis, Clinton • Selling Bush’s Education Agenda Intergovernmental Relations • RNC Coordination – Operation Switch, Redistricting • “Kinder, Gentler” Federalism New Resources Available to Governors Programmatic Party Politics • Bush fundraising efforts • Reagan’s popularity endures Gubernatorial Influence on Party Program, Brand
• Line-item veto supported • Education reemerges as a national issue
198 several governors calling for some presidential advisers to be fired.417 However, the Iran Contra scandal did not affect the party’s status in the same way as Watergate had a decade earlier. In fact, Reagan’s approval rating rebounded in the leadup to the 1988 elections and his personal popularity remained solid throughout this period.418 The party, including the governors, did not have to run away from the president as it did after Nixon, who met with the governors at the parley (see Figure 5.2 for the balance of power in the states in 1988).
RGA meetings during the second half of Reagan’s term continued to receive attention for perceived presidential jockeying. At a 1985 RGA conference in Delaware, Pete du Pont held a meeting with several Republican state committee chairmen. du Pont had, as noted previously, contributed to national GOP organization building through the founding of GOPAC, which had been very active in 1984 races.419 The Delaware governor entered the presidential race early but
417 Peterson, Bill. 8 December 1986. “GOP Governors Gather Under a Cloud: Reagan Is Urged to Act Fast for the Good of the Party.” The Washington Post. A25. 418 Newport, Frank, Jeffrey M. Jones and Lydia Saad. 7 June 2004. “Ronald Reagan From the People’s Perspective: A Gallup Poll Review.” Gallup.
Security, a proposal that continues to receive support within GOP circles. He also boasted a record of tax cuts and pro-business policies in his state as well as being the chairman of the
Education Commission of the States. His record reflected issues that became critical to the
Republican program during the next decade. Additionally, Bush modeled his own political action committee in part on GOPAC.
Bush had, as the then Vice President, an “inside” track to the nomination. Bush gained early support from political operatives within, or with deep ties to, the White House. Lee
Atwater, for instance, became the director of Bush’s political action committee.420 He had been active on the party fundraising circuit as Vice President and had deep ties to the party regulars as a former RNC chairman. Bush used RGA meetings to build his support among the party’s governors. By the 1987 RGA meeting in Santa Fe, Bush boasted more gubernatorial endorsements than any other candidate. In particular, Bush had won support from New
Hampshire Governor John Sununu, Florida’s Bob Martinez and Illinois’ Thompson. Dole, then the Senate Minority Leader and a former Vice-Presidential candidate, had just two gubernatorial endorsements at that point. Congressman Jack Kemp, a favorite of conservatives, had yet to receive any.421 du Pont received only the backing of new Delaware Governor Mike Castle.
Bush, as Cohen at al. note, “had long since abandoned the moderate positions on taxes and social issues that had been the basis of his 1980 campaign in the invisible primary, becoming a consistent supporter of a stronger form of conservatism that triumphed in the Republican Party
420 See Cohen, Marty, David Karol, Hans Noel and John Zaller. 2008. The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform. 208-12. 421 Coates, James. 23 November 1987. “GOP Governors Bask in New Power for Presidential Campaign.” Chicago Tribune. 8. 200 in the 1980s.”422 Noticeable in Bush’s perceived rightward shift was the importance of the executive branch in dealing with fiscal issues. For instance, while the federal deficit exploded under Reagans tenure, the 1988 party platform called for an expansion of presidential authority on the budget: “No president can cause deficits; Congress votes to spend money. The American people must prevent big-spending congressional Democrats from bringing back big budget deficits; we must return both the Senate and the House of Representatives to Republican control for the first time in 36 years.”423 Among the provisions called for in the platform were the enactment of a line-item veto, a two-year budget cycle and the need for a supermajority to enact tax increases. The solution to the deficit, thus, was a stronger executive and a more constrained legislative branch.
On this front, state-level executive action became a critical part of the national
Republican party’s message. In a speech in South Carolina, Bush noted the success of Governor
Campbell’s line-item vetoes and the state’s constitutional requirement of a balanced budget. He noted, “As incredible as it seems, the president of the United States does not have the line item veto authority that the governor of South Carolina has. That’s a major reason why we have those huge deficits in Washington: Congress simply does not have the discipline to control its spending appetite and the president does not have the power to surgically remove that which Congress refuses to remove itself.”424
Several governors who were active in the RGA received key speaking slots at the
Convention in New Orleans. Republican governors’ successes were used in Bush’s campaign
422 Cohen, et al. 2008. The Party Decides. 210. 423 Republican Party Platform of 1988. 16 August 1988. The American Presidency Project. < https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1988>. 424 Remarks by Vice President George Bush. 2 March 1988. Box 15. Folder. Campbell, Topical, Republican Party, Presidential Campaigns, 1988. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Papers. South Carolina Political Collections. Ernest F. Hollings Library. University of South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina. 201 messaging as a means of drawing a contrast with the Democratic nominee, Governor Michael
Dukakis. Campbell gave a speech highlighting the success of Reagan’s economic policies, particular declines in unemployment and inflation. Campbell also attacked Dukakis for increasing spending and taxes.425 Governor Kean, in the keynote address, noted that Republican governors had been providing an alternative by “leading a revolution in American education” and through implementation of urban enterprise zones.426
Building on a practice started by the RGA, the RNC conducted public hearings across the country regarding the 1988 Republican platform. Governor Kay Orr of Nebraska served as chair of the Committee on Resolutions and led hearings in Washington D. C., Kansas City, Los
Angeles and New Orleans.427 Orr, the first woman elected governor as a Republican, reinforced the idea that the Republican Party would move forward seeking to continue the Reagan legacy.
She noted that the 1984 platform provided “a good, strong foundation” for the party and that the
1988 platform was meant to advance the Reagan Revolution.428
Republican Governors and the George H. W. Bush Domestic Agenda
Bush’s tenure as President largely continued Reagan’s cordial relationship with his party’s governors. In truth, the president’s standing with the GOP governors was often better than that with an increasingly conservative Republican congressional caucus who remained in the minority. In the immediate aftermath of the election, President-elect Bush announced that
Governor Sununu would serve as his chief of staff and Thornburgh would continue to serve as
425 Remarks by Governor Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Republican National Convention. August 1988. Box 4. Folder: Campbell, Speeches, 1988. Aug., f. 1 of 2. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Papers. South Carolina Political Collections. Ernest F. Hollings Library. University of South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina. 426 Kean, Tom. 16 August 1988. “‘America’s New Freedoms:’ The Republican Party After Reagan.” Keynote Address. 427 Newsletter. 1988 Republican Platform Hearings Set. 19 February 1988. Box 15. Folder: Campbell, Topical, Republican Governors Assoc. (RGA), “1988 RGA Notebook.” 1988. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Papers. South Carolina Political Collections. Ernest F. Hollings Library. University of South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina. 428 Toner, Robin. 8 August 1988. “Republicans Seeking Broad Platform.” The New York Times. B6. 202
Attorney General. Bush also spoke directly to the governors at the first RGA event held after the election in Point Clear, Alabama. At that meeting he repeated his ill-fated campaign pledge to not raise taxes in order to reduce the federal deficit.429
Ultimately, this pledge was violated, causing angst among congressional Republicans.
This was not quite as true among the governors. The president was wary of isolating his party’s governors through increasing the responsibilities of the states without providing requisite funds.
The nation’s governors, as Beyle puts it, found themselves in “hard times” due to recession, declining state tax revenues, and increasingly burdensome federal mandates.430 At the 1991 RGA meeting in Pinehurst, Vice President Quayle held a closed-door session with the governors, during which some urged the administration to be cautious is making “Sherman-esque” statements about taxes.”431 Speaking as RGA Chairman, Campbell pitted blame on the
Democratic Congress while noting that the President recognized the power of the states and the responsibilities of the governors in managing state budget crises.432 The party’s governors had qualms about policies coming from Washington but recognized the burdens of executive leadership, and had a Democratic Congress toward which to cast blame.
Bush’s domestic agenda included reforms dealing with crime, education, and the environment, three policy areas that states have traditionally played a major role. Bush announced proposals to expand prison cell capacity and a new initiative to protect wetlands, which received strong support from Kean and Campbell. Additionally, Bush committed himself
429 Kilborn, Peter T. 23 November 1988. “Bush Vows Talks on His First Day to Cut the Deficit.” The New York Times. A1. 430 Beyle, Thad. 1992. Governors and Hard Times. Washington D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, Inc. 431 Smothers, Ronald. 12 December 1990. “Wary G.O.P. Governors Discuss Taxes.” The New York Times. B9. 432 Remarks by Governor Carroll A. Campbell Jr. RGA Annual Meeting – Opening Session. December 9, 1991. Box 7. Campbell, Speeches, 1991. Dec. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Papers. South Carolina Political Collections. Ernest F. Hollings Library. University of South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina. 203 as the “education president,” promising to use his “presidency as a ‘bully pulpit’ to make education the priority it deserves to be.”433
The renewed emphasis on national education reform rested in part on critiques of federal policies begun during the Great Society era. As Vinovskis notes, “The high expectations for federal compensatory education programs such as Head Start and Title I of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA) were not achieved.”434 President Carter expanded the federal government’s role in education by establishing the Department of Education in 1979. Carter’s severing of Education from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare was met with opposition from conservatives. Reagan had called for the elimination of the Department in his
1980 presidential campaign. Though he was not successful in this endeavor, the Department’s budget and staffing were cut considerably under OBRA.
By the mid-1980s, the debate over the federal role of education had shifted. The National
Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE) issued a report A National at Risk: The
Imperative for Education Reform in 1985 that emphasized the connection between education and global economic competitiveness. The commission, in an open letter, argued that “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems that helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an
433 Edsall, Thomas B. 23 November 1988. “Bush Seeks a Mandate for Domestic Initiative.” The Washington Post. A4. 434 Vinovskis, Maris A. 1999. The Road to Charlottesville: The 1989 Education Summit. 3. 204 act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.”435 In sum, the education issue was tied to national security concerns, issues on which the Republican party sought to show strength as it had under Eisenhower in the 1950s.
Bush met with the nation’s governors at a December 1988 meeting of the NGA. In a departure from the GOP platform, Bush agreed to work with the NGA and other organizations to develop a set of national objectives. A follow-up meeting was held between Bush and a contingent of governors on May 16, 1989 during which plans for a national education summit were advanced. At the Charlottesville Summit, the president and the governors agreed on six goals, including increasing the high school graduation rate to 90 percent, instituting student performance assessment, and making US students “first in the world” in math and science.
President Bush announced these objectives in his 1990 State of the Union Address.436
The call for education reforms offered governors a political opportunity. Chief of Staff
Sununu “agreed that the President should meet with the governors. It would be only the third time that a president had met with the nation’s governors and was seen as a way of enhancing
Bush as an educational leader. Sununu also favored the meeting because it would bypass
Congress and focus attention on the states, where most of the educational reforms already were occurring.”437 Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and House Majority Leader Richard
Gephardt, aware of the president’s attempt to circumvent Congress, announced their own set of goals just days before the summit in Charlottesville.
435 National Commission on Excellence in Education. 1983. A Nation at Risk: The Imperative of Educational Reform. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 5. 436 Bush, George H. W. 31 January 1990. Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on the State of the Union.
Republican governors, including those newly elected in the South, stood to benefit from renewed national attention on education. In part, this rested on the South’s lagging performance relative to the rest of the country. State-level spending on education in the region had lagged behind the rest of the nation, and until the mid-1980s this could not be attributable to Republican governance. Some Democratic governors, including Clinton and South Carolina Governor
Richard Riley, who went on to be Clinton’s Secretary of Education, were particularly active in advancing education reform, both within their respective states and in promoting education as a national issue. Campbell, on the Republican side, played a major role in the summit. He co- chaired the NGA’s education task force. He also held an education summit in his home state, as did Castle in Delaware.438
In the aftermath of the Charlottesville Summit, the RGA moved to promote Republican governors’ achievements in education. An RGA publication in 1991, “Innovative Solutions for
America,” emphasized the issue. The pamphlet featured essays by Alabama Governor Guy Hunt, the first GOP governor of the State since Reconstruction, Castle, Jim Edgar of Illinois, John
McKernan of Maine, John Ashcroft of Missouri and Norm Bangerter of Utah.439 In sum,
Republican governors helped to shift national Republican orthodoxy regarding education during the Bush presidency, foreshadowing George W. Bush’s emphasis on education during his first term a decade later. While the conservative wing of the party remained skeptical, and sometimes outright hostile, to the development of national education standards, Bush found allies on the issue among his party’s governors who could boast policy innovations at the state-level. He
438 Broder, David. 20 September 1989. “President Bush’s ‘education summit’ holds real promise.” Chicago Tribune. 15. 439 Innovative Solutions for America. December 1991. Box 15. Campbell, Topical, RGA, “Innovative Solutions for America, Dec. 1991 (Campbell as Chair). Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Papers. South Carolina Political Collections. Ernest F. Hollings Library. University of South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina. 206 appointed former governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who had also served as president of the University of Tennessee, as his Education Secretary in 1991.
Hugh Heclo notes that “for four years, President Bush governed in a traditionally conservative manner but failed to live up to the standard demanded by the new form of conservatism” that had been on the rise since the 1960s.440 Yet, Bush’s partnership with
Republican governors did contribute to a new programmatic Republican vision. By elevating education as a national issue while pursuing a partnership with the states, Bush provided a space for the Republican party to build a reputation regarding the education issue. Republican governors were given an opportunity to help craft a national Republican program on the issue.
Bush, the Governors and Party Building
Bush expanded on Reagan’s organizational investments in his party’s governors. Bush held more fundraisers for party organizations and candidates than did Carter or Reagan. Almost half of Bush’s fundraising events benefited governors and state parties. During the 1990 midterms, fifty of the sixty-nine fundraisers Bush held benefited these groups.441 Bush invested heavily in California, where Republican Governor Pete Wilson was running for reelection and where the 1990 redistricting efforts proved vital to building a Republican congressional majority.
Redistricting in 1990 became a chief concern for the president, whose party controlled a minority of governorships and state legislative chambers and continued to be in a perpetual minority in Congress. In addition to record breaking fundraising, Bush’s RNC invested heavily in candidate recruitment, campaign training seminars and new data analysis programs.442 The
RNC also instituted “Operation Switch” to woo Democratic elected officials to switch parties.
440 Heclo, Hugh. 2014. “George Bush and American Conservatism.” In Nelson, Michael and Barbara A. Perry. Eds. 41: Inside the Presidency of George H. W. Bush. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 48. 441 Doherty, Brendan. J. 2012. The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign. 64. 442 See Galvin, Daniel. Presidential Party Building. 144-9. 207
The program had some success. One of the most high-profile converts was Louisiana Governor
Buddy Roemer. Roemer’s switch in 1991 continued a longstanding trend, discussed previously, of Southern Democrats abandoning their party. Operation Switch is also notable because it shifted the emphasis Nixon placed on converting voters to converting elected officials directly.
Governors and gubernatorial candidates stood to benefit from these moves in terms of the resources being made available by national partisan elites.
1992: Gubernatorial Records as a Counter to Clinton
Bush’s partnership with GOP governors and the emergence of a more programmatic conservatism at the state-level allowed several of the party’s governors to serve as capable spokesmen for the Bush reelection campaign in 1992 (see Figure 5.3 for the balance of power in the states in 1992). Campbell and Ashcroft, both of whom had served as RGA chairmen, attacked Clinton’s record as governor. Both governors were on hand at a press conference in
New York City just days before the Democratic National Convention was to take place at
Madison Square Garden. Campbell noted that “Governor Clinton’s economic plan is a recipe for failure and the ingredients called for are very unhealthy – taxes, taxes, and more taxes.”443
Talking points memos circulated through the RGA highlighted Clinton’s 128 tax increases during his tenure as Arkansas governor.444 They also labeled Clinton as “all bark and no bite” on crime, an issue that was increasingly in the national spotlight.445 Bush was able to use his party’s governors as spokesmen on issues on which they could base their critiques of Clinton on
443 Remarks by Governor Carroll Campbell. Bush-Quayle ’92 News Conference in New York, New York. July 10, 1992. Box 7. Folder. Campbell, Speeches, 1992. July. f. 1 of 3. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Papers. South Carolina Political Collections. Ernest F. Hollings Library. University of South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina. 444 Talking Points. President Bush Versus Clinton on Tax Hikes. 29 July 1992. Box 15. Folder. Campbell, Topical, Republican Party, Presidential Campaigns, 1992, Gen. f. 1 of 3. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Papers. South Carolina Political Collections. Ernest F. Hollings Library. University of South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina. 445 Talking Points. President Bush is Strong on Crime. July 29, 1992. Box 15. Folder. Campbell, Topical, Republican Party, Presidential Campaigns, 1992, Gen. f. 1 of 3. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Papers. South Carolina Political Collections. Ernest F. Hollings Library. University of South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina. 208 experience in executive office, and sometimes draw comparisons with policies they enacted in their own states.
The governors’ continued to play an active role at the convention in Houston. Campbell delivered a speech promoting Bush’s record on education. Ashcroft served as a co-chair of the platform committee.446 The platform included mentions of efforts in which state-level actors have partnered with Republican presidents: crime, establishing enterprise zones, and education.447 Once again, gubernatorial policy leadership proved useful to national-level elected officials in building a national party reputation on issues traditionally viewed as “owned” by
Democrats.
Republican Governors as National Agenda Setters
Bush lost his reelection bid in a three-way contest. The results of the 1992 elections included a net loss of two governorships for the party and Democrats retained majorities in the
House and Senate. Yet Bush’s failures were not attributed to his fiscal policies, at least not by the party’s governors. As had been the case in past years during which the party suffered a defeat in a presidential contest, the governors, including Massachusetts Governor William Weld, largely advocated for maintaining a broad-based party, one that did not isolate minorities and, in this case, socially moderate blue-collar voters who appeared wary of the religious right’s fervor.448
The national Republican agenda in the aftermath of the 1992 elections provided perhaps the most important opening for the party’s governors to assert themselves in national partisan politics that they had had in twelve years, the last time a Democrat occupied the Oval Office. At
446 Rosenbaum, David. E. 15 August 1992. “G.O.P.’s Platform Reveals Conservatives’ Dominance. The New York Times. 6. 447 Republican Party Platform of 1992. 17 August 1992.
Ohio noted that “Republican governors should take some consolation in the fact that President- elect Clinton is familiar with the daily challenges of managing a state, and he’s familiar with problems facing state government.” Thompson, instead, noted that “the truth of the matter is, only 43 percent of the American people voted for Bill Clinton. That’s not a mandate.”
Table 5.3 GOP Conditions and Effects Present, 1993-2000
Conditions Effects
Strong Governors Increased Participation by Governors in National Partisan Discourse, Party as • Voinovich, Weld, Engler, Thompson, Organization Bush • Healthcare Debate Intergovernmental Relations • Crafting the 1994 Contract with America • Clinton’s healthcare initiative • Welfare Reform Debate • Welfare reemerges as a national issue New Resources Available to Governors Programmatic Party Politics • Liaison with GOP Congressional Leadership – quarterly meetings
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• Loss in 1992 Presidential and • Speaking slots in weekly party radio Congressional Elections addresses • Increased Importance of the Religious Right in the Party Gubernatorial Influence on Party Program, • Grappling with Clinton’s “Third Way” Brand
• Williamsburg Resolve • Support of Bush in 2000 • State level welfare initiatives
In truth, the Republican governors’ response to President Clinton rested on both of these views. GOP governors, for instance, were generally supportive of Clinton’s work on the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Clinton’s support for NAFTA divided his own party. Labor unions in particular worried about additional losses in blue-collar sectors including manufacturing. The agreement received more support from Republicans than Democrats in
Congress. Tommy Thompson expanded the line-item veto in Wisconsin in 1993 and some GOP governors voiced support for this tactic as a means of reigning in congressionally driven spending, even with a Democrat in the Oval Office.449 Clinton was granted the line item veto under the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, though the Supreme Court found the law unconstitutional in 1998. Further, Clinton’s domestic agenda included vast room for governors to contribute to national policymaking, including through their participation in partisan politics. The RGA provided an avenue for the GOP’s governors to engage in the debates that followed.
Healthcare: Republican Governors Go Partisan
The GOP governors’ response to Clinton’s healthcare reform efforts contributed to the initiative’s failure. The fact that the governors did not help smooth over partisan rancor was a disappointment to Clinton, as governors had a reputation for being pragmatists and he generally
449 See State of Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau. The Partial Veto in Wisconsin. January 2004. 211 had good relationships with many of the nation’s governors. Many GOP governors agreed that
“something” had to be done to address healthcare. Insurance costs were rising faster than inflation and costs to the states were likewise heading northward. Clinton, having been a governor himself, asked the governors to participate in the construction of proposals for healthcare reform through the NGA. The organization formed a special bipartisan task force on the issue in order to ensure that state interests were taken into account while the bill was being developed. At a 1993 NGA meeting in Oklahoma, governors from both parties agreed that a national framework with state flexibility was warranted, including Campbell and Vermont’s
Democratic Governor Howard Dean. At that meeting, Clinton argued that “the states must have a strong role and essentially be charged with the responsibility and given the opportunity to organize and establish the health groups of people who will be able to purchase health care under the managed care system.”450 Dan Balz noted in 1994 that “Clinton’s State of the Union Address last week echoed many of the state of the state messages delivered by governors this month. His themes are the governor’s themes, his priorities are their priorities.”451 The governors at a winter
1994 NGA meeting espoused support for an employer-based health insurance system.452
The GOP governors, through the RGA, advocated for a more gradual approach to reform than that called for by the president. In this way, the RGA worked against the NGA’s bipartisan efforts to shape legislation. Campbell noted at a 1993 RGA meeting that “the American people are becoming less and less convinced that we need to blow up the health care system to get
450 Proceedings of the 1993 NGA Annual Meeting. Tulsa, Oklahoma. August 15-17. Plenary Session Transcripts. 63. 451 Balz, Dan and William Clairborne. 1 January 1994. “Governors Share Clinton Priorities but Clash on Health Care Reform.” The Washington Post. A17. 452 Hasson, Judy. 1 February 1994. “‘Common ground’ on health care: Governors back Clinton – to a point.” USA Today. 5A. 212 reform.”453 The governors’ critiques rested on fiscal conservatism and the potential ramifications of Clinton’s plan on the states. Balz and Clairborne reporting on Campbell’s comments on the proposal at an NGA meeting noted that “the Republican Chairman of the National Governors’
Association said Clinton’s plan is too ambitious and bureaucratic. He dismissed the president’s threat to veto legislation that does not guarantee universal health care coverage, saying it will be washed away ‘by a rising tide of consensus’ to go more slowly.’”454 Campbell was brought in, alongside Republican Senator Connie Mack and Representative Nancy Johnson, to offer a rebuttal to Clinton’s healthcare initiative.455 He noted that “a ‘one-size-fits-all’ federal health care system will be bitter medicine for Americans to swallow. We need competition in the marketplace to bring quality and savings.”456 During that speech, Campbell highlighted GOP governors’ successes in implementing managed health systems in Tennessee and Arizona.
Campbell’s shifting rhetoric is telling. While in his capacity as NGA chair in 1993, he generally emphasized the quest to find a bipartisan solution, one which protected state prerogatives but sought to deal with an emerging national issue. While speaking before the RGA,
Campbell turned federalism into a partisan issue, building on GOP talking points. The healthcare plan, on which First Lady Hillary Clinton took the lead and was critiqued for not incorporating suggestions from members of Congress and the governors, became a rallying cry for conservatives wary of federal intervention into the economy and intrusions upon state
453 Balz, Dan 24 November 1993. “GOP Governors Critique Clinton on Health Care, Welfare Reform.” Washington Post. 454 Balz, Dan and William Clairborne. 1 January 1994. “Governors Share Clinton Priorities but Clash on Health Care Reform.” The Washington Post. A17. 455 Van Amberg. Norma. 24 September 1993. “Campbell regained voice to deliver GOP response.” Island Packet. 14A. In Box 21. Folder: Campbell, Clippings. Health Care/Insurance, 1989-94. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Papers. South Carolina Political Collections. Ernest F. Hollings Library. University of South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina. 456 Remarks by Governor Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Republican Response/Healthcare Reform. September 22, 1993. Box 8. Campbell, Speeches, 1993. Sept, f. 2 of 3. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Papers. South Carolina Political Collections. Ernest F. Hollings Library. University of South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina. 213 sovereignty. The RGA was not simply acting as part of the intergovernmental lobby but brought state-based concerns over the President’s agenda to national partisan discourse. Concerns over expansion of the national state and the impact this could have on state budgets and policymaking was used by the governors to challenge Democratic initiatives. In this way, the federalism rhetoric of Reagan and other leading Republican officials became part of national partisan discourse, and the governors, through the RGA, deployed this discourse.
GOP Governors Provide a National Model: Williamsburg, Welfare Reform and State
Autonomy
Republican governors’ and the RGA’s role in furthering the national party program in the
1990s was most profound in their role in helping to craft welfare reform. The 1994 midterm elections saw the GOP, led by Newt Gingrich, seize control of Congress for the first time since
1954 as part of the “Republican Revolution,” in which they gained over fifty seats in the House and nine seats in the Senate. Significantly, the midterms brought eleven new Republican governors to power, including future President George W. Bush who defeated Democratic incumbent Ann Richards (see Figure 5.4 for the balance of power in the states in 1996).
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An RGA meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia held after the midterms highlighted state- level reforms as “models for activist conservatism.” Incoming Speaker Gingrich claimed that he was a “student of the governors.”457 Thompson noted that having Republicans in control of
Congress provided the governors with a unique opportunity: “After 30 years of being in the vineyards and trying to have an opportunity to get your views expressed and actually carried forth, today was like a whole new beginning.”458 Governor McKernan, who chaired the RGA at the Williamsburg meeting, noted in his opening statement that “Republican governors believe that America’s future is in the hands of state and local government, and that we are at the forefront of developing solutions that will address the many challenges before us.”459
At the meeting, the governors issued the Williamsburg Resolve, which argued that “In our day, the threat to self-determination posed by the centralization of power in the nation's capital has been dramatically demonstrated. The effects of intrusive Federal government authority have been felt so widely and so profoundly that a united chorus of opposition has risen from town halls and State capitols, from community organizations and private associations, from enterprises and individuals, across America.”460 The Resolve offered a litany list of complaints often voiced regarding intergovernmental relations: the stringency and proliferation of federal mandates on state governments, the shifting of financial burdens to states, “one-size-fits all” approaches to public policy, and the distance between the federal government and the people.
The statement proposed that the states had means of rectifying these issues. The governors called for a “Re-Federalism.” They, for instance, resolved “to pursue energetically in
457 Balz, Dan. 26 November 1994. “Activist GOP Governors Become Role Models for New Republican Majority.” The Washington Post. A6. 458 Balz, Dan. 23 November 1994.” GOP Leaders Tell Governors Hard Choices Follow Power.” The Washington Post. A14. 459 McKernan Jr., Governor John R. “Foundations of Federalism.” 460 “The Williamsburg Resolve. 1994. Republican Governors Association. North Carolina American Republic Resource Library. < http://www.ncrepublic.org/lib_williamsburgresolve.php>. 215 the Federal courts, Tenth Amendment challenges to Federal encroachments into the domain of the states.”461 The governors also called for the passage of the Federal Mandate Accountability and Reform Act which would have forced the Congressional Budget Office to prepare estimates of the costs of federal mandates as well as providing impediments to passage of mandates costing over $50 million. The statement also called for a Conference of States.
Moreover, the document explicitly linked the growth of the national administrative state to the public’s falling trust in governing institutions and the difficulties of governing in the states: “The problem is not only that decision-makers in our nation’s capital are remote and unaccountable. It is that their actions in many cases have rendered State and local officials unresponsive as well. Officials at the State and local levels often cannot meet the expectations of the people who elected them because of an inhibiting web of Federal laws, regulations, court orders, administrative interpretations and edicts. Thus, there is a widening gulf between the voters’ demands for change and the ability of State and local leaders to surmount Federal obstacles and effect that change.”462 Building off of Reagan’s rhetoric, the governors tied the size and scope of government to a crisis in governing authority and recommended enhanced state autonomy, and thus a larger role for the governorship, in crafting policy.
With this line of reasoning in mind, the governors played a key role in negotiations over welfare reform. Governors and Republican leadership in Congress were in general agreement that the welfare rolls needed to be reduced. However, members of Congress aired on the side of
“seeking to change the mindset and behavior of disadvantaged people” and were more prone to favoring more stringent federal requirements for access to benefits than were the governors, who
461 Ibid. 462 The Williamsburg Resolve. 5. 216 wanted to maintain flexibility in implementing the program within states.463 This flexibility would allow them to both deal with the peculiarities of their states while also granting them the ability to develop welfare reform policies of their own.
However, changes to federal welfare policy built off of older ideas that had become part of Republican orthodoxy, and had been practiced in several states led by Republican governors.
Thus, many Republican governors, in particular several who were leaders in the RGA, were not altogether opposed to a balance of national standards and state flexibility. The governors’ chief negotiators with the Republican leadership in Congress was led by Engler, Thompson and Weld.
Thompson’s reform efforts in Wisconsin provided a model on which the GOP proposal built.
Thompson was among a number of governors during Clinton’s early term in office to seek waivers from federal mandates regarding welfare, healthcare and Medicaid. Several months before President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act, Thompson signed Wisconsin Works, which emphasized “workfare” and education as conditions of keeping benefits.
An early version of the bill which passed the House of Representatives included a block grant proposal. However, the governors were concerned about provisions in that bill including a prohibition on the use of federal money to support unmarried teenage mothers. As debate began in the Senate, the governors submitted a proposal that eliminated a proposed “time-limit” on welfare benefits and changes to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program. The proposal included provisions for legal protection against lawsuits dealing with denial of benefits.464
463 Stout, Hilary. 9 January 1995. “GOP Drafting Bill to Reform Welfare Plans: States Would Get Billions of Dollars to Dispense to Poor as They See Fit.” The Wall Street Journal. A3. 464 Pear, Robert. 13 April 1995. “G.O.P. Governors Urge Big Changes for Welfare Bill.” The New York Times. A1. 217
The governors had success in influencing the shape of the legislation through discussions with members of the party’s leadership in Congress. The bill that passed the Senate Finance
Committee under Oregon Senator Bob Packard eliminated a number of restrictions on the use of bloc grants, with the exception of work requirements. Ultimately, the bill included a large degree of administrative discretion for the states. The law signed by Clinton in 1996 included several elements resembling several state-level reform efforts, including work requirements. The law also included block grants.
In total, the bill provided a win for Republican governors. They were able to influence the ultimate shape of the legislation both through example and through participation in negotiations. As Derthick notes, “Republican governors had better luck with welfare reform in
1995 [than in the past] because they claimed to know what to do about one of the great unsolved dilemmas of public policy--the persistence of a dependent population in an era when everyone, even a woman with children, is expected to work. Governors Engler, Thompson of Wisconsin, and Weld of Massachusetts were ready to tell newly empowered congressional Republicans just what they wanted to hear about welfare--that work programs and family caps and time limits were a fix. Thompson, at least, seemed to have grounds in the Wisconsin experiment to support such a claim.”465
Building the Organizational Partnership: The Governors, the RGA, the RNC and the GOP
Congress
Clinton’s election brought organizational challenges for the governors that they party had not seen since 1980. In a letter to Voinovich, then an aspirant for the RNC Chairmanship and future Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour noted that if selected to the post, “the RNC will help
465 Derthick, Martha. 1996. “New Players: The Governors and Welfare Reform. The Brookings Review 14.2: 44. 218 you develop new ways to raise funds RGA contributes to Republican gubernatorial candidates.
Using the President and the Cabinet at major donor events was very successful, but those days are over. We can adjust to the new realities, and I would work with you to make needed changes.”466
The Republican Congress moved to incorporate the party’s governors into a number of policy debates with the White House beyond welfare and their response to Clinton proposals.
Governor Whitman, for instance, gave the GOP’s State of the Union response in 1995, and argued that many of the policies being espoused by the GOP leadership in Congress were “the same ones Governors have been enacting here in the states. Time after time, Republicans – and
Democrats – have found that things work better when states and communities set their own priorities, rather than being bossed around by bureaucrats in Washington.”467
In late 1995, Gingrich asked the governors at an RGA meeting to establish a team to be present at budget negotiations. Unfunded mandates, once again, becoming a wedge issue, on which the governors sought to assert themselves. The governors, through the RGA, sent letters to
Majority Leader Dole and Speaker Gingrich opposing an administration proposal capping year- over-year growth to the program. In its place, the governors called for a block grant formula.468
The governors affirmed their belief in a balanced budget at the national-level, calling for balance to be reached in seven years’ time.469
After the 1997 gubernatorial elections, the RGA called for reforms to the Department of
Education, including reducing federal paperwork requirements and regulations and a bloc grant
466 Letter to George Voinovich from Haley Barbour. 22 December 1992. 467 Christine Todd Whitman. Proposed Remarks: State of the Union Response. 24 January 1995. 3. 468 Tollerson, Ernest. 22 November 1995. “Gingrich Wants Backup from GOP Governors.” The New York Times. A1. 469 Tollerson, Ernest. 20 November 1995. “Governors in G.O.P. Urge Stand on Budget.” The New York Times. B8. 219 formula. Governor David Beasley, who assumed the RGA Chairmanship, noted that “What we want Congress to do is exactly what it did with welfare three years ago. Give us flexibility.”470
Building on their participation in the Charlottesville Education Summit, the governors’ participation in the RGA now sought to renew efforts to shift the party’s image on education, an issue on which the Democrats had long been seen as more effective. School vouchers were discussed as a means of maintaining decentralized policy implementation at an RGA meeting in
Miami in 1997. The governors also established a joint task force on the issue with members of
Congress.471 At that meeting, the governors backed a proposal by California Governor Wilson that would allow union members to vote on labor unions using dues to make campaign contributions.
By 1998, the governors and the party’s congressional leadership moved to institutionalize the governors’ presence on Capitol Hill. At an RGA meeting in New Orleans, congressional leadership agreed to hold quarterly meetings with the governors and national party officials beginning the following month. This marked a change of heart for Senate Majority Leader Trent
Lott who had earlier asserted congressional prerogative in the creation of national policy.
Governors also were to be included in the party’s weekly radio address.472 These changes allowed the governors to maintain and expand their activities in promoting the national party message in between RGA meetings. It also kept them closer to Washington, sometimes to the point that they were criticized for spending too much time in the nation’s capital.473
470 Sack, Kevin. 23 November 1997. “Emboldened G.O.P. Governors Prepare to Seize Education Issue.” The New York Times. 27. 471 Neal, Terry M. and David S. Broder. 23 November 1997. “GOP Governors Back Worker Choice on Use of Union Dues.” The Washington Post. 10. 472 Balz, Dan. 22 November 1998. “Governors See an Opportunity for Ascendancy within the GOP.” The Washington Post. A12; Novak, Robert D. 23 November 1998. “Gabfest for GOP Governors.” The Washington Post. A23. 473 Berke, Richard L. 18 March 1996. “Four Midwestern Governors Angle for an Offer From Dole.” The New York Times. A1. 220
In sum, the partnership between the party’s congressional wing and the governors proved fruitful. The governors won a number of concessions, particularly in terms of flexibility in the use of federal funding given to the states though they largely did so in an effort to assert conservative alternatives to Democratic policies. In this sense, the governors were able to act as national agenda-setters and as agents of the national Republican party. Their policies became models that influenced later proposals adopted by the national party. The governors also helped to sell these policies to a national audience. Their role in national politics was cemented. To be sure, the governors were active on these fronts within the NGA. However, the RGA here provided an additional means of contributing to these conversations and furthered the rising conservative programmatism of the GOP at both the state and the national levels.
Governors and Presidential Politics in 1996 and 2000
The media’s focus on presidential politicking at RGA meetings continued in 1996 and
2000. In 1996, a number of midwestern governors, including RGA Chairman Engler, were rumored to be positioning themselves to be Dole’s running mate.474 By February of that year, twenty-two of the then thirty-one Republican governors had offered their support to Dole leading into the New Hampshire primary.
Governors again participated in the presidential contest, as candidates and as featured speakers at the convention. Former Governor Alexander entered the race, but performed poorly in the primaries. Governor Wilson dropped out of the race before the primaries even began.
Governor Whitman was given a primetime speaking slot at the convention. Additionally, the platform that year once again recognized the importance of states: “The Federal Government should not impose prescriptive solutions on State and local governments. Republicans believe
474 Ibid. 221 that States and localities should have maximum flexibility to design programs which meet the individual needs of their communities. Washington must abandon the "one size fits all" approach and concentrate on adding value to the efforts of States, localities, private and faith-based organizations and individuals.”475
The 2000 race, with the nomination of George W. Bush, marked a high point for the
RGA. Bush had been seen as an early favorite for the nomination given his family name. Bush found perhaps his strongest support not inside the Washington beltway but among the party’s governors. The RGA, breaching a longstanding practice of not making an endorsement during the primary season for a non-incumbent, gave Bush its official support at its 1999 meeting in
California.476 Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci, an early supporter of Bush, noted that
“We’re already sending troops up to New Hampshire and we’ll continue to do so.”477 (See Figure
5.5 for the balance of power in the states in 2000).
Bush’s support among the contingent of governors went beyond personal ties to the party.
Bush’s compassionate conservatism resonated with the governors as a message: it allowed for and built on a form of conservative activism, already being practiced in the states, that easily meshed with a strong state-level executive. Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, for instance, noted that the party should adopt a form of “conservative compassion” with regard to tax policy.”478
Further, the governors felt that having one of their own in the White House would alleviate their concerns over the role the federal government could have on state-level policy problems. As one journalist noted at the time “The Republican governors are united behind Mr. Bush not so much
475 Republican Party Platform of 1996. 12 August 1996.
The governors continued to have important roles at the Convention in Philadelphia.
Gilmore, the next RNC chairman, was given a speaking slot on the third night of the convention.
A video on the governors was featured during primetime that night as well. Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania was given the honor of introducing the party’s nominee. Once again, the governors were featured members of the convention as media spectacle, allowing them to introduce themselves to a national audience.
Bush included a number of governors in his cabinet after his controversial win against
Vice President Al Gore. Ashcroft, a former RGA chair, was chosen as Attorney General. Mel
Martinez was chosen as Secretary of HUD. Ridge was named the first ever Secretary of
479 Verhovek, Sam Howe. 23 November 1999. “Republican Governors, Wanting One of Their Own, Decided Early on Bush.” The New York Times. A22. See also Cohen at al. 2008. The Party Decides. 221-6. 223
Homeland Security. Additionally, Whitman and Utah Governor Mike Leavitt served as EPA
Administrators. In this sense, Bush rewarded the large backing he had gained from the party’s governors in the campaign, particularly those that were active in the RGA.
Conclusion: Republican Governors in an Integrated Party System
The election of Ronald Reagan brought a commitment by a Republican president to a new and more robust form of programmatic conservatism. While Nixon provided the groundwork for administrative decentralization, Reagan’s election brought a re-envisioned New
Federalism, one which sought to cut government at all levels, at least in terms of the liberal welfare state. This combination of decentralization and a more programmatic form of conservatism offered Republican governors a pivotal place within the party: they had to grapple with the opportunities New Federalism brought, as well as its perils.
Republican governors during the 1980s and 1990s succeeded in navigating national partisan politics. They experimented at the state-level with new policies that advanced conservative causes. They provided models for the Republican Congress elected during the
Republican Revolution to build on in crafting policy proposals and actively participated in the crafting of national Republican policy during this time period and they did so on a wide range of issues. This culminated in the nomination of another Republican governor in the 2000 presidential election contest, one who was committed to conservative activism, a compassionate form of conservatism but one that required bold executive leadership.
During these two decades, the Republican governors’ involvement in national party politics through their Association reached its zenith. The RGA provided a venue through which the party’s governors contributed to national policymaking. Indeed, the partisan nature of debates over healthcare and welfare initiatives illustrate that the partisan organizations had in some ways
224 mimicked the NGA but also circumvented it, and were beginning to overshadow it. The RGA brought the governors in direct conversation with the Republican House and Senate leadership.
Republican presidents Reagan and Bush invested more heavily in the governors and the RGA than had past GOP presidents. Moreover, during the healthcare debate in 1993 and 1994 the
RGA provided a channel through which Republican governors critiqued the President’s plan using federalism discourse. The emphasis of the NGA, in contrast, was to pursue compromise and assert state prerogative.
In the final analysis, this era illustrated the culmination of a process that began with the formation of the RGA in the 1960s. The RGA provided the infrastructure for governors to assert themselves within a nationalizing and increasingly programmatic party. The governors used the organization to further their own interests – they strengthened the link between themselves and national party elites; drew national party resources to the states, specifically to their own electoral campaigns, and contributed to the development of the national party program and branding efforts. Decentralization, by providing opportunity to develop new solutions to endemic political issues during and after Reagan, ensured a prominent place for governors within the national party apparatus even as the party moved toward a more conservative party program. The governors, through the RGA, contributed to partisan nationalization but helped to ensure that the national party maintained a commitment to political and administrative decentralization, one that took seriously the capacities and leadership abilities of the party’s governors who could act as partners of presidents and congressional Republicans in achieving the national party’s goals. The
Republican party, thanks in part to the RGA, had become much more integrated both in terms of a more coherent conservative program and as a national organizational apparatus.
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CHAPTER 6: THE SEEDS AND STUNTED DEVELOPMENT OF THE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNORS CONFERENCE, 1961-1980
Democratic governors during the 1960s found themselves in a much different situation than that of their Republican counterparts. Democratic governors were similar to their
Republican colleagues in terms of the strengthening of executive powers at the state-level generally and their ability to interact with national political elites with regards to issues of intergovernmental relations through the NGA, state lobbying offices and advisory commissions established by presidents and Congress. However, their place within national partisan politics leading into the 1960s differed than that of the Republicans. Since the New Deal, the party had controlled a majority of governorships, sometimes substantial majorities, for all but a few short years during the Eisenhower administration. Their dominance of gubernatorial elections continued into the early 1960s when Republicans formed their own governors’ group (see
Figures 3.1 and 3.2). The Democratic Party was, by and large, the nation’s governing party and this was largely true within the states as well as in the nation’s capital.
More importantly, the breadth of the “big-tent” Democratic coalition during and since the
New Deal had proven to be an obstacle to achieving programmatic policy agendas in
Congress.480 Southern Democratic congressmen, particularly longstanding committee chairmen such as Congressmen Howard Smith of Virginia and Carl Vinson of Georgia and Senator
Richard Russell of Georgia, had often aligned with GOP representatives, including “Mr.
Republican” Robert Taft, as part of a “conservative coalition.”481 For instance, several of FDR’s
480 See for instance Patterson, James T. 1967. Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press; Katznelson, Ira, Kim Geiger and Daniel Kryder. 1993. “Limiting Liberalism: The Southern Veto in Congress, 1933-1950.” Political Science Quarterly 108.2: 283-306; Jenkins, Jeffery A. and Nathan W. Monroe. 2014. “Negative Agenda Control and the Conservative Coalition in the U.S. House.” Journal of Politics 76.4: 1116-27. 481 Russell had served as Governor of Georgia in the 1930s, was a staunch supporter of segregation, and led a Southern boycott of the 1964 Democratic National Convention despite having helped LBJ become Senate Majority Leader. 226 initiatives were stalled in large part thanks to conservative resistance within the president’s party.
Like Democratic members of Congress, the Democratic governors were a diverse group in terms of ideological inclinations and regional representation. The ideological disparities within the party became manifest as the party’s governors moved to form their own organization.
This chapter explores the origins of the DGA and the organization’s development through the Carter years. I seek to illustrate why the DGA formed when it did and the implications of this development for the Democratic party. I argue that the DGA developed as a means of responding to the challenge posed by the newly formed RGA which, as demonstrated in previous chapters, sought to assert itself within the NGC, often by attacking the Johnson administration’s policies and attempting to force the Democratic governors to take stands on national issues on which there was considerable disagreement within the party. Leading figures in the DGA during the 1960s were allies of the President who sought to promote a united front in support of LBJ, especially with regard to the Vietnam War, and later to criticize Nixon and Ford. In this sense, the DGA advanced the notion that governors could be regular spokesmen for the national party.
A related issue the chapter deals with is the degree to, and ways in, which the DGA promoted the interests of the party’s governors through 1980. That is, the chapter underscores distinctions with the path of development taken by Republican governors through the RGA. The formation of the Democratic Governors’ Caucus in the 1960s provided the seeds of the active and extensive organization that exists today. However, the party organizations were not on parallel paths during the 1960s and 1970s.
This disparity between the two organization’s development cannot be explained simply by the relative success of Democratic gubernatorial candidates in an aggregate sense during this time period. Rather, the DGA’s activities covered here reflected the divisions among the party’s
227 governors – divisions within its membership - including and especially on the issue of civil rights and the related prevalence of dual sovereignty in the political thought of many of the Southern
Democratic governors. These divisions were rooted primarily in the uniqueness of state-level
Democratic partisan politics in the South which had, for nearly a century, allowed southern states to operate as “enclaves,” as Mickey puts it, in which the Democratic Party was a critical piece. In this sense, the inherent autonomy of the governorship was augmented by the unique nature of state partisan politics in the South, allowing Southern Democratic governors to maintain a level of distance from the national party not possible for the Republicans during this era. The decentralization of the American party system and the autonomy provided to the states by
America’s federal constitutional design allowed for this split.
The DGA suffered from a general lack of unity relative to its Republican counterpart during the time period covered here despite ongoing changes to partisan contestation. The
Southern states, again, were central to this problem. While the region was undergoing a significant partisan transformation, conservative Southern Democratic gubernatorial candidates remained viable, and in some cases very strong, in state-level elections. The party may have been drifting leftward nationally, especially in the northern states, but this trend was slow in the South and gubernatorial candidates in the region employed a diverse array of electoral strategies that often differed from that of the national party. The move of the region toward the Republican party began at the presidential level and strategies for winning gubernatorial elections adapted slowly over the time period covered here.
This split within the party had important implications for the path of development that the
DGA ultimately took. For one, a number of governors who were leading figures in the party, due to their friendship with LBJ or their rivalry with him, did not use the organization to attempt to
228 shape the national party program in a meaningful way. John Connally of Texas, for example, ultimately left the party and partnered with Nixon. George Wallace, paralleling the Dixiecrat bolt of 1948, ran for president under the banner of a third party. Later, Jimmy Carter, though vocal at
DGA meetings while governor, did not invest heavily in building the party or the governors’ group specifically. In this sense, the DGA suffered not from an overall lack of potential leadership but from decisions by potential leaders to exert their energies elsewhere rather than through collective action as governors.
The DGA’s lack of a meaningful organization outside of NGA meetings had important implications for the development of the national party more generally. For one, national party building efforts by the Democrats were less focused on the states than those by the GOP. The
DGA specifically did not receive the same level of assistance as the RGA from national party leaders and the party’s governors did not move to develop the group as a meaningful national organization outside of its role in organizing during NGC meetings. More broadly, the development of the DGA as part of the national “party-in-service” significantly lagged that of the
Republicans.482 The group did not establish an independent staff or move to provide electoral services to gubernatorial candidates until the 1980s and received meager assistance from the
DNC until then. It relied entirely on dues from its membership.
Second, while the RGA actively worked towards the governors having important roles in the development of the national party program and high-profile appearances at the national convention, the DGA was often downright inactive in advancing the interests of governors while the national party underwent significant changes in terms of the conduct of presidential
482 Relatedly, the lack of organizational development is reflected in the organization of the dissertation itself, specifically why the Republicans received two chapters covering the same time period while the Democrats received only one. Put simply, there is less story to tell on the Democratic side for the time period under examination here. 229 nominations and national party building strategies. In sum, the governors’ roles within the national party continued to be piecemeal and fragmented in an era where governors were losing influence over the direction of the national party through their traditional means of influence under the Jacksonian decentralized party model. Through 1980, this lack of organizational development allowed the divisions within the party to fester rather than allowing the party’s governors to act as an influential collective force within the party the way Republican governors were through the RGA. To be sure, the DGC provided an important new organization within the national Democratic party that had important implications for the crafting of national Democratic party policy in the decades that followed. However, during the first decade and a half of its existence its importance within the party was stymied by divisions among its membership and the resultant neglect of national party leadership. (See Tables 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 for a summary of the argument as it relates to the Kennedy and Johnson, the Nixon and Ford, and the Carter years.)
This chapter begins with historical background on the differences of state-level politics within the Democratic party, by highlighting the South, and its importance for the governors’ place within the national party apparatus. I then discuss the origins of the DGA during the
Johnson presidency and its role at NGC meetings. I proceed to discuss the organization’s activities during the Nixon, Ford, and Carter years which underscore the limited nature of its impact on the national party and the importance that Southern governors played in these lagged developments though I highlight the seeds of enhanced activity that were planted during this era.
Southern Enclaves and Gubernatorial Involvement in National “Big Tent” Democratic
Politics
The South’s Decentralized but “One Party” Politics: Institutional Barriers to Collective
Gubernatorial Involvement in National Partisan Politics
230
Two important but interrelated elements of the history of the Democratic party stand out in terms of the role of Democratic governors within the national party leading into the 1960s.
First, southern conservatives dominated elections and controlled state governments and the states’ congressional representation but remained part of the national “big tent” Democratic coalition. Second, the decentralized nature of partisan politics reinforced the sovereignty of the states, allowing the governors to operate within one-party enclaves without large degrees of interference from the national government. The “Solid” South was an important component of the conservative coalition in Congress that halted the pursuance of national civil rights legislation, effectively keeping the issue off of the national agenda. Taken together, these two factors reduced the need for enhanced gubernatorial involvement within the national parties.
The Democratic party has long been a “big-tent.” Even before the rise of the New Deal coalition under FDR, the party had been a loose association of Southern conservatives, agrarian populists, and urban machines in the North and Midwest. In the late 19th century, the Democratic party remained in rough parity with the GOP at the national-level. The South provided a solid and largely consistent base of support in presidential and congressional elections and the party remained viable in large northern states including New York, enabling Democrats to win the presidency in 1884 and 1892 and to compete with the GOP for control of both Houses of
Congress and for state offices. As Ware notes, the firmness of Democratic support within the region from 1876 through the mid-20th century undermines traditional critical realignment theory.483 Realignment occurred largely outside of the South during the transition from the 3rd to the 4th party system in the 1890s. Southern conservatives who were skeptical of federal
483 Ware, Alan. 2006. The Democratic Party Heads North, 1877-1962. New York: Cambridge University Press. See also Sundquist, James L. 1983. Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States. Revised Edition. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution: 134-69. 231 government activity dominated elections under these party systems, including gubernatorial elections.
By and large, even decisive Republican victories nationally did not penetrate the Deep
South and thus did not incite the regions’ governors to get more involved in national Democratic politics outside of sporadic involvement in national conventions. National Republican leaders after Reconstruction occasionally looked to resurrect their party in the region. McKinley in 1896, for instance, was able to win Kentucky and West Virginia, and the party developed pockets of support in North Carolina and a sprinkling of counties in Texas.484
Republican presidential candidates gained some occasional support in the region as long as race relations were not front and center in their campaigns. Warren Harding carried
Tennessee, by three points, in 1920 and Herbert Hoover carried Virginia, North Carolina,
Tennessee, Florida, and Texas in 1928. Hoover’s performance in the South, however, is partly explained by the fact that his opponent, New York Governor Al Smith, was a Catholic, a fact which brought out a large number of anti-Catholic voters in the region. Eisenhower, who as president advanced a new “Southern strategy,” a precursor to that of Nixon in the 1970s, won
Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, and Texas in 1952 and added Louisiana to those states in 1956.
Ike’s approach to presidential party building including outreach to urban professionals through an RNC program entitled Operation Dixie.485 His support, however, is partly explained by his
484 While Republicans had not yet totally abandoned “waving the bloody flag” in campaigns during this period, the 1896 contest centered on economic issues, especially the gold standard and tariffs. William Jennings Bryan’s moralistic rhetoric, most vividly his “cross of gold” speech at the 1896 Democratic convention, and his tireless campaign travels won over the vast majority of poor Southern whites but undermined working class support in northern cities where manufacturing interests benefited from higher tariffs, including the support for the Bourbon Democrats who had supported Grover ClevelandSee Bensel, Richard Franklin. 2008. Passion and Preferences: William Jennings Bryan and the 1896 Democratic National Convention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Williams, R. Hal. 2010. Realigning America: McKinley, Bryan, and the Remarkable Election of 1896. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. 485 See Galvin, Daniel. 2010. Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 63-7. 232 impeccable national reputation. He was, in fact, courted by both parties to run in 1952. Finally,
Ike’s approach to federalism was not overtly partisan. The creation of the interstate highway system, for instance, brought governors of both parties to the table. Nixon, in 1960, carried
Virginia, Tennessee, and Florida four years later in his loss to John F. Kennedy.
In sum, Republican support in the South tended to come in presidential elections.
Democrats were much more firmly in control of politics at the state-level. This was especially true in gubernatorial elections. Not one Republican was elected governor in the eleven states that were formerly in the Confederacy between the end of Reconstruction and 1960. The Democrats also tended to be strong in the former border states. In Kentucky, for instance, the Republican party never won back to back gubernatorial elections after Reconstruction except for 1895 and
1899, the latter of which was overturned by the state legislature and the governor’s mansion was returned to the Democratic party. Effectively, winning the Democratic primary was winning the general election in these contests.
Electoral rules within the Democratic party fostered the continued dominance of white conservatives within the party. Between 1890 and 1908, Southern states instituted whites only primaries which, coupled with poll taxes, grandfather clauses, literacy tests, and outright violence, effectively disenfranchised African American voters in the region who were, at the time, often seen as pivotal to GOP success in the region.486
486 See for instance Perlman, Michael. 2001. Struggle for Mastery: Disenfranchisement in the South, 1888- 1908. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press. See also, Key, V. O., Jr. Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949; Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, 1877–1913. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951. To be sure, there was a contingent of Republicans in the South, the “lily-whites”, who felt that the path forward for the party in the region was to embrace southern conservatism. The “black and tan” faction within the party did, however, often receive a substantial number of positions as delegates from the Southern states at national nominating conventions. On this see Heersink, Boris and Jeffery A. Jenkins. 2015. “Southern Delegates and Republican National Convention Politics, 1880-1928.” Studies in American Political Development 29.1: 68-88. 233
The split between the Southern Democratic governors and their counterparts from other regions in terms of engagement in national partisan politics is striking given that the party controlled the governors’ mansions in the South from the end of Reconstruction through the
1950s. Perhaps most telling in this regard is that between 1868 and 1956, seven Democratic governors or former governors became the party’s presidential nominees: Horatio Seymour,
Samuel Tilden, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, James Cox, Al Smith, and Franklin
Roosevelt. Five of these individuals were from New York. Not one of them served as governor of a Southern state.
The Seeds of Change: Federal Intervention, Civil Rights, and Partisan Competition
The seeds of more forceful engagement by the party’s governors in national partisan politics can be found in increased federal involvement on the issue of civil rights and a widening divide between Southern Democratic state officials and their counterparts in other regions of the country. Federal action on civil rights issues and intra-partisan contestation on the issue undermined dual federalism and the autonomy of Southern states. The actions taken by the
Supreme Court and executive actions taken by FDR and Truman provided the seeds for more competitive gubernatorial elections in the South. They also nullified a number of state laws.
Moreover, Northern Democratic party officials and organizations moved to the left on the issue of civil rights as a result on the great migration and significant action by civil rights organizations in the northern states.
Widening the Gap Among State Parties
During the early 20th century, the population of African Americans in urban centers in the
Northeast swelled thanks to the Great Migration. According to census data, the percentage of
African Americans living in the South dropped from ninety percent in 1900 to under eighty
234 percent in 1930. The pace of migration stalled during the Depression as job prospects for migrants evaporated but picked up again in the 1940s and 1950s. By 1960, only sixty percent of
African Americans lived in the South.487 Most of these migrants moved into urban areas in the
Northeast and industrial Midwest.
The potential changes to constituency building in the North and Midwest coupled with activism by civil rights groups promoted important shifts in northern state Democratic party organizations that ultimately widened the rift between the party’s southern and northern wings.
As Schickler notes, “Advocates for moving the Democratic Party in the liberal direction on civil rights found some of their earliest success at the state-level in the North, where locally rooted politicians had much less reason to worry about placating southern Democrats.”488 “The federal nature of the American party system,” he continues, “allows intraparty divisions to be institutionalized: northern state parties accommodated one set of groups and interests, while southern parties provided a home for a sharply opposed set of interests.”489
These factors contributed to the development of state party programs and to how
Democratic elected officials in the states approached policy. In an analysis of state party platforms, Schickler finds that by the 1940s, northern Democratic parties had become more liberal, on average, than their Republican counterparts in the region on civil rights issues including voting rights, fair employment practices and housing.490 The shift toward more liberal parties also had implications for gubernatorial nominations. In 1948, for instance, liberals in
Michigan were successful in pushing through the nomination of New Dealer G. Mennen
487 See for instance Gregory, James N. 2007. The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press; Lemann, Nicholas. 1991. The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How it Changed America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 488 Schickler, Eric. 2016. Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 150. 489 Ibid. 152. 490 Ibid. 156-65. 235
Williams who, once elected governor, advocated for ending discrimination in the state’s National
Guard.491
Constitutional and Presidential Action and their Implications on the States
Presidential actions began the process of bringing civil rights back into the national spotlight. FDR took a number of executive actions promoting civil rights including issuing
Executive Order 8802, establishing the Fair Employment Practice Committee banning discrimination by federal agencies and contractors concerning the war effort. A new Civil Rights section in the Justice Department, led by former Michigan Governor Frank Murphy, who was later appointed to the Supreme Court, enhanced the executive branch’s ability to enforce national civil rights statutes.492 Truman built on these efforts, including in the signing Executive Order
9981 less than two weeks after the convention, setting the stage for the eventual desegregation of the armed forces.
Changes in Supreme Court jurisprudence during the New Deal also paved the way for partisan contestation in the South, including in gubernatorial elections. In response to conservative resistance to New Deal programs, FDR sought to remold the court. The president, as McMahon argues, endeavored to “commit the enhanced authority of the national administrative state to a progressive agenda that stressed the aggrandizement of statutory rights and the federal protection of individual rights.”493
491 Williams later served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under JFK and appointed the first African American judge in Michigan’s history. 492 As discussed previously, FDR’s expansion of federal government involvement in the economy precipitated greater cooperation between the states and the federal government, a development which brought important infrastructural and economic development to the South though prosperity was not shared uniformly.492 Again, however, such interaction between the national and state governments tended to deal with economic policy. 493 McMahon, Kevin. 2004. Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race: How the Presidency Paved the Road to Brown. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 65. 236
The opening of Democratic primary elections to African American voters and the increased competitiveness of Republicans in the region altered the playing field in which
Democratic governors and gubernatorial candidates operated over the long run. Whites-only primaries were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1944’s Smith v. Allwright decision. Again, the end of whites-only primaries did not result in immediate changes to the competitiveness of gubernatorial elections. Rather, at the state-level, the Democratic primary continued to be the way of obtaining elected office for about two decades. The electoral calculus of ambitious politicians changed not simply in terms of two-party competition but in terms of the potential coalitions one could put together within the Democratic primaries, allowing more moderate Democrats to emerge in the region over time. Voting rights remained restrictive in the
South until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, and the effects of these legal developments were not felt immediately but gradually.
The Brown v. Board of Education decision, read by then Chief Justice and former
Republican governor Earl Warren, allowed for increased involvement by the federal government in the region. President Eisenhower, upon sending federal troops into Little Rock, enforced the decision though he had signaled uneasiness about doing so early on. Republican party platforms during the 1940s and 1950s were also not conservative on the issue, though the party had employed federalism-based logic in critiquing the New Deal in the past. Eisenhower again, for his part, engaged in a Southern strategy of his own. Thus, Southern Democratic governors could argue that Republicans were contributing to the undermining of the autonomy of their states.
A Split National Party: The National Platform Moves Left
Within national convention politics, the federal structure of the American party system allowed for the Democratic party to remain a broad-based coalition at the national-level, as long
237 as the question of civil rights remained off the table. Changes to Democratic convention politics undermined this delicate balance beginning during the New Deal. In 1936, FDR pushed for and achieved the abolition of the two-third’s rule for winning presidential nominations. This effectively removed the South’s veto power on presidential nominations, giving the more liberal wing of the party, rooted in the Northeast, an easier path to the presidency.
The 1936 Democratic platform did not discuss race-relations at length but illustrated the tightening relationship between the states and the national government from FDR’s viewpoint:
“The Republican platform proposes to meet many pressing national problems solely by action of the separate States. We know that drought, dust storms, floods, minimum wages, maximum hours, child labor, and working conditions in industry, monopolistic and unfair business practices cannot be adequately handled exclusively by 48 separate State legislatures, 48 separate
State administrations, and 48 separate State courts. Transactions and activities which inevitably overflow State boundaries call for both State and Federal treatment.”494
The party’s more progressive stand on the civil rights issue emerged in Democratic platforms after 1936. In 1940, for instance, which saw Roosevelt break Washington’s two-term tradition, the platform noted that the party “shall continue to strive for complete legislative safeguards against discrimination in government service and benefits, and in the national defense forces. We pledge to uphold due process and the equal protection of the laws for every citizen, regardless of race, creed or color.”495 Four years later, the party argued that “We believe that racial and religious minorities have the right to live, develop and vote equally with all citizens and share the rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. Congress should exert its full
494 The 1936 Democratic Party Platform. 23 June 1936. The American Presidency Project.
In 1948, the split between the ascendant liberal wing of the party and the Southern conservatives resulted in the “Dixiecrats,” led by then South Carolina Governor Strom
Thurmond, bolting the convention. Thurmond chose Fielding Wright, then governor of
Mississippi, as his running mate. The States’ Rights Democratic Party did not run candidates at the state-level and the split did not result in a net gain for Republicans in the region who were led, at the time, by liberal Republican Thomas Dewey. However, Thurmond won four southern states and the connection between states rights and conservatism on civil rights was clear.
Moreover, the weakening of the Southern wing of the Democratic party within national convention politics allowed the distinction between the national party and individual state parties to become manifest. The 1948 party platform took perhaps the most forceful progressive stance on civil rights that the party had yet taken:
The Democratic Party is responsible for the great civil rights gains made in recent years in eliminating unfair and illegal discrimination based on race, creed or color, The Democratic Party commits itself to continuing its efforts to eradicate all racial, religious and economic discrimination. We again state our belief that racial and religious minorities must have the right to live, the right to work, the right to vote, the full and equal protection of the laws, on a basis of equality with all citizens as guaranteed by the Constitution. We highly commend President Harry S. Truman for his courageous stand on the issue of civil rights.497
The 1950s brought a series of mixed signals for Southern Democrats in terms where the national parties stood on the civil rights issue. Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic nominee in both
496 The 1944 Democratic Party Platform. 19 July 1944. The American Presidency Project.
1952 and 1956, himself a reform-minded governor of Illinois, chose two Southerners, Senator
John Sparkman of Alabama in 1952 and Estes Kefauver of Tennessee in 1956, as his running mates. Sparkman had been an opponent of civil rights while Estes was a supporter of more progressive legislation on the issue. In sum, through the 1950s there were concerted efforts by leading Democratic officials to maintain the breadth of the New Deal coalition. While the
Democratic Study Group was pushing the party to take more progressive stands on economic and social policy, the leadership of the party was not willing to totally isolate the party’s Southern wing and few Southern Democrats, including the governors, were willing to switch parties through the 1950s.
By the 1960s, the stand of the national party in favor of civil rights hardened. John F.
Kennedy moved cautiously on the issue at first but ultimately moved forward on efforts to pass national civil rights legislation. President Johnson moved on the issue much more ambitiously, culminating in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and later the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The removal of de jure restrictions on African American voting in the South coupled with a more progressive stand on the issue by the national Democratic party provided the basis for more moderate gubernatorial candidates to compete in Democratic nomination contests in the region by the 1970s, including Carter and Clinton.
In sum, while the Democrats maintained an edge in terms of the percentage of the nation’s governors that were members of the party leading into the 1960s a clear divide had emerged between the northern and southern wings of the party and this divide had implications for both state- and national-level Democratic officials. The split over the civil rights issue was significant not simply because it illustrated ideological divergence among party elites but because it was tied to questions of intergovernmental relations, and, thus, the relationship
240 between the national and state parties, and therefore the place of governors within the national parties. Federal-state relations was at the center of what was emerging as one of the chief issues on the national agenda, and the governors were forced to take public stands on the issue. While
Republican governors of the era tended to be moderating forces within the national party on the civil rights issue, Democratic governors were decidedly split and this had implications for the group in terms of their ability to mobilize at the national-level.
Governors within the Democratic party were ultimately slower to engage in organization- building because Southern Democrats operated during the 1960s and 1970s were incentivized to place more distance between themselves and the liberals in Washington and the North than would be the case by the 1980s. Between the 1940s and the 1970s, the “authoritarian enclaves” of the South went through significant democratizing processes, ones which ultimately contributed to Republicans being able to contest more and more elections in the region and for more liberal Democrats to compete in primary contests in the region, including and perhaps especially in gubernatorial election498 This process, however, took time to reach fulfillment.
Table 6.1 Democrats Conditions and Effects Present, 1960-1968
Conditions Effects
Strong Governors Increased Participation by Governors in National Partisan Discourse, Party as • Connally, Wallace, Hughes Organization • Increased Formal Authorities of the Office • Partisanship in NGC
Intergovernmental Relations New Resources Available to Governors
• Civil Rights Nationalized • DGC as a Caucus • LBJs Creative Federalism Gubernatorial Influence on Party Program, Brand
498 Mickey, Robert. 2015. Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America’s Deep South, 1944-1972. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 241
Programmatic Party Politics • Connally testimony to platform • Regional Split Within Party over Civil committee in 1968 Rights – Governors Not United • Concern over LBJ’s popularity
Defending the President: A Democratic Caucus Emerges within the NGC
Like their Republican counterparts, the Democratic governors first moved to organize their partisan caucus within the NGC in order to counter the efforts of the Republicans. They too, at the time, voiced desires to be more influential in national political decision-making. Reporting on the 1964 Conference in Cleveland, Henry Gemmill noted that “A few days of immersion in a governors’ conference can give you the feeling that all state executives are affable, some are able, and none are influential.”499 Governor Edmund G., “Pat,” Brown of California used the forum to push for the formation of a Council of Governors, similar to the president’s Council of
Economic Advisors, which could advise President Johnson, arguing that “Governors, in daily touch with the immediate needs of their particular states, could be most helpful to the President, if there were some way that we could regularly meet with him.”500
Brown’s comments were echoed by other Democratic and even Republican governors of varying ideological persuasions. Connally, who became the first chair of the Democratic
Governors’ Caucus, while presiding over an NGC session on federal-state relations, noted that
“We are moving toward an economic and social life which tends more and more to obliterate state lines, to obscure the position of the states and increase the power of the federal government.”501 At the 1965 meeting in Minneapolis, then NGC Chairman Democratic Governor
499 Gemmill, Henry. 10 June 1964. “Statehouse Slide: Powers of Governors Wane as Federal Programs Grow. The Wall Street Journal. 14. 500 Proceedings of the Governors’ Conference 1964. Fifty-sixth Annual Meeting. Sheraton-Cleveland Hotel, Cleveland, Ohio. June 6-10, 1964. Chicago: The Governors’ Conference. 39. 501 Ibid. 25. 242
Grant Sawyer of Nevada argued that “Increased federal presence in areas previously reserved to and jealously guarded by the states has resulted from inaction and, in too many cases, invitation.
Too often our states have been content to stand aside while Washington found solutions to local problems and financed their implementation.”502 These remarks underscore the notion that governors are, by their place within the polity, meant to be problem-solvers. Moreover, failure to fulfill this duty provided legitimation of a more active national government, in this case, the actions taken by the president.
Also like their Republican counterparts, the Democratic governors were aware of national partisan politicking and the potential good that could come from organizing to counter the efforts of the opposition. A month after the NGC’s 1965 meeting, Connally, an ally of the president, who had put LBJ’s name forward for the Democratic presidential nomination a year earlier, was named the Chairman of a new Democratic Governors’ Caucus and he appointed an Executive
Committee including Brown, John Dempsey of Connecticut, Frank Morrison of Nebraska,
Albertis Harrison of Virginia and Richard Hughes of New Jersey. The Executive Committee mirrored part of the RGA’s organizational form. The committee demonstrated a commitment to regional representation and the ideological breadth of the party. Harrison was allied with Senator
Harry F. Byrd and had defended the state’s “massive resistance” to desegregation in several federal court cases, including a high-profile case regarding the closure of public schools in
Prince Edward County. Dempsey was a New England liberal who led the way on environmental legislation. He was also allied with then DNC Chairman John Bailey, who contemporaneously served as the chairman of the Connecticut Democratic party. Hughes was an ally of LBJ, a fact which contributed to the 1964 Democratic National Convention being held in Atlantic City.
502 Proceedings of the Governors’ Conference 1965. Fifty-seventh Annual Meeting. Radisson Hotel, Minneapolis, Minnesota. July 25-29, 1965. Chicago: The Governors’ Conference. 2. 243
At NGC meetings during this period, the Caucus held regular breakfast meetings for the governors and their staffs in order to coordinate their political messaging during the NGC plenary sessions and to find common ground among the Caucus members. While this was not always easy given the ideological disparities among the governors, there was some success at uniting the Caucus early on, particularly on issues relating to foreign affairs. At the 1965 NGC meeting, the Democratic governors led by Connally announced that the party’s governors
“supported unanimously the leadership of the President and the Administration in the conduct of affairs in the Dominican Republic and Viet Nam.”503 During the plenary session of the meeting,
Governor Carl Sanders of South Carolina motioned to have the NGC go on record in support of
President Johnson’s televised address on the war effort. Governor Romney sought to defer the motion. Governor Burns responded to Romney by noting that:
I think at this time that all partisanship must be laid aside and that a word of patriotism must be substituted. We have elected through the democratic processes a leader for this nation. I think that it behooves the people of this nation, certainly the Governors of this nation, to stand as one, united, in support of the action that has been announced on behalf of this nation. We as Governors are not informed in the field of diplomacy nor are we informed of the give and take at the negotiation table. We, like every other citizen of these United States, have our allegiance to the nation and to its leadership.504
Vice President Humphrey, who acted as a liaison between the party’s governors and the president, was on hand for the NGC meetings in both 1965 and 1966, seeking to use the venue as a means of rallying support behind the war. Two years later, the Democratic Governors’ Caucus again unanimously adopted a position supporting the Administration’s war efforts.505
The Caucus also encouraged finding ways for the its members to make distinctions between their favored policies and those of the GOP on fiscal issues and they did so in spite of
503 Duscha, Julius. 27 July 1965. “Governors Voice Viet War Views.” The Washington Post. A4. 504 Proceedings of the Governors’ Conference 1965. Fifty-seventh Annual Meeting. Radisson Hotel, Minneapolis, Minnesota. July 25-29, 1965. Chicago: The Governors’ Conference. 93. 505 Broder, David S. 16 October 1967. “20 Governors Back President on War.” Los Angeles Times. 6. 244 the fact that most governors sought more money and flexibility with regards to dealing with issues in tandem with the federal government. In 1967, for instance, partisanship became pronounced during discussion of a proposed resolution on Non-Defense Spending and Inflation.
Connally called out Reagan for trying to undermine support for the resolution on fiscal grounds, noting that:
in your brief remarks you characterized an attempt to get this distinguished group of Governors of the Sovereign States to express themselves on a matter of paramount importance in this country, as being done for partisan, political purposes. And let me say to you first and last that there is no intent on my part, as one of those who is most interested in the adoption of this resolution, to inject any partisan politics in this discussion whatsoever. And I consider it a personal affront for you to assume that I am doing so for partisan, political purposes, because such is not my intent. This happens to be a matter on which I feel very strongly and very deeply.506
Indeed, state prerogatives became part of the critiques of the partisan opposition and did not always bring all of the nation’s governors together.
At an October 1967 meeting of the DGC, individual governors, at the request of the
Caucus’ Executive Committee, prepared a series of position papers that attempted to draw distinctions with Republicans to a wider range of policy issues. Governor Philip Hoff of
Vermont, for instance, presented a paper on fiscal federalism that called into question some
Republican proposals for revenue sharing, arguing that “we Democratic governors must continue to underscore, therefore, the supplemental nature of potential federal grants and the urgency of placing our own state and local revenue houses in order.”507 The Republicans, he continued,
“make no secret of their hope that tax sharing will eventually replace rather than supplement our
506 Proceedings of the Governors’ Conference 1967. Fifty-ninth Annual Meeting. S. S. Independence and Virgin Islands. October 16-24, 1967. Chicago: The Governors’ Conference. 113. 507 “New Departures in Fiscal Federalism.” A Progress Report for the Democratic Governors’ Conference by Governor Philip H. Hoff, Vice Chairman, Committee on State and Local Revenue of the National Governors’ Conference. The John Dempsey Papers. The Connecticut State Library. Hartford, Connecticut. Box 248. Folder. “Democratic Governors’ Conference. New York. 10/16/1967. 11. 245 existing system of federal categorical aids.”508 To be sure, many Democratic governors did favor the expansion of revenue sharing and many had concerns over LBJ’s creative federalism.
However, the Democratic Caucus sought to draw distinctions between the parties on the issue.
In this way, the formation of the DGC promoted unity among the party’s governors. The party coordinated going into annual NGC meetings and, in its early years, sought to voice support for President Johnson on issues where there was relative consensus among the party’s governors. Civil rights may have been an issue which divided the governors but the party came together to prevent the GOP from using the Conference as a means of critiquing the Johnson administration through official resolutions. The Democratic governors also drew distinctions with their GOP counterparts on other issues and used their access to the press at NGC meetings to make these distinctions vivid.
Also, like the RGA, the formation of the Caucus provided a venue for some governors to elevate their national standing. Connally’s alliance with the President, in particular, allowed him to bolster his national reputation. He became “an unofficial Southern campaign coordinator” for the President and was a regular participant in LBJ’s campaign events, even beyond the South.509
The chairmanship of the organization, like that of the RGA, became a mouthpiece for the
Democratic governors and for the party more broadly.
The Democratic Governors’ Caucus and National Democratic Organizations, 1960-68
Division Among the Governors outside the NGC Leading into 1964
Within the NGC, the Democratic caucus worked to unify the party’s governors and respond to the Republican opposition. However, a deep and enduring rift remained among the
508 Ibid. 8. 509 Evans, Rowland and Robert Novak. 1 September 1964. “Inside Report: The Conservative Voice.” The Washington Post. A13. 246 party’s governors – one that proved meaningful in stunting organizational development within the party for another two decades. Specifically, the Democratic governors were not as active as their Republican counterparts in organizing within the context of the national Democratic party organizational apparatus. They did not develop the DGC as part of the national party in service during the 1960s.
Those that did move to organize tended to be allies of President Johnson. Connally, for instance, took the lead in creating the Democratic Governors Caucus. Connally had close ties to
President Johnson, having “cut his teeth” as LBJ’s aid, getting heavily involved with the Texas
Senator and the then Senate Majority Leader’s 1960 vice-presidential pick by John F.
Kennedy.510 He served briefly as Secretary of the Navy after LBJ lobbied President Kennedy on his behalf. Connally, upon assuming the governorship in 1963, became the leader of the state’s conservative wing but maintained a close relationship with LBJ throughout his term. He was chosen as the Democratic caucus’ first chairman. Harold Hughes, the second chairman of the
Caucus, gave a speech seconding Johnson’s nomination at the 1964 convention Dempsey, the third chair of the Caucus, also backed LBJ.
Those who were less willing to help build the Caucus as an organization tended to be conservative Southerners, who made up an important constituency within the group during the
1960s and the 1970s. The early 1960s were electorally fortunate times for Democratic gubernatorial candidates. Between the 1960 and 1965 gubernatorial contests, Democrats controlled 33 statehouses on average (again see Figures 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3). This electoral success was largely due to the party’s hold on the South, especially the states that had previously been in the Confederacy. Many of the races in the region were particularly lopsided. In 1960 and 1962,
510 Connally, John and Mickey Hershowitz. 1990. In History’s Shadow. 191. 247 for instance, Orval Faubus of Arkansas cruised to re-election, winning 69 and 73 percent of the vote respectively. Wallace, in 1962, faced only token Republican opposition. Even in 1964, which saw Barry Goldwater capture five states in the Deep South for the Republican Party,
Democratic gubernatorial candidates Faubus, Connally, and Dan Moore of North Carolina won substantial victories. In fact, Republicans won their first gubernatorial seat in the Old
Confederacy in over forty years in 1966 when Winthrop Rockefeller captured 54 percent of the vote in Arkansas. In short, while Republicans now dominate the region at the state-level, the beginning of the region’s partisan transition occurred through Southern whites defecting from their party in presidential contests.511 As Hopkins notes, “the story for the South does appear to be one of increasing nationalization, with a pause in the late 1960s and 1970s when Republican presidential candidates were competitive while Republican gubernatorial candidates were less so.”512
The split between the Southern Democratic governors and the emerging liberal majority in the Democratic Party was on full display in the summer of 1964 and ultimately stunted the organizational development of the DGC. Wallace launched a short-lived but meaningful challenge to LBJ’s 1964 bid for the Democratic nomination. Between 1963 and 1964, Wallace engaged in a national speaking tour, becoming “part of a long tradition of southern emissaries seeking an audience for the gospel of a peculiar region.”513 The Alabama governor weaved
511 On partisan realignment in the South see Green, Donald Bradley Palmquist and Eric Schickler. 2002. Partisan Hearts and Minds: Political Parties and the Social Identities of Voters. New Haven: Yale University Press. 140-63. See also Levendusky, Matthew. 2009. The Partisan Sort: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became Republicans. 512 Hopkins, Daniel. 2018. The Increasingly United States: How and Why American Political Behavior Nationalized. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 46. 513 Carter, Dan T. 2000/1995. The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics. Second Ed. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 196. 248 together his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, a dedication to federalism and limitations on the sovereignty of the national government, and a fear of communism, noting that:
This bill takes a long step toward transferring private property to public domain under a central government. It is this way in Russia. It places in the hands of a few men in central government the power to create a regulatory police arm unequaled in Western civilization – power to investigate, to arrest, to charge, and to try a citizen without a jury of his peers – power to control the voting booth – power to invade private property without compensation or due process of law – power to enter every community, every business and level the American citizen to a common denominator called ‘equality,’ that is necessary for central planning and management of an entire people by governmental authority.514
Wallace, thus, deployed the logic of dual federalism in his opposition to LBJ’s initiatives and highlighted the divide within the party on civil rights.
At a meeting of Southern Democratic Governors in New Orleans in mid-August, Faubus,
Wallace and Paul Johnson of Mississippi told their colleagues of their intentions to support
Goldwater over LBJ. By that time, Wallace had foregone an independent bid for the White
House. John McKeithen of Louisiana announced plans to skip the 1964 Democratic convention all together.515 A week later, those four governors “boycotted” a meeting of Democratic governors and the president.516 While LBJ’s prospects for the general election were strong, the president was dealing with contested delegations from Alabama and Mississippi and the threat of defections of Southern states to Goldwater. Governor Johnson’s absence from the meeting contributed to questions over the Mississippi delegation remaining unresolved leading into the
Convention. Ultimately, thirty of the then thirty-four Democratic governors attended the meeting. The vast majority of the party’s governors backed LBJ’s nomination.
514 Wallace, George. “Wallace for President: The 1964 Campaign Speech.” In Rohler, Lloyd. 2004. George Wallace: Conservative Populist. Westport: Praeger. 128. 515 Sitton, Claudia. 16 August 1964. “Goldwater Gets Backing in South: Govs. Faubus, Wallace and Johnson to Bolt Ticket – Others Undecided.” The New York Times. 1. 516 Phillips, Cabell. 23 August 1964. “Johnson Spurned by 4 Southerners: Faubus, Wallace, Johnson and McKeithen Boycott a Meeting of Governors. The New York Times. 1. 249
LBJ’s Program, Building National Electoral Concerns, and Gestures Toward
Organizational Development
LBJ’s leadership provided challenges for his party’s governors on several fronts.
Dissatisfaction with the President rested in part on his stand toward fiscal relations between the federal government and the states. Democratic governors overwhelmingly backed an NGC resolution supporting federal tax-sharing with states and localities. They also strongly supported a resolution backing block grants and the administrative freedoms they offered at the state- level.517 Like their Republican counterparts, many Democratic governors criticized LBJ’s agenda for its cost, for the burdens it placed on state governments, and, in some cases, for bypassing the states and emphasizing federal-local relations, such as in the creation of the Model Cities program. As columnist Richard Wilson notes “The Democratic governors, apparently feeling that they are traveling on their own, are insisting not only on a larger voice in the administration of federal programs which affect their states, but a larger voice in drafting any new programs or legislation.”518
LBJ’s waning popularity after 1964 provided additional challenges for the party’s governors. The 1966 midterm elections saw substantial Democratic losses in gubernatorial races, including in Arkansas and Florida. The trend was painted as due in large part to LBJ, particularly as casualties in the Vietnam War mounted and what had been a relative consensus in support of the president disintegrated, including within the Democratic party.
In a statement lamenting a lack of coordination between the President and the party’s governors, Hughes rejected notions that state and local party organizations were to blame for the
517 Weaver Jr., Warren. 17 December 1966. “They Say He Will Meet Them on Grievances but No Date is Set.” The New York Times. 1.Ibid. Only Hughes and Calvin Rampton of Utah opposed these resolutions. 518 Wilson, Richard. 20 December 1966. “The Other Democratic Voice.” The Los Angeles Times. A5. 250
1966 midterm losses. The Democratic governors’ lack of concern over the party’s organizational capacity is curious given the President’s “predatory” views toward the party. Johnson, as Milkis notes, worked ardently with party leaders in Congress in promoting his programmatic agenda.519
However, LBJ, “had always regarded political parties, strongly rooted in states and localities, capable of holding him accountable, as intruders on the business of government.”520 In this way,
LBJ embodied the Progressive understanding of executive leadership that presidents and governors shared – that parties needed to be disciplined by executive leadership rather than constraints upon it. Still, the weakening of state party organizations stood to undermine state executive influence in national party affairs.
One option concerning remedying the party’s losses in the midterms discussed at a meeting of nine governors and the President at LBJ’s ranch in Texas concerned the makeup of the national committee. Hughes noted that the governors “hold the key in our hands as governors to change whatever national committee people we see fit in our respective states.”521 No such move was coordinated by the Caucus. Challenging an incumbent president had costs and the governors were not united in their opposition to LBJ despite his shortcomings.
Seeds of Organizational Development
Hughes did take some steps to augment the Caucus’ role within the party, particularly leading into the 1968 presidential election. The activities of the RGA were not lost on Hughes, who at the July 1967 Caucus meeting noted that “if there is going to be an organization of
Democratic governors, it should meet at regular intervals throughout the year and should
519 Milkis, Sidney M. 1993. The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System Since the New Deal. New York: Oxford University Press. 178. 520 Kearns, Doris. 1976. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. New York: New American Library. 256. 521 Young, Robert. 22 December 1966. “LBJ Host to Disenchanted Governors: Nine Democrats Talk and Lunch at Ranch. Chicago Tribune. 17. 251 function as an effective voice for the Governors in support of their Party’s programs and principles.”522 The meeting was attended by John Criswell, then the Acting DNC Treasurer, and
Farris Bryant, a former governor of Florida, who represented the White House in the capacity of the Director of the Office of Emergency Planning.523 The Caucus was renamed the National
Democratic Governors Conference of America and Hughes was reelected as chairman. Articles of Association were written up and the Caucus’ goals were “to participate in the formulation of goals for the Democratic Party which will further the progress and security of the Nation and the well-being of the people; to develop and support programs directed toward the attainment of these goals; to foster a strong party organization with which to promote these goals and to elect public officials who subscribe to the philosophy of the Democratic Party; to maintain continuing liaison with those national, state and local elected officials who are members of the Democratic
Party; and to obtain public support for the goals and objectives of the Democratic Party.”524
The DNC did use the Conference to circulate campaign research and national talking points memos and to invite individual governors to participate in DNC sponsored events. For instance, the DNC circulated reports on how the Safe Streets and Crime Control Act affected state bureaucracies and polling for the 1968 presidential race in key states.525 Certain governors were also invited to participate in “Victory ‘68” regional conferences.526
522 2 June 1967. “Democratic Governors Meet July 1 to Study Buildup for ’68 Campaign.” The Washington Post. A2. 523 Johnson appointed three governors to lead this office, including Bryant, Buford Ellington and Price Daniel, all of whom had been governors of Southern states. 524 Minutes of the Meeting. Democratic Governors’ Caucus. St. Louis, Missouri. July 1, 1967. The John Dempsey Papers. The Connecticut State Library. Hartford, Connecticut. Box 248. Folder. “Democratic Governors’ Conference. New York. 10/16/1967. 525 Letter to Keith Schonreck from Nancy Bush. July 30, 1967. The John Dempsey Papers. The Connecticut State Library. Hartford, Connecticut. Box 248. Folder “Dem. Nat. Correspondence.” 526 Letter to John Dempsey from John M. Bailey. March 4, 1968. The John Dempsey Papers. The Connecticut State Library. Hartford, Connecticut. Box 248. Folder “Dem. Nat. Correspondence.” 252
However, the organization did not hire a permanent staff or decide to engage in any meaningful electioneering efforts, either in coordination with or separate from the DNC. Unlike the RGA, the Conference did not have separate policy or campaign committees. The Conference did not begin any efforts to raise money independently. Additionally, the Conference did not receive meaningful financial support from the DNC. The Conference relied on dues from its membership. At the St. Louis meeting, the Executive Committee agreed to institute dues of $250 per governor per year. As of October 1967, the organization had less than $4000 cash on hand and some governors had not yet made their contributions for the year.527 As demonstrated previously, this was nothing in comparison to the RGA’s budget.
Southern Democratic governors continued to be the staunchest dissenters toward the
President’s agenda during meetings of the Caucus. In July, 1967, for instance, LBJ attended a
Caucus meeting in St. Louis. The Caucus drafted a statement praising the President, including a broad range of his Great Society programs. However, McKeithen and Lester Maddox of Georgia refused to sign the statement. McKeithen, spiting the President, left the meeting before LBJ arrived.528
In short, before 1968 the DGC allowed for some degree of coordination of the governors concerning party policy - it promoted interaction between the national party organization and the governors. However, the divisions within the party, sharpened by LBJ’s disregard for party, limited these efforts. The organization also did not develop as an organization unto itself in terms of providing services to its membership outside of coordination.
1968 and the Politics of the DGC
Candidates and Credentials at the DNC
527 Ibid. 528 Young, Robert. 2 July 1967. “Dem Governor Pep Talks Are ‘Music’ to LBJ.” Chicago Tribune. 4. 253
Like RGA meetings, conferences of the Democratic governors included much discussion about presidential politics. Media coverage of these event focused on this element of party politics. However, like the RGA meetings, Democratic governors’ conferences rarely resulted in agreement over a preferred presidential candidate. This was true in 1968, a contest in which divisions within the party became manifest both inside and outside the convention hall in
Chicago.
The story of the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination contest is well known.
President Johnson, widely assumed to run for re-election given his eligibility for a second full term, announced he would not seek the nomination in a televised address in late March. Despite overseeing one of the most significant periods of legislative achievement in American history,
LBJ’s popularity had plummeted due to mounting casualties in Vietnam and the race riots plaguing the nation’s cities. Johnson’s reputation as a political power-broker also did not help his standing among the public. Joseph Califano once noted that the President “learned too late that the manipulative and devious behavior commonplace in the back alleys of legislative politics appalled the American people when exposed in their president.”529 Vice President Humphrey,
Wallace, and Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy became the eventual contenders for the nomination.
Some governors emphasized party unity leading into the campaign season. At a meeting of the Democratic governors in New York, Governor Docking of Kansas noted that “It is necessary to our basic freedoms that each of us develop intelligent opinions on a matter of great national concern, but it is most strategic not to publicly take our President to task in the mass
529 Cited in Gould, Lewis L. 1993/2010. 1968: The Election That Changed America. 2nd Ed. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. 9. 254 media.”530 Doing so risked exposing the divide within the party thereby sending mixed signals to voters.
The Democratic governors held a meeting in mid-April in St. Louis at Connally’s suggestion. Expectations going into the meeting were that the conference would end in a repudiation of Kennedy’s candidacy, perhaps in the form of a de-facto embrace of Humphrey.
Only two sitting Democratic governors from the Northeast, Hoff and Kenneth M. Curtis of
Maine had, at that point, publicly endorsed Kennedy.531 Sensing animosity among a contingent of the governors, the Kennedy campaign chartered a plane for Curtis to use to attend the event, for which he interrupted a Florida vacation.532 Seventeen governors attended the four-hour event but little progress was made. Sixteen of them signed onto a vague statement that “every effort will be made for a decision at the proper time” regarding the party’s nominee and the platform.533 Governor Williams of Mississippi refused to back even that pledge and remained committed to Wallace’s candidacy. Maddox announced that he was not willing to back either
Kennedy or McCarthy for the nomination. Hughes, acting as Chairman, remained neutral and denied that the meeting was meant to stop Kennedy’s assent to the nomination.534 Ultimately,
Hughes lamented that “There’s not enough unity among the Governors for there to be anything but divisiveness.”535
530 Remarks by Governor Docking of Kansas to the Democratic Governors. Waldorf-Astoria, New York City, Sunday, October 15, 1967. The John Dempsey Papers. The Connecticut State Library. Hartford, Connecticut. Box 248. Folder “Democratic Governors’ Conference. New York. 10/16/1967. 531 Weaver Jr., Warren. 4 April 1968. “Governors Likely to Fight Kennedy: St. Louis Gathering Expected to Press for Humphrey.” The New York Times. 22. 532 Broder, David S. 16 April 1968. “Governors Decide to ‘Wait and See.’” The Washington Post. A1. 533 Howard, Robert. 16 April 1968. “Democratic Governors Hold Secret Talks.” Chicago Tribune. B8. 534 Ibid. 535 Broder, David S. 16 April 1968. “Governors Decide to ‘Wait and See.’” The Washington Post. A1. Hughes later gave a speech nominating McCarthy. 255
A lack of unity among the governors was present through the Democratic Convention in
Chicago. Individual governors were, however, able to use their standing within their state parties as brokers. With regard to unity, Wallace’s independent candidacy continued to split the party.
Maddox, a staunch segregationist, continued to endorse Wallace until the very end. Additionally, while most other Southern Governors endorsed Humphrey, whose candidacy was supported by the White House, disagreements became quite visible, and these differences did not boil down to the riots occurring outside the Convention hall in Chicago.
The conduct of convention politics further divided the Southern governors from the more liberal wing of the party. Of particular importance was the so called “unit rule” which allowed
Southern states to control delegations as a block, to the detriment of minorities within the state.
Humphrey’s allies originally indicated that they would not seek to change the provision at the
Chicago convention but later pushed through a “freedom of conscience” rule effectively eliminating the binding of delegates to state party leaders, mirroring efforts by Republican governors in 1952 to weaken southern state party control over their delegations.536 Connally used his favorite-son candidacy to rally Texas delegates to Humphrey, but only after toying with the idea of drafting LBJ back into the race. Humphrey, who did not enter primaries and relied on an insider strategy to obtain the nomination, calculated that he would not jeopardize his nomination by agreeing to change the rule.537 The rule change threatened to undermine the governors’ ability to influence the nomination through their influence over the delegates.
Southern delegations faced a number of challenges at the convention outside of the elimination of the unit rule. The 1968 DNC “produced the greatest number of credentials
536 Gould, Lewis L. 1993/2010. 1968: The Election That Changed America. 2nd Ed. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. 110. 537 Reed, Roy. 30 July 1968. “Humphrey Asks Abolition of Unit Rule at Convention.” The New York Times. 1. 256 disputes in the Convention’s history” and many of these related to the seating of delegations from the South.538 Alabama, for instance, put forward a slate of electors which included known
Wallace loyalists.539 Indeed, racial discrimination became a major issue affecting the status of
Southern delegations. After the 1964 convention, a Special Equal Rights Committee was established with the purpose of working with state parties in studying and remedying racial discrimination. The committee was chaired by Governor David Lawrence of Pennsylvania and later Hughes. A report by the committee led to credential challenges for the delegations of
Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.540 Maddox had handpicked the original delegation from Georgia.
In summary, the challenges presented in the credential’s contests, and the increasingly significant role that the Convention and the national committee played in the proceedings that it signified, extended a longer-term process of democratizing the party’s institutions in the South.
Governors’ abilities to have an impact on the process through their traditional role as favorite- son candidates was threatened, as was their hold over their states’ delegates even if the results of these changes did not become clear through Humphrey’s nomination.
The Democratic Party Program: Atomistic Gubernatorial Involvement
The governors engaged in limited discussions over the development of the party’s platform. However, they did not obtain any leadership roles on the committee. The closest they came to using the Conference to influence the platform writing process came in the backing of three resolutions that the NGC had agreed upon at that year’s meeting in Cincinnati regarding
538 Schmidt, John R. and Wayne W. Whalen. 1969. “Credentials Contests at the 1968 – and 1972 – Democratic National Conventions.” Harvard Law Review 82.7: 1438. 539 Ibid. 1443. 540 Ibid. 1451. 257 grants-in-aid, education, and highway funding.541 Their participation was atomized. Connally, for instance, addressed the resolutions committee, focusing his remarks on the Vietnam War.
Connally asked that the committee “write a plank denouncing not our actions but denouncing
Communist aggression in South Vietnam, Czechoslovakia and anywhere else in the world.”542
The party’s platform that year boasted of the numerous legislative achievements that took place under the leadership of President Johnson and unified Democratic control of Congress.
However, the platform did not highlight the role of state governments in achieving those ends. In fact, a great deal of the discussion of intergovernmental relations in the document emphasized federal-municipal relations, such as the Model Cities program. The creation of HUD in 1965 was noted as a means of giving “our cities a spokesman of Cabinet rank.”543
Thus, while governors, individually, played important roles within the presidential nomination contest, their involvement remained far more traditional and unorganized in comparison to their Republican counterparts. While Republicans used the RGA as a means of gaining access to important posts within the Convention, Democrats remained divided on candidate selection and decided not to organize more vigorously as a united force within the party.
Table 6.2 Democrats Conditions and Effects Present, 1969-1976
Conditions Effects
Strong Governors Increased Participation by Governors in National Partisan Discourse, Party as • Wallace, Mandel, Carter Organization • Connally, Godwin Leaves Party • Partisanship in NGC
541 Letter to all Democratic Governors from Charles A. Byrley. August 5, 1968. The John Dempsey Papers. The Connecticut State Library. Hartford, Connecticut. Box 248. Folder: Democratic National Convention. 542 23 August 1968. “Connally Statement to the Platform Committee.” The New York Times. 23. 543 The 1968 Democratic Party Platform. 26 August 1968. The American Presidency Project.
Intergovernmental Relations • 1972 DNC Chairmanship Contest • Wallace, Carter Presidential • Nixon’s New Federalism Candidacies
Programmatic Party Politics New Resources Available to Governors
• Ongoing Convention Reform • Liaison Post with DNC • Legacy of “Solid South” on Democratic Party Politics Gubernatorial Influence on Party Program, Brand
• 1976 Platform Committee Activity
The DGC, 1969-76
The post-1968 period was one of dramatic change for the Democratic Party. For their part, the governors sought more influence over the national party, including the presidential nomination process, the activities of the national party committees, and the national party brand.
The governors’ efforts were limited, however, by three sets of factors. For one, the party began to see a significant shift among segments of its Southern conservative base, including some noteworthy former governors, Connally in particular, changing parties and contributing to
Republicans becoming more competitive in the once “solid” South. Some Southern governors continued to offer support for George Wallace who made two more bids for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 and 1976. Second, the national party also began an era of reform that contributed to the hollowing out of state and local party organizations that had begun decades earlier during the Progressive Era. The DNC moved “toward the ‘opening up’ of the party for more participation at the grass roots, and especially for more participation by formerly disadvantaged groups such as women, black people, and young people.”544 Third, the party
544 Jackson III, John S. and Robert A. Hitlin. 1981. “The Nationalization of the Democratic Party.” The Western Political Quarterly. 34.2: 271. 259 embraced organizational improvements after losing the presidency. However, the reforms did not enhance the roles of the governors within the national party. Rather, the governors had to seek influence over the direction of the national party on their own and their efforts in doing so proved largely ineffective through the Conference during this period.
The South and the DGC Post-68: Fragmenting Democratic Gubernatorial Leadership
The Democratic hold on the Southern “authoritarian enclaves” weakened considerably in the period between 1968 and 1980 (see Figures 3.3, 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3). The weakening of the conservative wing of the party in the region ultimately provided for less extreme ideological division among the party’s governors. However, during this period, different stripes of governors and gubernatorial candidates vied for power in the region and adopted different strategies in seeking power. Some left the Democratic Party and became Republicans. Others continued to directly challenge the rising liberal faction. A third group was more moderate in its political outlook and sought to balance factions within the party (a precursor to the rise of moderate
Democrats in the 1980s).545 Ultimately, this contribute to a continued lack of unity among the members of the DGC.
Governors Leaving the Party
The first of these groups became part of the “Democrats for Nixon” organization and provided high profile endorsements for the Republican president who actively sought to increase the Republican presence in the region through his Southern strategy. In 1969, for instance,
Democrats lost the Virginia governorship for the first time since Reconstruction. The Democratic candidate and incumbent Governor Mills Godwin had supported LBJ in 1964 and made appeals to African American voters in his 1965 election. He also had ties to the Harry Byrd machine
545 See Sundquist, James L. 1983. Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States. Revised Edition. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution. 292-297. 260 which lost power around the time of Byrd’s death in 1966. Godwin began to sever his ties with the Democratic Party at the end of his term in 1970. He supported the independent Senate candidacy of Harry F. Byrd Jr. and ran for a second, non-consecutive term for governor in 1974, as a Republican.
Godwin was among three former southern governors, along with Connally and Cecil
Farris Bryant of Florida to join the “Democrats for Nixon” organization. Bryant had served in the
Johnson administration in the Office of Emergency Planning, which LBJ used as a means of coordinating with governors, and on the United States Security Council. He also ran for Senate in 1970 but was defeated in the Democratic primary by the more liberal Lawton Chiles who became Florida’s governor in 1991.
Connally, who led Democrats for Nixon, noted that by 1972 he “had no doubt in [his] mind that the country would be in safer hands with Nixon than with George McGovern.”546
Connally went on to serve in the Nixon administration as Treasury Secretary. He was also a candidate for the vice-presidency after Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 but Nixon decided against the nomination due to perceived opposition among liberal Democratic senators in a possible nomination contest. He later sought the GOP presidential nomination in 1980. Ultimately, though Connally was no longer a governor at that point, his becoming a Republican removed one of the most nationally active former governors from the party, one who had been the driving force in the creation of the Democratic Conference.
Intraparty Disputes: Continued Challenges to the Liberal Wing
A second group of Southern governors and former governors maintained conservative positions and sought to challenge the liberal insurgency within the party. Wallace led this group
546 Connally, John and Mickey Hershowitz. 1990. In History’s Shadow: An American Odyssey. New York: Hyperion. 232. 261 even after 1968. The Alabama governor won a second term in 1970 after a close contest for the
Democratic Party nomination against incumbent governor Albert Brewer. Brewer had sought out
African American voters while Wallace ran a campaign imbued with racial rhetoric.547 Wallace ran for the presidency again in 1972 and 1976. In these nomination contests he toned down his more vitriolic racial rhetoric but continued to oppose busing and received support in the South and in white working-class neighborhoods in the North.548 Wallace was seen as a “pariah” by other Democrats, including some Southern governors at the time who viewed racial divisiveness as problematic for building a viable coalition of voters within the party.549
An Emerging Breed of Moderate Democratic Governors
A third group of Southern governors sought to strike a balance between the more conservative white voters and the rising African American contingent in their states. Most prominent among this group was Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter. Carter, elected in 1970, declared in his gubernatorial inaugural address that “the time for racial discrimination is over.”550
Carter took some high-profile steps regarding the inclusion of African Americans in the
Democratic Party, including supporting a black Mississippi mayor, Charles Evers, as the leader of the state party.551 Carter, often acting in opposition to his predecessor, Maddox, knew that he risked isolating conservative whites in his own state. “Had Carter,” in his 1970 gubernatorial bid as Kenneth Morris notes, “identified himself ideologically, he would have risked not only having his candidacy swallowed by [his rival former Governor Carl] Sanders but also being identified in
547 See for instance William, Warren Rogers, Leah Rawls Atkins, Robert David Ward and Wayne Flynt. 1994. Alabama: The History of a Deep South State. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. 548 See Cohen, Marty, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller. 2008. The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 165-6. 549 Apple, R. W. 21 June 1971. “Democratic Governors Pursue Unity.” The New York Times. 13. 550 “Governor Jimmy Carter’s Inaugural Address.” 12 January 1971.
In sum, the increased contestation between the Democratic and Republican parties in the
South contributed to stunted development for the Conference because while there was some turnover among the group, with more stringently conservative governors being replaced by moderates, a significant amount of infighting remained within the party. Some of the more ambitious members of the Conference, such as the former Chair Connally, left the party. Wallace and his allies would not back national statements that would support the party’s leftward drift.
Others, including Carter, who was active in the Conference, had more liberal leanings on the question of race but feared taking too strong of a stand on the matter, fearing white backlash.
The NGC and Critiques of Nixon and Ford
The caucus did have some successes in uniting against some aspects of President Nixon’s agenda. During a 1971 NGC meeting in Puerto Rico, Democratic governors proposed several resolutions critical of Nixon’s economic program.553 In 1973, the Democratic Conference adopted resolutions calling for price, rent, profits and wage controls to combat inflation.554
Republicans blocked the resolutions in the NGA sessions. DGC Chairman Marvin Mandel of
Maryland, in a speech in North Carolina took aim at Vice President Agnew, who Nixon appointed as a liaison between the White House and the nation’s governors.555 He also noted that wage controls were detrimental to the nation’s teachers. Governor Dale Bumpers criticized
552 Morris, Kenneth M. 1996. Jimmy Carter: American Moralist. Athens: University of Georgia Press. 185. 553 Cohen, Richard M. 16 September 1971. A4. “Governors Bar Attach on Economic Program.” The Washington Post. A4; Tagge, George. 16 September 1971. “Block Dem Bid to Censure Nixon Policy.” Chicago Tribune. 5. 554 King, Seth S. 1 May 1973. “Governors Want a New Prosecutor.” The New York Times. 32. 555 Cohen, Richard M. 19 September 1971. “Mandel Attacks Nixon, Agnew in N. Carolina Speech.” The Washington Post. B8. 263
President Nixon’s impoundment policy before Congress and chastised the president’s domestic spending cuts due to their effects on state budgeting and their implications for the elderly and the poor.556
The Conference also got in on the action in terms of chastising Nixon as the Watergate scandal unfolded. At a meeting in Huron, Ohio, Wendell Ford called for a special prosecutor to investigate the president’s role in the scandal.557 The following year, the Democratic governors accused Nixon of using federal investigative agencies to initiate “frivolous” investigations of
Democratic campaign finance records.558 In short, while Republican governors asserted their own independence from Nixon as the scandal unfolded, Democratic governors attempted to nationalize the issue and ride the electoral wave that developed after Nixon resigned.
The DGC as Organization: Still a Caucus
On an organizational level, the Conference effectively remained a caucus of governors between 1968 and 1976. While the Articles of Association had called for meetings outside of the
NGC meetings, these meetings were irregular early on. The first meeting of the Democratic governors scheduled after the 1968 elections was abruptly cancelled. Governor McNair of South
Carolina, who assumed the chairmanship of the Conference and was to host the event, cited
“busy schedules” for the cancellation.559 The cancellation was not an isolated occurrence.
Another meeting, to be held in the Spring of 1971 in Newport, Rhode Island, was also postponed.560 No meeting separate from the NGA was held in 1970.
556 27. February 1973. “Governors Assail Nixon’s Cutbacks: Democrats Call Action Mockery to Poor, Elderly.” The Loss Angeles Times. 2. 557 Mehler, Neil. 30 April 1973. “Democrats Gather: Governors Urge New Bug Probe.” Chicago Tribune. 12. 558 Lydon, Christopher. 8 March 1974. “Harassed, Democratic Governors Say: G.A.O. Role Cited Inventory Plan.” The New York Times. 16. 559 26 February 1969. “Governors’ Meetings Off.” The New York Times. 95. 560 24 November 1971. “Democratic Caucus Put Off.” The New York Times. 31. 264
More importantly, the organization continued to lack an independent staff separate from the DNC. In the mid-1970s under the leadership of Wendell Anderson, Bess Abell, who worked in the LBJ administration, was given the title of the Conference’s Executive Director but was paid by the DNC. The Conference also continued to lack a sufficient budget. This contributed to the Conference not getting directly involved in service provision for gubernatorial campaigns. In
1975, for instance, the DNC, DCCC and DSCC partnered with the Cambridge Research Service to collect polling data. The Governors’ Conference was not involved in that initiative.561
The governors did seek a more intimate relationship with the DNC and congressional leadership after 1968. In 1969, Governor McNair asked to speak at upcoming DNC meetings in order to raise concerns about the party’s leftward drift and its implications for Southern
Democrats.562 Dempsey noted, in a letter to Mandel, that “the Democratic Governors have a responsibility to lend leadership to our Party’s overall efforts and also to cooperate, for the benefit of us all, with the National Committee.”563 Under the leadership of Chairman Fred
Harris, the DNC invested additional resources in the committee’s research and campaign divisions. However, those resources were geared toward congressional rather than gubernatorial races.564 In 1971, the Conference passed a resolution calling on Chairman O’Brien to establish a liaison post to coordinate with the governors.565 A post was created but the position was a liaison for governors and members of both Houses of Congress.
561 Memo to Governor Grasso from Bess Abell. Re: DNC Poll Analysis. December 5, 1975. The Papers of Governor Ella Grasso. RG5. Part I. Subject Files, 1975-1979. Box 75. Folder: “Democratic Governors Conference.” 562 Chapman, William. 19 September 1969. “Democrats Urged to Widen Base.” The Washington Post. A10. 563 Letter to Marvin Mandel from John Dempsey. September 15, 1969. The John Dempsey Papers. The Connecticut State Library. Hartford, Connecticut. Box 248. Folder: “National Democratic Governors’ Conference.” 564 Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee. August 7, 1969. The John Dempsey Papers. The Connecticut State Library. Hartford, Connecticut. Box 248. Folder: “Dem. Nat. Correspondence.” 565 28 March 1971. “Democrat Governor Ranks Study Group.” Chicago Tribune. A10. 265
The Democratic governors wielded some influence during a battle over the DNC
Chairmanship after Senator George McGovern’s landslide defeat in 1972. Robert Strauss, a
Texan who had served as DNC Treasurer between 1970 and 1972, won the support of 18 of the governors at a Conference meeting in St. Louis.566 Strauss was seen as being more of a party
“regular” than then DNC Chairwoman Jean Westwood, who had been appointed by McGovern.
Westwood announced her resignation after conversations with Chicago mayor and party boss
Richard Daley.
The governors also sought participation in new efforts by the DNC to establish party policy. Mandel served on the Democratic Policy Council established in 1969. In a meeting with
16 governors in January 1973, Strauss proposed a new Democratic Advisory Council that could craft policy papers and urged an inclusive membership.567 Terry Sanford chaired the Charter
Commission established after the 1972 election. The commission initially proposed a new party charter that “outlined a more centralized, disciplined, mass-based Democratic party.”568 The charter proposed the establishment of a judicial council, affirmative action guidelines, and midterm conferences that could set party policy in between the national conventions.
The judicial council, which moved power over delegate selection toward the national party enraged party regulars. The governors, led by Askew and Gilligan, mediated a compromise, making planned midterm party conferences voluntary but maintaining the affirmative action and judicial council planks.569 Additionally, Straus appointed Carter as
566 Lydon, Christopher. 3 December 1972. “Governors Weigh Party Post: Fight: Democrats Split by Straus Bid for Chairmanship.” The New York Times. 40; “Ward, Francis. 4 December 1972. “Put Strauss in Mrs. Westwood's Job, Democrat Governors Urge: Resolution Asks Her to Resign; Most Southerners Join in 18-8 Vote for Texan, Candidate of Traditionalists, Labor.” The Los Angeles Times. A3. 567 Witcover, Jules. 20 January 1973. “Democracy Advisory Panel of Elected Officials Urged.” The Washington Post. A2. 568 Klinkner, Philip A. 1994. The Losing Parties. 120. 569 Ibid. 124. 266 national campaign chairman during the 1974 midterms. Carter, as Bourne notes, “worried that if it was merely Strauss’s decision the position would carry little weight, so he said he would do it if the Democratic National Committee would pass a resolution making it an official appointment.
Such appointments had traditionally been merely figurehead positions, so Strauss did not think he was giving much away.”570
The Conference ultimately allowed for governors to get more involved in questions over national party organizational efforts. Governors here, however, often acted as mediators among the party’s many interests and did not do much to advance their own interests, as the leaders of state parties, within the national party apparatus.
Presidential and Convention Politics in 1972 and 1976
The party’s governors noted after 1968 that more presidential nominees should come from the gubernatorial ranks. In September 1969, the caucus held a meeting in Colorado Springs and voiced concern that the party had become too “Congress-oriented.”571 At that meeting, the governors asked for more coordination with the national party on campaign strategy, not for gubernatorial but congressional races within their states.572 Sanford, at a 1975 meeting of the
Conference, noted that “Governors represent the people, in a combined sense beyond any other political office. Governors represent the sovereign states, that too many Congressmen, Senators, and Presidents have forgotten were sovereign. Governors are in a position to develop the plans for their own problems. They need assistance more than they need direction.”573 Carter, a
570 Bourne, Peter G. 1997. Jimmy Carter: A Comprehensive Biography from Plains to Postpresidency. New York: Lisa Drew/Scribner. 243. 571 Kovach, Bill. 1 September 1969. “Democratic Governors Seek New Role.” The New York Times. 15. 572 Ibid. 573 Statement by Terry Sanford to the Democratic Governors. December 2, 1975. The Papers of Governor Ella Grasso. RG5. Part I. Subject Files, 1975-1979. Box 75. Folder: “Democratic Governors Conference.” 267 governor, won the party’s nomination and the presidency in 1976. However, obtaining the presidential nomination for one of their own was not a goal that all the governors shared.
After the contested convention in Chicago the party embarked on a series of reforms that sought to unify its disparate factions. DNC Chairman O’Brien instituted a series of studies of the delegate selection process. Governor Hughes chaired an ad hoc committee and produced a report, The Democratic Choice, which outlined “many of the abuses in the delegate selection procedure and call[ed] on the convention to appoint a reform commission.”574 The Commission on Party Structure and Delegate Selection, led by McGovern and Congressman Donald Fraser, proposed a series of rule changes that sought to democratize the party. Among the proposed changes were mandates for state parties to adopt new rules for delegate selection, a prohibition on the unit-rule, which Southern states had long made use of, a ban on proxy voting, and caps on the share of state delegates chosen by state party committees.575 “The reformers’ basic argument,” Ceaser notes, “for changing the selection process, then, is based on the need to maintain the legitimacy of a system in which parties play a central role.”576 The DNC leadership first under Harris and later O’Brien, “while not totally unsympathetic to many of the reformers’ goals, certainly did not wish to carry reform as far as many of the reformers did.”577
Ultimately, the convention reforms led to the increased adoption of primaries, with both the Democratic and Republican parties choosing over 70 percent of their delegates through this method by 1976.578 The implication for governors was that their own direct influence over
574 Klinkner, Phillip. A. 1994. The Losing Parties: Out-Party National Committees. New Haven: Yale University Press. 91. 575 Ibid. 97-8. 576 Ceaser, James W. 1979. Presidential Selection: Theory and Development. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 279. 577 Klinker. 1994. The Losing Parties. 95. See also Shafter, Byron E. 1983. Quiet Revolution: The Struggle for the Democratic Party and the Shaping of Post-Reform Politics. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 578 Ceaser, James W. 1979. Presidential Selection. 237. 268 candidate selection waned. While Republican governors had attempted to increase their participation in convention politics in a very direct sense, the Democratic party was adopting reforms that undermined the governors’ capacities to exert influence over candidate selection.
This remained true even after the Mikulski Commission offered an olive branch to party regulars. This commission removed formal bans on state and local parties attempting to put together slates of delegates. However, this reform empowered the individual candidates’ campaigns rather than party regulars. The commission also retained a ban on ex-officio delegates, which could have included the governors.
These reforms were met by competing strategies on the part of the governors, who attempted to expand their influence over convention politics. Mandel, who was elected
Conference Chairman in 1971 used a Conference meeting to oppose quotas for youth and minorities in state delegations.579 Leading into the 1972 national convention, several Democratic governors moved to reduce potential delegate challenges. At that year’s NGC meeting, ten of the party’s governors met to discuss credentials disputes with then candidates Edmund Muskie,
Humphrey, and Wallace.580 The following month, Mandel and Bumpers formed a committee to deal with a contentious credentials battle over 151 delegates from California.581 The governors also became active in settling disputes over the vice-presidential nomination, with Wendell
Anderson and John West acting as representatives on a committee established to resolve the issue. Though their control over state delegations was waning, the governors acted as mediators in the 1972 election, despite being lukewarm on the prospects of a McGovern candidacy.
579 Cohen, Richard M. 14 September 1971. “Mandel Named By Party: Governors Elect Him as Caucus Head. The Washington Post. C1. 580 Weaver Jr., Warren. 6 June 1972. “Dakotan Woos Governors: McGovern on a Mission to Reassure Governors. The New York Times. 1. 581 Frankel, Max. 9 July 1972. “Fight in Prospect: Front-Runner Is about 50 Votes Short of Floor Control.” The New York Times. 1. 269
Leading into the 1976 election, Governor John Gilligan negotiated a compromise agreed upon all of the governors and governors-elect calling for a ban on mandatory racial quotas in delegate selection procedures.582 Mandel noted that the party was “inching toward a well-ordered convention . . . but we’re also running pell-mell toward a political disaster. We’re going to be known as the party that does everything right in electing its delegates and nothing right to elect a president.”583 At a 1975 Conference meeting, then DGC Chairman Philip Noel of Rhode Island floated the idea of forming a committee to explore how governors could influence the nomination procedures, with the hopes that the governors could act as brokers at the convention.584 Governor Hugh Carey of New York promoted running uncommitted delegate slates in primaries.585 These reforms were mainly directed at pushing back on the reform efforts led by McGovern and others but did little to mobilize the governors collectively.
The governors’ limited influence over the 1976 contest was also due in part to differences of opinion over who the nominee should be. At a meeting of the Conference in 1975, Wallace noted to reporters that he “spent [his] time talking to the waiters. I have more chance of getting them than of getting any of the governors.”586 Carter initially received little support among his fellow governors. Mandel was quoted as saying that the Georgia governor tells people “what they want to hear.”587 Carter had been lukewarm on the issue of revenue-sharing and had angered his fellow Southern Governor Reuben Askew when Time Magazine published a piece on a “new
582 Evans, Rowland and Robert Novak. 21 November 1974. “Compromise Among the Democrats.” The Washington Post. A31. 583 Broder, David S. 11 June 1975. “Democrats Fear '76 'Disaster.'” The Washington Post. A1. 584 Broder, Davis S. 15 June 1975. “Democrats: Uncertain Strategy.” The Washington Post. 38. 585 Apple Jr., R. W. 4 December 1975. “Carey Maps Plan for Convention: State Democrats Will Run an Uncommitted Slate to Gain Influential Bloc.” The New York Times. 27. 586 Ibid. See also Witcover, Jules. 4. December 1975. “Wallace Explains Boycott: Governors Are ‘All Hostile.’” The Washington Post. A4. 587 Peterson, Bill. 25 February 1976. “Governors Voice Doubts on Carter.” The Washington Post. A1. 270 direction” among Southern Democratic Governors. The piece centered on Carter.588 After the conclusion of the primaries, when it became clear that the convention’s outcome was not in doubt, the then 29 Democratic governors issued a joint statement endorsing Carter.589
The governors also became more involved in the convention platform committee than they had been in recent years. In 1972, several governors led by John West, attempted to propose planks to the platform. The group split, however, on the issue of Vietnam with Curtis and Lucey threatening to “disassociate themselves” from the document.590 Noel was originally named chairman of the committee, though he resigned after making controversial statements on race and busing.591 Mandel served as chair of a subcommittee on energy and Richard Lamm chaired a subcommittee on Federal State Relations.
The party platforms in these elections largely continued to neglect states as centers of policy experimentation and emphasized the role of the national government, despite control of the White House by Republicans. For instance, in the 1972 platform’s discussion of urban and suburban problems the party noted that “Too often, federal bureaucracy has failed to deliver the services and keep the promises that are made. But only the federal government can be the catalyst to focus attention and resources on the needs of every neighborhood in America.”592 The platform in 1976 did favor general revenue sharing, but emphasized urban problems and the connection between the federal government and cities directly. In sum, gubernatorial influence over the platform, specifically preserving a special role for the states in achieving Democratic policy initiatives, was distinctly limited.
588 Wooten, James T. 9 March 1976. The New York Times. 22. 589 Apple Jr., R. W. 7 July 1976. “29 Democratic Governors Vote to Support Carter.” The New York Times. 14. 590 Cohen, Richard M. 8 June 1972. “Viet Plank Trips Democratic Governors.” The Washington Post. A30. 591 22 May 1976. “Noel Resigns Post.” New York Amsterdam News. A8. 592 The 1972 Democratic Party Platform. 10 July 1972. The American Presidency Project.
Carter may have been a governor who had used the limited DGC meetings to elevate his national profile but he was an outsider candidate who was the product of the post-reform era.
The Georgia Governor and his campaign strategists placed their efforts in winning primary contests, emphasizing obtaining strong public support in Iowa and New Hampshire in order to build momentum. As Cohen et. al. note, “in contrast to other successful candidates in recent decades, Carter did not spend the bulk of his time traveling around the country to meet party leaders and seek their support. Instead, he traveled around Iowa, the location of the first public contest, to build support there.”593
Table 6.3 Democrats Conditions and Effects Present, 1977-1980
Conditions Effects
Strong Governors Increased Participation by Governors in National Partisan Discourse, Party as • Brown, Clinton Organization
Intergovernmental Relations • Partisanship in NGC • Curtis, Brennan appointed to party • New Partnership Federalism leadership positions
Programmatic Party Politics New Resources Available to Governors
• Kennedy challenge to Carter • Some fundraising for gubernatorial • Predatory partisanship by Carter candidates by Carter • Continued transition in the South Gubernatorial Influence on Party Program, Brand
• Limited participation in party activities
Carter and the Governors
593 Cohen, Marty et. al. The Party Decides. 166. 272
The Conference did little to develop as an organization during the Carter years. Carter incorporated some governors into his administration. Patrick Lucey, for instance, was named ambassador to Mexico. Cecil Andrus of Idaho was appointed Secretary of the Interior. Reuben
Askew was named US Trade Representative. Carter also appointed former Maine Governor
Curtis as chairman of the DNC. The DGC also continued to voice support for the president during NGC meetings. In 1978, for example, the Conference unanimously adopted a resolution supporting Carter’s general performance in office.594
There was hope, particularly early on, that Carter could reinvigorate the party in the
South, including by reinvigorating Democratic strength in gubernatorial elections. Ray Blanton of Tennessee called the GOP a “spare tire” that Southern voters used when they did not agree with the national Democratic Party.595 Democrats began the Carter years with 37 governorships.
They lost five seats in the 1978 midterms, one in 1979, in Louisiana, and four seats in 1980. As
Doherty notes, “Carter’s party-building activities mostly match Galvin’s predation model. With the exception of modest party fundraising in 1978, Carter did relatively little to boost the fortunes of his party’s candidates.596 Carter did raise money in 1977 for gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey but the former governor was routinely criticized for his relative neglect of state and local party organizations.597
Carter did not invest systematically in building the party, nor did he move to more vigorously incorporate his party’s governors into national party decision-making in any regular way. Carter “was a ‘party outsider’ who felt that he owed little to the party establishment for his
594 Shogan, Robert. 29 August 1978. “Democratic Governors Endorse Carter’s Performance. Los Angeles Times. 9. 595 King, Wayne. 31 August 1976. “Democratic Governors in South Unified for Carter.” The New York Times. 16. 596 Doherty, Brandan J. 2012. The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign. Lawrence: University od Kansas Press. 55-6. 597 Ibid. 52. 273 nomination and election; he hailed from a weak one-party state and was thus not adept at party organizational matters; and his policy positions put him at odds with many Democratic constituencies.”598 Curtis, upon obtaining the DNC chairmanship, proposed a series of organizational reforms, including providing additional support for the Democratic Governors’
Conference, building a new voter database, and an expanded role for the president in the party’s fundraising efforts. Curtis’s replacement John White had “unwavering loyalty to Carter” but
“little background in managing party organizations.”599
Carter’s approach to his party rested on furthering his own policy objectives.600 Periodic breakfast meetings, established by the White House, with state party leaders primarily were information sessions on upcoming policy initiatives. The 1978 Democratic Party Midterm
Conference, for instance, received great attention from the White House. Carter’s aides sought to control the Conference’s proceedings. However, liberal activists were successful in passing a resolution critical of Carter’s budget policies. As Rosenfeld notes, “the conference had confirmed rather than obscured the reality of party disunity on core matters of programs and policy. That a conference under the administration’s own tight control would feature an open rebuke by 40 percent of its delegates to a president halfway through his term spoke volumes about his perilous position as well as the clout of the party’s dissident faction.601
598 Galvin, Daniel J. 2010. Presidential Party Building: Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 205. 599 Ibid. 600 As Milkis notes, “Carter’s presidency revealed the enduring and troublesome legacy of programmatic liberalism. To Carter and his supporters, any consideration of electoral or party politics in the administration’s counsels was unseemly. Whereas Roosevelt and Johnson took these political concerns into account and then calculated how to circumvent them, Carter was an anti-party outsider whose devotion to ‘enlightened administration’ made his isolation profound.” Milkis. The President and the Parties. 257. 601 Rosenfeld, Sam. 2018. The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era. Chicago: University od Chicago Press. 240-1. 274
Carter’s lukewarm support among party activists was mimicked during meetings of the party’s governors. Carter’s “New Partnership Federalism” received some of the same critiques as those of LBJ’s “Creative Federalism.” In particular, Carter’s federalism policies emphasized the revitalization of urban communities. This resulted in complaints that his administration overlooked the states and emphasized partnerships between the federal government and the cities. Carter did, however, maintain general revenue sharing and his administration also engaged in significant attempts at regulatory reform.602 Like many federalism initiatives, Carter’s intergovernmental policies were a mixed bag for the states.
As early as August 1978, several prominent figures within the party were contemplating challenging Carter for the 1980 nomination. At that year’s NGA meeting in Denver, Jerry Brown and Ted Kennedy spoke before the Democratic governors’ meeting.603 Two years later, shortly before the national convention, several governors, including Carey, Lamm, Lucey, Brennan, and
Carlin voiced support of a plan to “free” convention delegates from voting for the candidate for which they were pledged. While most of the governors had voiced support for the president,
Brown, Carey and Lamm had not yet given him a public endorsement.604 Carter ultimately won the nomination on the first ballot with 64 percent of delegate ballots cast, a weak showing for an incumbent president. His lack of party-building efforts only seems to have reinforced the isolation of his administration and this was true in terms of the relationships he had with his party’s governors, who may have been his natural allies.
Conclusion: Limited Party Integration
602 See for instance Schechter, Stephen L. 1980. “The State of American Federalism in 1980.” Publius 11.3: 3-20. 603 Margolis, Jon. 30 August 1978. “Ted, Brown woo governors.” Chicago Tribune. 8. 604 Sohgan, Robert. 5 August 1980. “Democratic Governors Shun Open Convention Stand.” Los Angeles Times. B12; Ciccone, Richard. 4 August 1980. “Carter Acts to Nip Governors’ Revolt.” Chicago Tribune. 3. 275
Between 1961 and 1980, the Democratic governors lagged behind their Republican counterparts’ attempts at national collective action through their Association. To be sure, there were some parallels between the organizations’ activities. The Democratic caucus did begin to meet regularly during meetings of the NGC. During these meetings, they were able to coordinate on political messaging, sometimes leading to partisan wrangling within the traditionally nonpartisan caucus. Democratic governors coordinated on forcing the GOP to take stands on the
Vietnam War leading into the 1968 presidential election. The caucus also passed resolutions critical of Nixon’s economic policies, particularly with respect to issues of intergovernmental relations. Later, the DGC used NGC meetings as venues to voice support for President Carter.
Additionally, at meetings held separately from the NGC, the governors made statements that sought to distinguish themselves from their partisan counterparts.
However, the extent of the coordination of the party’s governors was distinctly limited outside of their activities at NGC meetings. This limited integration is attributable to tensions within the Democratic Party and their manifestations within the governors’ caucus, particularly those relating to the place of the Southern Democratic governors and state party organizations in the national party. The Democrats did retain a majority of the nation’s gubernatorial seats throughout most of this time period, with the mid-to-late-1960s being a brief aberration. The national Democratic Party continued to contain a diverse array of interests, the conflicts among which affected the party’s rules, procedures, and institutional investments. The unique role of the
South in the Democratic Party addresses conflict among the membership of the Caucus. The lack of solidarity among the party’s governors contributed to the caucus’ members refraining from encouraging national party leaders to alter their behaviors or to invest more heavily in the caucus and the electoral fortunes of the governors.
276
The most significant and immediate implication for this lack of collective action was organizational. The DGC did not raise money independently, relying on dues from its membership, which were not always paid. It did not invest in gubernatorial elections. The caucus did little to integrate the party’s governors into national party decision-making, though the governors increasingly espoused the view that their unique vantage point on policy and party- building was not being taken into account by the national party leadership. The caucus was not active, in a collective sense, in discussions over the party’s platforms. Several governors did become involved, such as Connally, Hughes, Mandel, and Carter, but their engagement was atomized rather than collective. Without a united front, the governors’ found it difficult to promote the party’s investment in gubernatorial elections to the same extent as their Republican counterparts. Indeed, some governors within the party were downright uncomfortable with increasing the ties between the national and state party organizations.
In the final analysis, the creation of the DGC provided the seeds of party integration and increased gubernatorial involvement in national partisan politics. Many governors demanded more say in national political decision-making as they realized that increases in the size and policy scope of the national government were having direct impacts on their abilities to govern in the states. However, the extent of institutional development within the Democratic Party and the potential for integration of the party’s governors into the national party this would allow was minimal through the Carter years despite the “peanut farmer” having been a governor. Unlike
Reagan, he did not work diligently to court his party’s governors and had not served as the leader of the DGC before becoming president. He saw himself as a party outsider in a changing party.
The next chapter continues the analysis of the DGC begun here and demonstrates that the
277
Democratic governors were to integrate themselves much more fully into the national
Democratic party apparatus over the next two decades.
278
CHAPTER 7: THE DEMOCRATS CATCU UP: THE DGA AND THE INTEGRATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 1981-2000
During the 1960s the Democratic governors organized as a caucus within the NGA, providing the seeds of party integration. The impact this initiative had on the party was mitigated by a stark divide among the party’s governors, particularly with regard to a number of Southern
Democrats who opposed the party’s move to the left especially concerning civil rights. The DGC did not become involved to any meaningful extent in the party as organization; it did little to assert the governors’ agendas in terms of developing the party platform; and its integrative effects were largely relegated to the governors’ activities during NGA meetings through the
1970s. Individual governors did get involved in national party affairs but this was not the result of engagement with the national party through the DGC. This was in spite of the fact that a number of Democratic governors during this time period were politically ambitious, including
Connally, Wallace and Carter, and that intergovernmental relations were important elements on the agenda of Presidents Johnson, Nixon and, to a lesser extent, Ford and Carter.
This changed dramatically during the 1980s. Democratic governors, particularly under the leadership of Virginia Governor Charles S. “Chuck” Robb, took definitive steps to develop the DGA into a force within the national Democratic party. Significantly, the factional split within the Democratic party had shifted. An emerging breed of Democratic governors espoused a
“New Democratic” politics, one which sought to maintain a commitment to the breadth of the
New Deal coalition but took a different view from previous governors as to how they should relate to the national Democratic party and to the federal government more broadly.
Now even in the South, the New Democratic coalition included, rather than excluded, a large number of African American voters, a group which, taken together with a number of
Southern whites, who still were willing to elect Democrats in local and state-level elections
279 despite demonstrating an increasing propensity to support Republicans in presidential contests, provided a path for Democratic politicians to elected office in the once “solid” South. These new
Democratic governors engaged in national partisan politics in ways that did not seek to reify the divide among the Democratic party in the South and elsewhere. Rather, they participated in national Democratic politics in ways that promoted coordination with national party organizations and elected officials and contributed directly to party organizational development.
To be sure, disputes over the party’s image occurred. However, the governors of the 1980s worked more to shape the national party rather than simply run away from it.
Much scholarship has emphasized the New Democratic movement and its importance for the development of the Democratic party, including policy ideas, leading into and during the
1990s.605 Governors played an important role in these developments, particularly in terms of organizational expansion. In fact, the DGA served as a precursor to the Democratic Leadership
Council, and a number of the key players in the New Democratic movement were active in both organizations, including Arkansas Governor and later President Clinton. In this way, the DGA and the DLC were both part of a larger process which pushed the Democratic party to reevaluate its program and seek to rebuild the New Deal coalition without succumbing to a dramatic shift to the left and the catering to “special” interests that this involved. The significant loss by liberal stalwart George McGovern did not go unnoticed by moderate Democrats. More importantly for our purposes, however, is that both the DGA and the DLC brought the party’s governors into discussions of the direction of the national party in consultation with national party elites.
605 See for instance O’Connor, Brendan. 2002. “Policies, Principles, and Polls: Bill Clinton’s Third Way Welfare Politics 1992-1996. Australian Journal of Politics and History. 48.3: 396-411; Skowronek, Stephen. 1996. “The Risks of ‘Third Way’ Politics.” Society. 33.6: 32-6. 280
The DGA’s role in the development of the national Democratic party’s history during this period was significant in its own right. For one, the DGA developed as a strong organization, one that now made strategic investments in the elections of Democratic governors. After two decades, the organization emerged as a critical element of the national Democratic party-in- service. Second, Democratic governors and the new staff of the DGA made significant contributions to the development of the national party’s platforms in the late 1980s and the
1990s, building on the reputations that the governors had developed in the states. Third, the party’s governors became much more fully integrated into the national Democratic party, especially through their interactions with Democratic leadership in Congress, the leadership of the DNC and President Clinton, who became a strong ally of the governors and the DGA in particular. Clinton invested in the organization and the party’s governors to a much larger degree than previous Democratic presidents, including fellow former Southern state governor Carter.
The DGA’s activities in the 1990s, thus, marked a culmination of developments that had begun decades earlier. The conditions for developing active gubernatorial involvement in national party affairs were all present in the 1980s and 1990s within the context of Democratic party politics: a crop of strong and ambitious governors, consistent reasons for engaging with national politics concerning federal-state relations, and signs that national partisan politics could impact state-level political outcomes, beginning with the policy agenda and personality popularity of Ronald Reagan. The DGA during this time period contributed to a symbiotic relationship between the Democratic governors and the leaders of the national party in
Washington. The governors became involved in significant ways, through the DGA, in developing the party platform, contributing to organizational changes in the party, and promoting the party’s interests on a national scale (see Tables 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 for a synopsis of the
281 argument for the Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Clinton presidencies respectively). In this sense, the Democratic party had, by this time, become a much more integrated party, one which recognized the importance of gubernatorial leadership for national programmatic party objectives. This chapter covers the DGA from 1981 through the 2000 presidential election.
Table 7.1 Democrats Conditions and Effects Present, 1981-1988
Conditions Effects
Strong Governors Increased Participation by Governors in National Partisan Discourse, Party as • Robb, Babbitt, Blanchard, Clinton, Organization etc. • DGC to DGA Intergovernmental Relations • Creation of the DLC • 1980, 1984 DNC Chairmanship • Reagan’s New Federalism Elections
Programmatic Party Politics New Resources Available to Governors
• Reagan’s personal popularity • First major fundraising by DGA • Debates over Interests in the • Full time staff for DGA Democratic Party Gubernatorial Influence on Party Program, Brand
• 1988 Platform • Facing the Facts
Responding to Reagan and a Move Toward Organization Building
Democratic Governors Responding to Reagan
The 1980 elections brought substantial losses for the party beyond President Carter’s loss to Reagan in the presidential election. Democrats lost thirty-four seats in the House, though they maintained control of the chamber. Republicans gained twelve seats in the Senate, obtaining control of the upper chamber for the first time since the 1954 elections. Democrats also had a net loss of four gubernatorial seats. Significantly, the composition of the Democrats’ electoral
282 coalition, from a geographical standpoint, had shifted significantly since the 1960s (see Figures
3.1 through 4.3). In the presidential contest, Reagan carried every state of the former
Confederacy minus Carter’s home state of Georgia, though he won many of these states by narrow margins. He carried Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee by less than three percentage points. Republicans picked up four Senate seats in the old South in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. Clinton also narrowly lost his reelection bid in Arkansas to Republican Frank White, leading to speculation in the media that his national political ambitions had been thwarted. Reagan’s success in the region built on those of Nixon in the early 1970s and came against a president with ties to the region.
These losses invigorated dialogue over the direction the party should take moving forward and this time the party’s governors were determined to take an active part in these discussions. Using the DGC as a springboard, the governors espoused a number of positions that echoed the Republican governors’ assertiveness during the 1960s. As South Carolina Governor
Richard Riley noted in letters to DGC supporters at the time: “The Democratic Governors’
Conference over the years has met informally during national meetings of all of the states’ governors. Recently, however, the consensus has been to try and make more out of our organization. We have the full support of the Democratic National Committee, and plan to work closely with them in matters of policy making and fundraising.”606
The party’s governors continued to use DGC meetings, often in conjunction with NGA meetings, to draw distinctions with Reagan’s policies, including and especially the President’s
New Federalism agenda. As noted previously, Reagan’s New Federalism ultimately cut aid to
606 Letter from Richard W. Riley to Mr. Hayne Hipp. August 28, 1981. The Papers of Richard W. Riley. South Carolina Political Collections. University of South Carolina. Box 5. Folder. RWR. Gov., Top., Governors’ Associations/Conferences, Gen. 283 the states, including the elimination of general revenue sharing in 1986. Unlike the NGA, and especially the RGA, the DGC issued statements emphasizing suspicion and sometimes outright opposition to Reagan’s approach. During the 1982 winter NGA meeting in Oklahoma, for example, the Democratic caucus issued a press release indicating that they were “appalled at the administration’s callous disregard of the elderly, small business, farmers, college students and unemployed workers.”607 Brown noted that his party’s governors would “not be a part of any scheme to further cut aid to states and local government.”608
The following year, several Democratic governors used the NGA meetings to voice discontent over Reagan’s sharp increases to defense spending at the expense of social programs.609 Scott Matheson of Utah, a political moderate then serving as DGC Chair, engaged in talks with Republican Governor Jim Thompson on a potential NGA resolution calling for
Reagan to scale back defense spending rather than domestic programs.610 In sum, Democratic governors during the early part of the Reagan administration coupled critiques of Reagan’s assault on big government, and its impact on the provision of social welfare, with concerns over intergovernmental relations and the governing prerogatives of the governors.
Getting Involved in Party Affairs: Governors in Party Chairmanship and Presidential
Battles
Seeking a Partner in the DNC
The governors demanded a say as to who the next DNC chairman should be. At the first meeting of the Democratic governors after the elections, held in Annapolis, Maryland, outgoing
607 Germond, Jack W. and Jules Witcover. 27 February 1982. “Perspective: Democratic Governors Put Up Their Dukes.” Chicago Tribune. 9. 608 Ibid. 609 Witcover, Jules and Jack W. Germond. 5 March 1983. “Freshman Governors Speak Out.” Chicago Tribune. 7. 610 Shogan, Robert. 27 February 1983. “Governors Take Aim at U.S. Deficit: Association to Consider Measure Scoring Defense Budget.” Los Angeles Times. A4. 284
DGC chairman Brendan Byrne of New Jersey announced that the governors would coordinate with House Speaker Tip O’Neill in interviewing potential DNC chairs. Clinton’s name was floated as a candidate at the meeting and Byrne publicly indicated that he would support the
Arkansas governor if he threw his hat in the ring.611 Clinton, however, did not actively pursue the position.
In the discussion surrounding the DNC leadership search, the governors, along with a number of members of Congress and the leadership of state Democratic parties, emphasized what they perceived as too great a concentration by the national committee on presidential politics. They argued that the DNC must pay greater attention to the states. Governor James Hunt of North Carolina contended that “As governor we want to do what we can to focus the party’s effort at the state and local level.”612 Brennan, who had supported Ted Kennedy’s insurgent presidential bid against Carter, echoed this sentiment but also noted that the next chairman should deemphasize ideology and focus more on party building, again echoing the sentiments of
Republican governors’ support for Ray Bliss nearly two decades earlier.
Ultimately, the governors’ wishes were largely granted with the election of Charles
Manatt as DNC Chair in 1981. Manatt had served in the DNC and as chairman of the California
Democratic Party. Arden notes that “Apparently the Democratic Committee saw in Manatt, who had formerly held the post of the Party’s finance chairman, a shrewd financier, a manager who would bring strong organizational skills to the national party headquarters of the Party and one who would seize every opportunity to put himself and the Party forward. He was, in effect, the
611 Clymer, Adam. 9 December 1980. “15 Governors Want Shift by Democrats.” The New York Times. B18. 612 Ibid. 285 very textbook model of a modern party chairman.”613 He also referred to the governors as the
“princes of the party.”
Manatt took some steps that reflected acknowledgement of the criticism that the national party had neglected the states and had become too Washington-centric. For one, Manatt initiated a “State Party Works” program which included campaign seminars for state party workers.
Manatt also instated a Strategy Council which included Democratic elected officials outside of
Congress. Additionally, the DNC began an early effort to coordinate voter registration efforts with the state parties leading into the 1982 midterms.614 He, thus, moved to address concerns espoused by the governors through the DGC.
Governors Navigating the New (and Changing) Presidential Nominating Procedures
The governors, particularly those active in the DGC, asserted themselves in the seemingly endless process of presidential nomination reform undertaken by the party. Manatt formed a sixty-eight-member commission tasked with reforming the nomination system leading into 1968 and Hunt was chosen to chair the group.615 Hunt made clear his desire that every governor, and member of Congress, should serve as a delegate. He also voiced support for freeing delegates from being forced to vote for the candidate they had pledged to support in their state primaries and caucuses.616 The party ultimately adopted the proposal to have elected officials serve as delegates, or “superdelegates,” at the convention. The commission’s report called for the creation of 550 such delegates, constituting about one-fourth of the total number of delegates leading into the next convention.
613 Arden, Caroline. 1988. Getting the Donkey Out of the Ditch. New York: Greenwood. 26. Cited in Klinkner, Phillip. 1994. The Losing Parties. 159. 614 See Klinkner, Phillip. 1994. The Losing Parties. 171-76. 615 A commission on reforming presidential nomination procedures had been mandated by the 1980 convention and then DNC Chairman John White, rather than Manatt chose Hunt as the commission’s chair. 616 3 July 1981. “Democrats Begin Move to Alter Party Structure.” The Washington Post. A4. 286
First Steps in DGC Organization Building
At this point, the governors began to look to developing the DGC as an organization. For one, in 1981, the governors decided to elect California Governor Jerry Brown as the group’s chairman. Brown, once labeled a “recluse from party affairs,” was to the left of many sitting
Democratic governors at the time.617 Ultimately, his selection rested on his perceived rhetorical abilities which could help the Democratic party challenge President Reagan’s agenda. Brown, upon assuming the chairmanship, noted that governors, unlike members of Congress, had to implement many of Reagan’s policies under his New Federalism initiatives and that they, thus, had a stake in challenging those with which they disagreed.618 On this front, Brown advocated that the governors should take part in the party’s response to Reagan’s State of the Union
Address, again echoing strategies discussed by Republicans in the 1960s.
Brown and a number of his colleagues took particular note of the lack of the DGC’s organizational capacities. He called for more regular meetings and for the organization to have its own staff and office space in Washington. He also noted a lack of any meaningful funds. In the summer of 1981, twenty-seven governors took part in a fundraiser in Atlantic City. The group raised $104,000 at the event, the first ever significant attempt to raise money on behalf of the party’s governors as a collective entity.619 Brown also took part in a fundraiser the following year at the National Democratic Club which pledged $75,000 for the governors’ group.620
617 Clymer, Adam. 9 December 1980. “15 Governors Want Shift by Democrats.” The New York Times. B18; McManus, Doyle. 12 August 1981. “At Governors’ Helm, Brown Scores Reagan.” Los Angeles Times. A8. Brown had previously served as the Conference’s vice-chair. 618 11 August 1981. “Bush Assails ‘Quibbling,’ Democrats Choose Brown.” Los Angeles Times. A2. 619 Sullivan, Joseph F. 10 August 1981. “27 Governors Seek Democratic Gains.” The New York Times. A12. 620 Trescott, Jacqueline. 22 February 1982. “Apples & ‘Raw Deals’: The Democratic Governors’ Depression-Style Party.” The Washington Post. B1. 287
The 1982 midterm elections were fortuitous for Democratic gubernatorial candidates and brought to office a number of individuals who became active in the New Democratic movement and the DGC. Democrats extended their majority in the House but the GOP maintained control of the Senate. The party gained a net of seven additional gubernatorial seats, giving them a 34-16 advantage over the GOP (see Figure 5.1). Several governors with moderate policy programs won office. Clinton made a comeback in Arkansas, James Blanchard replaced the retiring William
Milliken in Michigan, Dick Celeste won a substantial victory in Ohio, and Mark White defeated incumbent Republican Bill Clements in Texas. Democratic victories in the South brought together a coalition of African Americans and Southern whites rather than excluding the former a priori. Several of these governors had national political ambitions and took their electoral successes, combined with a moderate policy agenda, to the national party. Clinton, Blanchard and Celeste were also active in the DGA.
The DGA: A Conference No More and the Buildup to the 1984 National Party Convention
1983 marked a significant turning point for the Democratic governors in terms of their place within the national Democratic party. That year, the DGC was rebranded the Democratic
Governors Association. Kentucky Governor John Brown was elected as chairman of the DGC that year. Brown suffered a heart attack and resigned as chair, elevating DGC Vice Chairman
Virginia Governor Chuck Robb to the position.
Robb, noted as a rising star within the party, was a political moderate who defeated
Republican Marshall Coleman in Virginia’s 1981 gubernatorial election, returning the governor’s mansion to the Democratic party.621 Robb invested significantly in the DGA, even
621 Robb also, by coincidence, is LBJ’s son-in-law. 288 providing funds out of his own pocket.622 He also hired the DGA’s first full-time Executive
Director – Charles “Chuck” Dolan. Dolan had served on several Democratic campaigns, on
Capitol Hill, and in the State Department. Together, Robb and Dolan worked to build the DGA into an organization that could meaningfully intervene in elections on behalf of the party’s governors and to coordinate with the party’s governors in order to develop policy, and not simply take positions at NGA and occasional DGA meetings.
Under Robb and Dolan’s leadership the DGA significantly expanded its operational capacities. For one, it hired a full-time professional staff that was independent from that of the
DNC, though it often worked closely with the national committee and was initially housed at
DNC headquarters. In addition to having a full-time Executive Director, the DGA hired full-time secretaries and, by the end of Dolan’s tenure, had a full-time position dedicated to fundraising.
The organization also routinely brought in event organizers and consultants to assist in fundraising events and individual gubernatorial races.
Fundraising activities and spending, as well as involvement more generally, in gubernatorial races across the country were also significantly expanded. Robb and Dolan actively encouraged the party’s governors to raise funds for the organization and for each other.
Regular fundraising events were held and, like the RGA before them, the DGA gathered a number of corporate donors. Donors were invited to annual “retreats,” often held in Aspen,
Colorado. The DGA also began annual fundraising dinners, or “Salutes,” in Washington D.C. as well as a series of smaller fundraising events.
The DGA increased coordination with the other national party committees, including the congressional campaign committees, on electioneering efforts. For instance, on the eve of the
622 Sherwood, Tom. 26 July 1984. “Robb Cheers Signs of Party Moderation.” The Washington Post. A1. Robb reportedly donated $20,000 to the DGA. 289
New Hampshire primary in 1984, Walter Mondale and thirty Democratic governors, among a host of other Democratic elected officials, participated in joint DNC/DGA fundraiser at the
Mayflower Hotel in Washington, raising a reported $350,000.623 During the mid-to-late 1980s, the DGA coordinated with the Committee for an Effective Congress in monitoring voting patterns to assist in voter targeting efforts. The DGA also worked with the congressional campaign committees to prevent expenditure overlap. For example, it attempted to avoid duplicating polling efforts when Senate and gubernatorial races were being held in the same state at the same time. Coordination with the DNC and other party committees also allowed easier navigation of a diverse array of state campaign finance laws.624
The DGA also took part in Project 500, which gave the party an early start in reapportionment planning leading into the 1990 census. Governor Riley noted that “The premises behind Project 500 are important to Democratic Governors around the country. Our ability to continue to provide the kind of solid, stable and progressive leadership for which
Democratic Governors have been recognized depends on continued strength and leadership in the state legislatures.”625
The DGA also moved to bring the governors into greater conversation with potential presidential candidates leading up to the 1984 race. During the summer of 1983, the DGA organized a gathering of governors and four potential presidential candidates – Senators Walter
623 Kastor, Elizabeth. 28 February 1984. “An Evening for Heads of States.” The Washington Post. C1. 624 The DGA’s Articles of Association in force at the time stated that “for the purposes of all relevant election laws, the DGA shall operate independent of any other political committee or organization. Decisions regarding the operation of the DGA shall be exclusively those of the DGA and shall not be subject to the approval of any other person, group or organization.” Democratic Governors Association. Articles of Organization. The Papers of Richard W. Riley. South Carolina Political Collections. University of South Carolina. Box 5. Folder. Gov., Top., Governors’ Associations/Conferences, Democratic, Riley Chairmanship. 625 Letter from Tony Coelho to Democratic colleagues. October 25, 1985. The Papers of Richard W. Riley. South Carolina Political Collections. University of South Carolina. Box 5. Folder. Gov., Top., Governors’ Associations/Conferences, Democratic, Riley Chairmanship. 290
Mondale, Gary Hart, Ernest Hollings, a former governor and then Senator, and former Governor
Askew – in Portland, Maine, during an NGA gathering, to discuss education proposals.626 As with previous NGA meetings, presidential politicking received ample media attention. At the time, Mondale was leading in terms of endorsements among party officials but several
Democratic governors were showing interest in the more moderate Senator John Glenn of Ohio.
Chairman Robb, hoping to moderate the party’s image, was noted for being complimentary of
Glenn but the DGA did not issue an official endorsement in the race.627 Like the RGA, the organization acted as an official party organization and stayed neutral in presidential contests in which an incumbent member of the party was not on the ticket.
During a breakfast meeting with the governors in Portland, Manatt pushed for the state executives to head their delegations at the convention and take the lead on the party’s voter registration and presidential campaign efforts in their states. He also agreed to give the governors important slots on the credentials and platform committees and to reserve a significant speaking slot for a governor at the event. New York Governor and liberal stalwart Mario Cuomo became an early favorite to deliver a “major policy speech.”628 The governors were to have important roles not simply in terms of process of the convention but also the convention as national media spectacle, again echoing the desires of the Republican governors of the 1960s.
Finally, the DGA helped to push the governors to obtain more say in developing policy positions that could become part of the national Democratic program and the functioning of
Democratic party organizations. This allowed for governors to engage in debates surrounding the
626 Balz, Dan. 31 July 1983. “4 Candidates Tell Democratic Governors of Education Proposal.” The Washington Post. A4. 627 Kastor, Elizabeth. 28 February 1984. “An Evening for Heads of States.” The Washington Post. C1; Sherwood, Tom. 1 March 1984. “Gov. Robb Says He Declined to Travel for Glenn.” The Washington Post. C1. 628 Broder, David S. 31 July 1983. “Democratic Governors Show Increasing Interest in Glenn.” The Washington Post. A1. 291 rules of the 1984 convention as well as the shape of that year’s party platform. In particular, the governors, though a large and ideologically diverse group within the party, noted the potential for excess catering to “special” interests to be detrimental to the party’s chances in the November elections. Some friction between the governors and the candidacy of Jesse Jackson emerged in this regard. A leaked memo from the DGA in the spring noted that “Jackson will deliver an emotional firestorm of a speech aimed at igniting every liberal sentiment on the floor . . .
Conventions are by their nature highly emotional events. There are a large number of party activists who under the right circumstances might vote for the sort of knee-jerk proposals which are included in the McGovern rules and platform.” Robb noted that the party must not develop a
“narrow” platform from which down-ballot candidates would have to “run away.”629
The 1984 Convention and General Election
The DGA as an organization did not ultimately play a significant role at the 1984 convention. The organization was still new and planning for the Convention had already begun as the DGA was emerging as a robust organization. Nevertheless, Manatt came through on some, though certainly not all, of the promises discussed above in terms of giving his party’s governors prominent spots at the George R. Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. The governors did not make up a significant force on either the credentials or platform committees. However,
Governor Martha Layne Collins of Kentucky, the first woman to hold the governorship of her state, chaired the convention.
Importantly, several governors took part in the convention as media spectacle. Cuomo delivered the keynote address at the convention, a speech that has widely been recognized as propelling the New York governor to national prominence and opening the door for him to run
629 Broder, David S. 12 April 1984. “Jackson, Platform Foes Begin Lining Up Forces.” The Washington Post. A12. 292 for president in 1988 and 1992. Cuomo’s speech is widely known for espousing an alternative vision to Reagan’s view of the US under his leadership as a “shining city on a hill.” He noted that numerous Americans were not benefitting from Reagan’s policies. He also acknowledged that the diversity within his own party presented its own problems and sought to foster unity, observing that:
Now we're proud of this diversity as Democrats. We're grateful for it. We don't have to manufacture it the way the Republicans will next month in Dallas, by propping up mannequin delegates on the convention floor. But we, while we're proud of this diversity, we pay a price for it. The different people that we represent have different points of view. And sometimes they compete and even debate, and even argue. That's what our primaries were all about. But now the primaries are over and it is time, when we pick our candidates and our platform here, to lock arms and move into this campaign together.630
Robb, acting in his capacity of DGA chair, gave a speech at the convention in which he promoted the party moving to the center and highlighted gubernatorial leadership in doing so.631
In his address, he noted that “We cannot become a party afraid to say no – even to our friends.
We must risk alienating even for a brief period some of the members of our great coalition, especially when narrow interests stand in the way of our interests. We cannot continue to mortgage the future of succeeding generations.”632 As head of the DGA he also used the speech to introduce the thirty-three of the then thirty-five Democratic governors in attendance at the convention.
After the convention, Mondale sought to consolidate support for the party, and he reached out to the party’s governors in order to achieve this goal. A meeting between Mondale and fifteen governors was held in Minneapolis in late August. Many of the governors present,
630 Cuomo. Mario. 16 July 1984. Democratic National Convention Keynote Address. American Rhetoric. < https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mariocuomo1984dnc.htm>. 631 Sherwood, Tom. 19 July 1984. “Robb Says Party Must Learn to Say ‘No’ to Special Interests.” The Washington Post. A15. 632 Robb, Charles S. 18 July 1984. “Introduction of the Democratic Governors.” Official Proceedings of the 1984 Democratic National Convention. 374. 293 including Robb, urged Mondale to continue to emphasize federal budget deficits in his campaign. Mondale, however, used a press conference held after the meeting to attack Reagan based on comments the president had made regarding the nuclear freeze movement, an issue some governors felt Mondale should deemphasize.633 Ultimately, Mondale did not consolidate support. He lost forty-nine states, winning only his home state of Minnesota, by the narrowest of margins, and Washington D.C. Mondale also, according to exit polls, won just 74 percent of voters identifying as Democrats. Reagan won 93 percent of Republican voters and nearly two- thirds of independents.634 Below the presidential level, however, the results were mixed.
Democrats lost sixteen seats in the House but picked up a net of two Senate seats and lost one net governorship. Among the governors elected, and reelected that year were Clinton, Ted
Schwinden in Montana, and Madeleine Kunin in Vermont. Again, the 1984 elections provided a crop of governors who would play important roles in attempting to moderate the Democratic party nationally, and in building the DGA as an organization moving forward.
Democratic Governors and Building the National Party During Reagan’s Second Term
Reagan’s substantial victory provided the impetus for the Democratic governors to redouble their efforts to engage in national party building. Again, the patterns present in
Republican governors’ activities in the 1960s were replicated and the activities of the likes of
Brown and Robb leading into 1984 were replicated. Democratic governors invested in the DGA, sought to influence the selection of the next DNC chairperson, and promoted national party organization-building in ways which could incorporate those among their ranks and get national party elites to take state-level governing concerns seriously.
633 Joyce, Fay S. 26 August 1984. “Mondale Confers with 15 Governors to Seek Support.” The New York Times. 1. 634 “How Groups Voted in 1984.” The Roper Center. Cornell University.
Infighting in the DNC
Regarding the selection of the next DNC chairperson, Balz and Sherwood noted at the time that “The governors, saying they intend to play a more active role in shaping the party, plan to comb lists of former elected officials in hopes of finding a consensus candidate, while attempting to persuade party leaders in their home states to remain neutral for now.”635 Robb and
Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt were particularly active on this front. Robb led the search to replace Manatt, for whom several Democratic governors voiced support to retain. Former DGA
Chairman Matheson was unwilling to take the job. Former Governor Sanford also received some support from a contingent of governors but favored staying on as president of Duke University and was seen by some as too old to take on the position. The DNC Chairman selection process dragged on into December without a clear consensus candidate emerging. A meeting of almost fifty party leaders held in Kansas City ended without a consensus over who should replace
Manatt.636 Ultimately, Paul Kirk, who had previously served as Treasurer of the DNC and as a special assistant to Senator Edward Kennedy, was elected to the position, over the opposition of
Robb.
The organizational form of the DNC was also the subject of debate between the governors and other members of the party. In particular, the DNC had established a number of caucuses made up solely of members of minority groups. These groups, while dedicated to maintaining outreach efforts to largely underrepresented constituencies, were seen as symbolic of a party that was constituted by special interests. Additionally, the 1984 election demonstrated
635 Balz, Dan and Tom Sherwood. 1 December 1984. “Democratic Governors Widen Search for National Committee Chairman: More Active Role Taken in Rebuilding Party Image.” The Washington Post. A5. 636 18 December 1984. “No Accord on Democratic Leader.” The New York Times. A27. 295 that a key demographic that had moved away from the party was white men, a group that
Democrats in the South and Midwest could not isolate.637
Kirk moved to accommodate the moderates within the party in some respects, including many of the governors. For one, Kirk refused to support the DNC’s black caucus’ nomination of
African American Mayor Richard Hatcher as DNC Vice Chairman. He oversaw the removal of formal powers of a number of party caucuses within the DNC, including those representing
African Americans, Hispanics, and women. He cancelled a midterm party convention, which many argued had come to be dominated by special interests. Additionally, in terms of presidential nominating procedures, he adopted a Fairness Commission report that increased the number of elected officials and DNC members serving as superdelegates.638
Kirk and others also sought to create new working committees to develop policy proposals and rebrand the national party to widen its appeal. Kirk sought to create a new committee within the DNC and established the Democratic National Policy Council. At an NGA meeting in early 1985, the Democratic governors passed a resolution backing the creation of the group.639 Kirk chose the moderate Matheson as the DNPC’s first chairman. Five sitting governors agreed to sit on the committee – Babbitt, who had also assumed the DGA chairmanship that year, Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, Riley, Collins, and Carlin, then chairman of the NGA.
Governors and the Creation of the DLC
637 Sherwood, Tom. 4 December 1984. “Robb Says Party Needs New Image: Broader Appeal Seen as Necessary.” The Washington Post. A16. 638 See Klinkner, Philip. 1994. The Losing Parties. 179-88. 639 Balz, Dan and David S. Broder. 27 February 1985. “Rival Democratic Councils Forming.” The Washington Post. A7. 296
At the same time, Robb and a number of party moderates moved to establish the
Democratic Leadership Council. Originally, the group was mainly made up of Democrats from the South and Midwest. Al From, who led the DLC from its inception to its closure in 2009, noted that the ir was “built around ideas. We believed that the way to resuscitate the Democratic
Party was not to promote a particular candidate, constituency or narrow interest, but rather to build a coalition around workable ideas – a political philosophy and governing agenda with broad national appeal.” Further, “it was an organization made up of elected officials who could actually put the philosophy and ideas into action.”640 Blanchard, one of the governors active in the formation of the group, as well as the DGA, noted that he wanted “to offer an olive branch to southerners and westerners who feel estranged from what’s been happening.”641 That olive branch was to take the form of a group that would be distinct from the DNC proper.
The DLC was not limited in terms of membership but the then sizable contingent of young, promising Democratic governors left a distinctive mark on the organization. Moreover, while it was often seen as a challenge to Kirk, the group focused on promoting the national party through rebranding. It was not meant to promote sectional divisions within the party. Robb,
Clinton, and future governors Evan Bayh of Indiana and Tom Vilsack of Iowa would chair the organization which was dedicated to promoting a new form of “third way” Democratic politics rather than investing in electioneering efforts. Robb also called the meeting which prompted the
DLC to form, inviting fellow governors Babbitt, White, and Carlin along with several senators and House representatives as well as former DNC Chairs Strauss and White. The DLC, in part thus, emerged from the DGA.
640 From, Al. 2013. The New Democrats and the Return to Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 57. 641 Balz, Dan and David S. Broder. 27 February 1985. “Rival Democratic Councils Forming.” The Washington Post. A7. 297
Building and Branding by the DGA
The DGA also moved to promote the governors nationally. After the 1984 elections, the
DGA published a series of fourteen essays entitled Facing the Facts: The Democratic
Governors’ View from the States. In the introduction, Robb noted the party’s strength at the state-level in regions Mondale lost, arguing that “Democratic Governors must be doing something right.”642 He also echoed concerns raised earlier about the reputation of the national party, noting that “If voters perceive that every interest group exercises veto power over the national program of the Democratic Party, we will never claim the mantle of national leadership.
Nor will we deserve it.”643
Intergovernmental relations was a key theme of the volume which allowed the governors who contributed essays to promote policies they had developed within their own states but also critique the Reagan agenda. Babbitt, in an essay which labeled Reagan’s New Federalism agenda a “trojan horse,” argued that “Although the devolution of many domestic programs, authority to state and local governments and the restoration of federalism are laudable goals, they should not merely become an excuse for the federal government to abandon its historical commitment to the
American Indian or its responsibility to protect the civil rights and ensure the welfare of all of its citizens.”644 Matheson, discussing the impact of the federal deficit on state budgets argued that
“Congress should also weigh any fundamental tax reform in consultation with states.”645 Policy
642 Robb, Charles S. “Introduction.” In Facing the Facts: The Democratic Governors’ View From the States. 1984. Bernard Aronson, Ed. Washington D.C.: The Democratic Governors’ Association. 10. 643 Ibid. 14. 644 Babbitt, Bruce E. “Federalism: Reagan’s Trojan Horse.” In Facing the Facts: The Democratic Governors’ View From the States. 1984. Bernard Aronson, Ed. Washington D.C.: The Democratic Governors’ Association. 116. 645 Matheson, Scott M. “The Federal Budget Deficit: Impact on the States.” In Facing the Facts: The Democratic Governors’ View From the States. 1984. Bernard Aronson, Ed. Washington D.C.: The Democratic Governors’ Association. 98. 298 development by Democratic governors in the states, thus, provided a set of alternatives to the national Republican agenda.
The essays also allowed the governors to discuss issues that were not often associated with state politics specifically. Governor George Ariyoshi of Hawaii, for instance, discussed the importance of building economic relationships with nations across the Pacific Ocean, including developing state-based communication channels. Cuomo contributed an essay on religion and discussed church-state relations relative to his own Catholic beliefs. In short, the volume demonstrated the breadth of policy conversations in which governors take part and the importance of experience in the office to the development of policy at the national and not just the state-level. The governors’ views were being espoused to a national audience and the importance of the governors’ offices to national and even international politics was underscored.
Over the next two years, the DGA continued to play a role in acting as a mouthpiece for the party’s governors concerning President Reagan’s agenda. In 1985, for instance, Clinton and
Florida Governor Bob Graham took part in the party’s response to the State of the Union address, the first time Democratic governors participated in this activity. Robb gave the response to the Reagan the following year. Additionally, in the summer of 1985, several Democratic governors, including Lamm and Carlin, voiced openness to a Reagan proposal eliminating state and local tax emptions in personal income tax filings.646 Cuomo, and the more liberal
Democratic governors stood firm against the proposal. The following year, however, the DGA issued a statement calling Reagan’s 1986 budget proposal a “budget of divestment,” arguing that
“The congress has been forced to accept a budget-making process that can only be viewed as a
646 Coleman, Milton. 28 July 1985. “Reagan Tax Plan Splits Democratic Governors: Some Would Trim State, Local Deduction. The Washington Post A3. 299 price tag for a failed Republican fiscal policy.”647 The resolution argued that governors were particularly attune to the importance of budget proposals, noting that “As Chief Executives, we recognize the difficulties in constructing a budget: competing interests of valuable programs and limited resources. Indeed, we realize that a budget reflects an Administration’s values and priorities. More than any other document, it charts the direction in which the Administration wishes to lead and it sets the agenda for the future.”648
The DGA also took aim at Reagan’s trade policies which, according to the Democratic governors, were at the heart of increasing trade deficits during the 1980s. In 1986, the DGA passed a policy resolution, offered by Celeste, urging “that the Administration enforce the trade laws on the books and use existing remedies to combat unfair trade practices and open foreign markets.” The Democratic governors called for finding new means to promote exports and reducing the value of the dollar on the international currency market.649 Again, the governors, through the DGA, took stands on issues that demonstrated the deepening connection between domestic and international policies.
The 1986 elections only seemed to reaffirm several of the governors’ arguments regarding the need for the party to move to the center. The party had a net loss of eight governors’ seats that year (see Figure 5.2). In particular, they lost four Southern states. Harold
Hunt replaced the retiring Wallace in Alabama, becoming the first Republican governor in the state since Reconstruction. Bob Martinez replaced Graham in Florida. Campbell replaced the
647 Herbers, John. 26 February 1986. “Democratic Governors Assail Reagan on Budget.” The New York Times. A19. 648 Democratic Governors’ Association. Resolution. 2-24-86. The Papers of Richard W. Riley. South Carolina Political Collections. University of South Carolina. Box 5. Folder. Gov., Top., Governors’ Associations/Conferences, Democratic, Riley Chairmanship. 649 Democratic Governors’ Policy Resolution. Offered by Governor Richard F. Celeste. International Trade. The Papers of Richard W. Riley. South Carolina Political Collections. University of South Carolina. Box 5. Folder. Gov., Top., Governors’ Associations/Conferences, Democratic, Riley Chairmanship. 300 retiring Riley in South Carolina. White also lost to former GOP Governor Clements in Texas.
Clinton, on the other hand, coasted to reelection in Arkansas. Ultimately, Democratic governors were players in developing the national party agenda through their actions within the states and the DGA provided a means of elevating and espousing the party’s governors’ leadership.
The Democratic Governors and the 1988 Presidential Race: The DGA and National
Programmatic Partisanship
Gubernatorial involvement through the DGA in the 1988 presidential contest, particularly at the Convention, was significantly greater than it had been in the past. The DGA promoted media attention of the Democratic presidential nomination contest, became heavily involved in the development of the party’s platform at the convention, and elevated the presence of individual governors at the convention in Atlanta. The newfound robustness of the DGA as organization contributed to these developments.
As usual, meetings of the Democratic governors saw ample attention given to potential presidential candidates. The DGA actively promoted this media attention. Dukakis’ star shined bright at DGA meetings in 1986 and 1987. At a 1986 DGA meeting in Hilton Head, South
Carolina, the DGA, led by Dukakis, issued a “manifesto, calling for spending discipline both domestically and on defense, new enforcement efforts against tax evasion, new investment in economic development efforts in poor communities using bloc grants to states, and a “national network of Centers for Excellence” in research in developing local economies.650 Dukakis, who served as DGA Chair in 1987, received attention for Massachusetts’ economic turnaround during his tenure as governor during the 1970s and 1980s.651
650 Broder, David S. 27 August 1986. “Dukakis’ Guide for the Democrats.” The Washington Post. A19. 651 Wald, Matthew L. 28 December 1986. “Dukakis Turns Eye to White House.” 301
Repeating efforts to bring presidential candidates and governors together, the DGA organized a meeting including eight potential nominees and the governors on Mackinac Island,
Michigan in the summer of 1987. While the meeting did not end with a culmination of support around a particular candidate, (as Cohen et. al. note, in 1988 party “insiders seemed simply to bide their time” on endorsements)652 several candidates received ample consideration. Babbitt floated a proposal for a national consumption tax.653 Clinton, who had foregone a run that year, was noted by Evans and Novak as someone who “could have been the DGA candidate.”654
Governors largely held back on making endorsements despite one of their own being a leading candidate for the nomination in early 1988. At a February meeting of the governors, Clinton noted that “My relationship with Michael Dukakis has been good and close. And I’ve made sure my people know I think he’d do a good job. But I just don’t know if I want to get involved.”655
Nevertheless, the DGA brought added media attention to the candidacies, and potential candidacies, of these governors.
The role of the governors, often through the DGA, was significant leading into and at the
Convention in Atlanta. Several governors were given important positions at the event. Governors
Toney Anaya and Kunin were named co-chairs of the convention and Blanchard was chosen to lead the platform committee.656 Clinton was chosen to give the speech nominating Dukakis, a choice seen as an olive branch to the South but also a move which gave Clinton an opportunity to elevate his own national standing, similar to the way Cuomo’s speech in 1984 had for the New
652 Cohen, Marty, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller. 2008. The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 205. 653 Dionne Jr., E. J. 30 July 1987. “Democrats Trade Glowing Remarks: Presidential Candidates Meet with Governors on Idyllic Isle and Eschew Strife.” The New York Times. D20. 654 Evans, Rowland and Robert Novak. 3 August 1987. “A Duke and His Peers.” The Washington Post. A15. 655 Broder, David S. 24 February 1988. “Dukakis Has Corralled Few Colleagues: Most Democratic Governors Leery of Endorsing at this Stage.” The Washington Post. A14. 656 Kunin also served as a co-chair of the platform committee. 302
York governor.657 In his speech, Clinton highlighted Dukakis’ record as governor, noting that
“Dukakis knows from his own experience, as does every other Democratic Governor here tonight, that government cannot solve all problems alone, but, unlike the present national administration, Mike Dukakis knows you can’t leave the problems alone either.”658 The speech, however, was widely criticized by the press for its length, with some commentators going as far as claiming that Clinton’s future in national politics was jeopardized.
The DGA played a particularly important role in developing the Democratic platform that year. DGA members participated in a number of hearings and regional teleconferences regarding the platform, again reflecting patterns of activity begun by Republican governors in the 1960s.
Acknowledging the criticism the party had received during the 1984 contest, leading members of the DGA and the Dukakis camp pushed for a short platform, one that could be easily digested by the average voter and would not be seen as excessively catering to special interests, who were, according to many New Democrats, hurting the party’s electoral prospects, even at the state- level. In remarks given at the convention, Blanchard noted that critics had claimed that “neither party could say no – no to the special interests, the lobbyists, the money brokers. They said that neither party could write a people’s Platform that spoke of old-fashioned values, progressive principles, and a vision that binds together the American family. They said that neither Party could produce a document that someone could read.”659
The platform adopted at the convention that year was less than 5000 words, the shortest
Democratic party platform since 1948. The 1980 and 1984 platforms, in contrast, were over
657 3 July 1988. “Gov. Clinton Picked to Nominate Dukakis.” The New York Times. 12. 658 Clinton, Bill. 20 July 1988. “Nominating Speech for Governor Michael S. Dukakis by Governor Bill Clinton, Arkansas.” Official Proceedings of the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Washington D.C.: Democratic National Committee. 393. 659 Blanchard, James J. 19 July 1988. “Remarks by Governor James J. Blanchard, Michigan. Platform Committee Chair. Official Proceedings of the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Washington D.C.: Democratic National Committee. 319. 303
35000 words long each.660 This was a victory on the part the governors. A number of groups within the party, including supporters of Jesse Jackson, had favored a longer platform that year.
The 1988 elections did not result in a pressing reevaluation of the standing of the party by the governors as had that of four years earlier, despite the results. Dukakis lost his presidential bid, carrying only ten states and Washington D. C. Bush also continued Republican success in the South, winning every state of the Old Confederacy handily. Dukakis’ loss, however, was painted as a personal rather than a party failure, especially given the Bush campaign’s success in painting the Massachusetts governor as soft on crime, an issue on which a number of Democratic governors had sought to develop a tough image. Additionally, Democrats held their majorities in both Houses of Congress and netted one additional governorship, including a victory by Bayh in
Indiana who became an ally of President Clinton and promoted presidential involvement in DGA activities during the 1990s.661 Ultimately, the actions by the DGA during the nomination contest provided a base upon which to build.
The DGA from Dukakis to Clinton: An Active Organization
During the George H. W. Bush years, the DGA was active on a number of fronts. Support for Democratic gubernatorial candidates in the late 1980s and early 1990s built on the efforts
Robb and Dolan had begun four years earlier. The DGA did not get particularly involved in trying to find a replacement for outgoing DNC Chair Kirk, though a number of governors and other officials voiced support for him to stay. Ronald Brown was elected as the new DNC chair, becoming the first African American to hold the position. However, the DGA invested significantly in the Virginia gubernatorial campaign of Doug Wilder, the first African American
660 Word counts of the platforms are provided by the American Presidency Project.
Table 7.2 Democrats Conditions and Effects Present, 1989-1992
Conditions Effects
Strong Governors Increased Participation by Governors in National Partisan Discourse, Party as • Clinton, Celeste, Dukakis, Romer, Organization Baliles • Attack Bush on Federalism Policies Intergovernmental Relations • Coordination with Clinton Campaign • Winning the West Tour • Bush’s “Kinder, Gentler Federalism” • Recession and State Budget Impact New Resources Available to Governors
Programmatic Party Politics • Continued Fundraising Efforts
• New Democrats Active Gubernatorial Influence on Party Program, Brand
• New Covenant Agenda
The late 1980s was a time of a great deal of gubernatorial involvement in national policy discussions on a range of issues, especially education. The DGA continued to provide a venue for its membership to voice concern over Bush’s governing agenda. For instance, several governors voiced concern over Bush’s War on Drugs and Bush’s approach to federal-state relations more broadly. Cuomo, at a 1989 NGA meeting, noted that “He [Bush] says drugs are our No. 1 problem, and we agree with that. Then he tells us the states ought to be tougher, that
662 Barnes, Robert. 2 August 1989. “As Baliles Stumps in Windy City, Wilder Feels Heat from Miners.” The Washington Post. B7. 305 they ought to be doing more. The states, many of them, are tapped out.” Clinton, echoing
Cuomo’s sentiment, argued that “The President puts us in an untenable position in terms of cost.
The federal government keeps asking the states to absorb more and more of the costs of mandated programs like Medicare. This is Ronald Reagan’s ‘federalism.’ Then we’re confronted by ‘read my lips’ and Bush’s antitax rhetoric. What we’re saying to the President is, ‘If you want us to fund it, you’re going to have to stop telling everybody that taxes are evil.”663
Similar sentiments were echoed by some Democratic governors regarding education policy, which was a point of major focus for the Bush administration and the nation’s governors.
Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Jim Florio voiced concern over a Bush funding proposal for
Head Start.664 Blanchard, voiced worry over a proposal to institute a panel to monitor education progress in the states noting that “It is almost as if our policy is to reward failure and punish prudence. And then, on top of that, the administration compounds the problem when it starts to talk about taking away state and local tax deductibility.”665
The governors’ criticism of Bush’s spending and economic policies continued into the
1990s. At a tense meeting between Bush and the governors in 1992, Bush attempted to get the
Democratic governors on record as favoring the closure of specific military bases in order to reduce defense spending. He also asked the group if they were calling for a federal tax increase.666 Several governors noted that a proposed tax plan by the president was full of
“gimmicks” that would do little to improve the standing of the economy.667 Federalism rhetoric
663 Daley, Steve. 6 August 1989. “Democrats Are Determined Not to Be Bush’s Scapegoat.” Chicago Tribune. 76. 664 Sack, Kevin. 27 February 1990. “Cuomo and Florio Criticize Bush on Lack of Money for Education.” The New York Times. B2. 665 Broder, David S. and Paul Taylor. 30 July 1990. “Governors’ Meeting Exposes Both Regional, Partisan Differences.” The Washington Post. A7. 666 Rosenthal, Andrew. 4 February 1992. “Bush Confronted by Some Governors on Economic Plan: Meeting Becomes Tense.” The New York Times. A1. 667 5 February 1992. “Democratic Governors, Bush Continue to Squabble.” Chicago Tribune. D6. 306 was, thus, used by governors of both parties during this period as a means of critiquing their partisan opposition and the DGA provided a venue for this discourse to be espoused.
The governors also became involved in the party’s response to an RNC ad that effectively blamed congressional Democrats for the ongoing savings and loans scandal. Former House
Speaker Jim Wright and other members of the congressional Democratic leadership had previously been linked to “favors” to the industry. The ad was not received well. Even a number of Republican governors at the 1990 NGA meeting in Mobile, Alabama, distanced themselves from it. The Democratic governors sponsored a resolution put forward during the plenary session on the NGA calling for an independent investigation into the scandal. Republicans did not block the resolution.668
The DGA also worked to tighten the governors’ relationship with Democratic leadership in Congress. Under the leadership of Executive Director Mark Gearan, who replaced Dolan and had worked for Dukakis, and Chairmen Celeste, Romer and John Waihee of Hawaii, the DGA worked to highlight gubernatorial leadership on a range of issues in discussions with House
Speaker Dick Gephardt.669 The policy discussions in which governors participated were quite broad. Education, of course, took a prominent spot. However, gubernatorial leadership was also highlighted on Democratic responses to the effects of Reagan and Bush’s policies on the social safety net in the states, economic development initiatives, and dealing with climate issues including pollution and acid rain.
The DGA in 1992: Clinton and the Basis of Executive Partnership Across Levels of
Government
668 Broder, David S. 1 August 1990. “GOP Ad Sparks Governors’ Fight on the S&L Crisis.” The Washington Post. A8. 669 Gearan went on to serve in several positions in the Clinton administration. 307
The DGA played a particularly active role during the 1992 presidential election. The organization held an event with Vice Presidential nominee Gore and had a box of its own at
Madison Square Garden at the convention. The DGA provided support for Clinton’s campaign and a number of prominent players during that year’s nomination process had ties to the DGA.
Indeed, the line between the DGA and the Clinton campaign became “blurry.” Gearan resigned as DGA Executive Director to work on the Clinton campaign. Katie Whelan, who succeeded
Gearan in the position, served as a liaison between the DGA and the Clinton campaign.
The governors did not rally around Clinton early on but once they did their support was crucial to the success of the “boy wonder.” Cuomo had been expected by many to enter the race but eventually decided against doing so. Wilder and Jerry Brown also entered the contest along with Senators Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, Tom Harkin of Iowa and former Senator Paul Tsongas of
Massachusetts. Clinton suffered a setback when Gennifer Flowers revealed that he had engaged in an extramarital affair before the start of the primary season. A number of party leaders, though noting that Clinton was an “attractive” candidate in many ways, were hesitant to endorse him.670
The DGA acted as an important means of support for the Clinton campaign in two main ways. The first emphasized organization. The DGA became involved in the “Winning the West” tour, a campaign swing by the Clinton campaign through a number of Western states featuring a number of rallies. Whelan and Dolan were critical in organizing the tour. A tour of the South was also held during the general election campaign. Governors were often featured as prominent speakers. Chiles and Heflin were, for instance, featured on the Southern tour. Waihee, who would serve as a DGA chairman himself, was also particularly active as a surrogate for Clinton on the campaign trail.
670 Shribman, David. 20 February 1992. “Democrats Worry They Lack a Candidate Who Can Capitalize on bush’s Weakness as Campaign Heads to Clinton Strongholds.” Wall Street Journal. A16. 308
The second emphasized campaign messaging. The Bush campaign sought to critique
Clinton based on his “failed” record as governor of Arkansas, which was among the poorest states in the country. The party’s governors played a key part in responding to this line of criticism. At a strategy meeting in Belle Mead, New Jersey, fourteen Democratic governors met with Clinton and, in press conferences, responded directly to the Bush campaign. Cuomo, for instance, was quoted as saying “I’m working very hard in New York to fail the way Bill Clinton has in his state.”671
At the convention, individual Democratic governors once again served important roles, several of whom were active in the DGA. Richards became the permanent chair of the convention. Barbara Roberts of Oregon served as co-chair of the credentials committee and
Romer served as co-chair of the platform committee. Waihee spoke on behalf of the DGA. In his address he noted that “I speak today for Democratic Governors of this Nation. We bring you a message from the front lines of democracy. Twelve years of no domestic agenda are enough. It’s time to close the book on Reagan-Bush.” He emphasized the connection governors had to the message of the “hard times” affecting the nation due to the recession and called Clinton “the
Governors’ Governor.”672
Clinton’s “New Covenant” acceptance speech reflected an approach informed by executive experience at the state-level. Clinton rejected Bush’s approach but also the traditional
Democratic approach deemed to be “big government,” noting that “Trickledown economics has sure failed. And big bureaucracies, both private and public, they've failed too.”673 Clinton’s
671 Jouzaitis, Carol. 2 August 1992. ‘Governors Hail Clinton State Record.” Chicago Tribune. 5. 672 Waihee, John. 13 July 1992. “Remarks by Governor John Waihee from Hawaii. Chair, Democratic Governors’ Association.” Democratic National Convention 1992. Official Proceedings. 88-9. 673 Clinton, William J. 16 July 1992. “Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Democratic National Convention in New York.” The American Presidency Project.
The 1992 elections were fortuitous for the party at all levels. Clinton ended a twelve-year streak of Republican control of the White House. Democrats had control of both Houses of
Congress. They also netted two more governors’ seats bringing their total to thirty. They were once again firmly the nation’s governing party and the governors and the DGA played important roles in achieving these electoral gains.
Clinton in the White House: Partnership among Democratic Executives
Clinton’s two terms in office witnessed the culmination of the decades long process of integration of the Democratic party’s governors into the national party apparatus. Clinton, like most presidents before him, included former and current governors as members of his cabinet, especially those who had been active in the DGA. Clinton appointed Babbitt as Secretary of the
Interior and Riley as Secretary of Education, both of whom served for the entirety of Clinton’s two terms in office. They both also reflected the “third way” governing philosophy that Clinton brought with him to the White House. Clinton also appointed Romer as DNC Cochair in 1997. In terms of the party as organization, Clinton invested heavily in the party at the state-level and the
DGA often acted as a means of coordinating this development. Clinton’s governing agenda was distinctly relevant to, and sometimes relied on, gubernatorial leadership. The DGA served as a means of coordinating between the White House and the governors on the intricacies of policy development as well as on party message. This coordination did not always culminate with total agreement between the president and the governors, particularly in the case of Clinton’s
674 O’Connor, Brendan. 2002. “Policies, Principles, and Polls.” 400. 310 healthcare proposal. Nevertheless, Clinton’s standing with his party’s governors far exceeded that of LBJ and Carter.
Table 7.3 Democrats Conditions and Effects Present, 1993-2000
Conditions Effects
Strong Governors Increased Participation by Governors in National Partisan Discourse, Party as • Dean, Bayh, Romer, etc. Organization
Intergovernmental Relations • Rapid Response to Gingrich • Clinton Cabinet Appointments • Proposed Healthcare Reform • Welfare Reform New Resources Available to Governors
Programmatic Party Politics • Clinton fundraising • White House coordination • Party losses in 1994 • Clinton’s Personal Scandals Gubernatorial Influence on Party Program, Brand
• State Flexibility in Welfare Reform • Fiscal Responsibility
Party Policy and Party Messaging
The Healthcare Debacle: Democratic Governors Weigh National and State
Concerns
Clinton actively sought to build upon his good relations with his gubernatorial colleagues throughout his two terms as president. The most difficulty he had engaging the governors concerned the issue of healthcare, one of the first major policy battles of the administration and one that most clearly pitted the interests of the national party against those of the states.
As discussed previously, the topic of healthcare was on the table during NGA meetings as Clinton made the issue the cornerstone of his domestic policy agenda in 1993. Republican governors, through the RGA, voiced a number of concerns regarding the implications various
311 iterations of the proposal would have on the states, including concerns about its overall costs.
Democratic governors shared several of these concerns. As Waddan notes, “if Clinton had managed to push through reform which guaranteed all, or at least very nearly all, Americans some form of health insurance coverage and which also contained the overall burden of health care costs imposed on the American economy, then he would have demonstrated that government could simultaneously do good deeds and also encourage efficiency. This would potentially have resurrected the idea that government-led initiatives could do much to improve the quality of American life at a time when trust in federal government’s capacity to get things right was at a low ebb.”675 Yet, healthcare reform inevitably dealt with the affairs of the states as well as the national government, and, thus, questions of efficiency and success were discussed relative to the impacts the proposal would have on the states.
Hillary Clinton, who took the lead on developing the administration’s healthcare policy, promised a cooperative relationship between the governors and the White House in developing the party’s approach. In a speech before a DGA gathering in Vermont during the summer of
1993, the First Lady noted that “as a former Governor, one thing is as clear to the President as
I’m sure it is to all of you: states cannot solve this problem on their own. Healthcare is a national problem, and it’s going to require national solutions.” She continued, however:
But just as we hear you when you say the states can’t do this alone, I’m here to tell you that we can’t do this without you. We will need you to work with us to forge a new federal state partnership. In return for the flexibility we agree you need, we need you to help us demonstrate that states can be counted on to implement guarantees of access, cost control, choice and quality. We need you to work closely with us during implementation so that we can learn from you, and you can learn from each other. And finally, we need you to help us pass this plan and tackle this issue once and for all.676
675 Waddan, Alex. 2002. Clinton’s Legacy?: A New Democrat in Governance. New York: Palgrave. 89. 676 Remarks of First Lady Hillary Clinton. Democratic Governor’s Association. Woodstock, VT. CH Draft 6/17/93. Task Force on National Health Care, White House Health Care Task Force, and Robert Boorstin, “HRC Remarks – DGA [Democratic Governors Association], 6/18/93,” Clinton Digital Library, accessed January 18, 2018,
Ira Magaziner, who co-led the health care task force with HRC, pitched that the health care proposal would not force a uniform “national template” when questioned by Oklahoma Governor
David Walters.677
The governors voiced numerous concerns not just with the healthcare plan’s provisions but with how the plan was being put together and the narrative developing in the media. The following year, the DGA issued a statement in favor of Clinton’s attempt to expand healthcare coverage to an additional 39-million Americans. The party’s governors, as a group, did not, however, voice support for an employer mandate that was then seen as the administration’s mechanism for expanding coverage. Dean, then serving as chair of the NGA, voiced support for the mandate. Governors Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Jim Folsom of Alabama, Bruce King of New
Mexico and Mike Sullivan of Wyoming, contrarily, announced opposition to the proposal. Other governors active in the DGA, including then chairman Bayh, remained neutral. The mandate was critiqued by several of these governors in part because of the potential effects on small businesses which could affect job growth and tax revenue in the states.678
The ultimate failure of Clinton’s healthcare reform agenda cannot be attributed, at least not solely, to his inability to get the party’s governors on board with all of the specifics of the package. However, the package that was ultimately put forward included mandates for states to establish a number of programs seeking to expand health coverage, including regional health alliances, as well as regulations stemming from a national health board. Martha Derthick was quoted at the time as saying that “In many years of studying American social policy, I have never read an official document that seemed so suffused with coercion and political naivete . . . with its
677 Balz, Dan. 19 June 1993. “Health Care Reform: No 'Free Lunch': Hillary Clinton Outlines Broad Program to Democratic Governors.” The Washington Post. A4. 678 Pear, Robert. 19 July 1994. ‘Democratic Governors Avoid Mandates.” The New York Times. A14. 313 drastic prescriptions for controlling the conduct of state governments, employers, drug manufacturers, doctors, hospitals and you and me.”679 The plan was seen as being too “top- down” and burdensome on state bureaucracies. In sum, the governors may not have killed the plan but they did not do much to further this element of Clinton’s agenda either. The DGA offered support for the goals put forward by the president but not the means he had proposed to achieve them, means which would have burdened the states.
Welfare, Medicaid and Budgeting
The Clinton administration and the governors were much more in line in terms of coordinating on the party’s approach to welfare and Medicaid reform. On these issues, the states were already heavily involved in policy implementation and Clinton, unlike in the case of healthcare, sought to push existing policy to the center. The Democratic governors and the president could also target their messaging against the new Republican congressional leadership, particularly that of Gingrich in the House, and the DGA was active on this front.
Democratic governors often drew distinctions with their goals and those of the
Republican Congress. For instance, Democratic governors coordinated with the White House on messaging related to the implementation of reform. A talking points memo circulated at the time noted that Democratic governors felt that “Medicaid reforms should maintain a guarantee to a meaningful benefit package for vulnerable Americans, provide states with long-needed flexibility to run their programs more effectively, and protect state taxpayers from economic downturns or unexpected demographic changes.”680 In 1994, the DGA circulated information
679 Will, George. 10, November 2006. "Inoculated for Exuberance?" The Washington Post. 680 “Talking Points for Democratic Governors Regarding Welfare and Medicaid Reform.” Fax sent to Bruce Reed from John Monahan. Domestic Policy Council, Bruce Reed, and Welfare Reform Series, “DGA [Democratic Governors’ Association],” Clinton Digital Library, accessed January 18, 2018, Page 2.
Medicaid costs in the first year of implementation than they would without reform. Costs over the 8-year period 1996-2003 would total an astounding $115 billion.”681 In the spring of 1995,
Governors Thomas Carper of Delaware, Dean, and Mel Carnahan of Missouri issued a news release claiming that the Republican welfare proposal would mean cuts of over $70 billion for states.682
Democratic governors also actively pushed their own policy prerogatives through their engagement with the White House and Democratic congressional leadership through the DGA.
Carnahan, in a letter to Minority Leader Gephardt, noted gubernatorial leadership on the issue:
“it has been Democratic governors who have instituted statewide programs to help recipients break the cycle of dependency and go to work. Democratic governors know that to achieve true change, people must become self-sufficient, find and maintain a job, and be responsible for their families.”683 Romer, for his part, argued that “Any legislation must establish a requirement for state fiscal participation in its welfare reform effort. Without this commitment, there will be a tendency for programs to be reduced to the level of available federal funding which will be inadequate. Those states choosing to spend state funds to augment their programs may become
681 Memorandum to Governor Evan Bayh from Doug Richardson. RE: Dole and Stimulus Package. 18 August 1994. Evan Bayh Papers. Modern Political Papers. University of Indiana Bloomington Library. Bloomington Indiana. MPP11. Box 9. Folder. “Evan Bayh PPRS. GOV. DGA. Information to Governor – August. August 1994. Folder 2 of 3. 682 “Carper Supports Deal Welfare Plan, Warns Nation’s Governors of Cost Shift in Republican Welfare Reform.” News Release. 23 March 1995. Domestic Policy Council, Bruce Reed, and Welfare Reform Series, “DGA [Democratic Governors’ Association],” Clinton Digital Library, accessed January 18, 2018,
The final version of the bill included greater flexibility for states in establishing guidelines for benefits. Clinton vetoed two bills that had passed the Republican Congress but, after negotiations with Gingrich, signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act into law. Ultimately, the DGA issued a statement praising Clinton’s decision to sign welfare reform even after Leader Gephardt had voted against the bill in the House.685 Most of the opposition to the bill came from liberal congressional Democrats, those less likely to be supportive of the “third way” agenda.
The DGA also voiced support for numerous Clinton initiatives relating to budgetary politics. Leading into the 1996 election, a group of Democratic governors, led by then DGA
Chairman Gaston Capteron, signed a letter backing a bipartisan plan to balance the federal budget.686 The following month, Caperton issued a statement rejecting House Republican plans to cut funding for education in favor of a reduction of the national gasoline tax.687 Again, the governors acting through the DGA combined support for flexibility granted to the states by federal policy with critiques of Republican spending plans.
Organizational Coordination and Development
Clinton Invests in the Governors and the DGA
684 Letter to the Honorable Richard Gephardt from Roy Romer. 21 March 1995. Domestic Policy Council, Bruce Reed, and Welfare Reform Series, “DGA [Democratic Governors’ Association],” Clinton Digital Library, accessed January 18, 2018,
The extensiveness of the engagement between the Clinton White House and the governors in terms of the party in service was unprecedented in the history of the Democratic party. During Clinton’s first term, the DGA had weekly meetings with governors and their staffs in Washington. The governors’ active participation in welfare reform negotiations gave them the opportunity to speak on behalf of the party in Washington. For instance, Democratic governors provided support for the party’s “Rapid Response in defending the President against attacks regarding subjects on which they have expertise/credibility.”688 In sum, the Democratic governors through the DGA invested heavily in the policy debates taking place in Washington during this time period, and they were coordinating with the leadership of their party at an unprecedented level in addition to their participation through the NGA and other state-based lobbying groups.
For his part, Clinton invested in the governors to a degree significantly exceeding the efforts of former Democratic presidents. Clinton was a regular guest at DGA events in
Washington, particularly after the 1994 midterm elections. During these events, Clinton highlighted how the governors had been his allies in helping him achieve his governing agenda.
In November, 1997, for instance, he noted that “the governors are especially important for the strategy that I’m pursuing for America to succeed.” Further, “It matters who the governor is.”689
Two years later, he touted the governors’ partnership on welfare reform specifically, noting that
“when we fought very hard for welfare reform the Democratic Governors stood with me in
688 Memorandum. To Leon Panetta, Harold Ickles, Mark Gearan, Carol Rasco, Doug Sosnik. From Marcia L. Hale, John Emerson. Subject: Meeting with Democratic Governors – The Roosevelt Room – June 2. 1 June 1995. Domestic Policy Council, Carol Rasco, and Meetings, Trips, Events Series, “Meeting with Democratic Governors June 1, 1995,” Clinton Digital Library, accessed January 18, 2018,
Republican Governors at the state level.”691
Clinton’s investment in the party as organization was unprecedented for a Democratic president, especially in his second term. As Doherty notes, “Clinton served as president at a time when parties exploited unregulated soft money raised by the national committees to its full potential, and Clinton’s fundraising certainly benefited the party, himself, and other Democratic candidates.”692 Clinton held over 150 fundraising events in Washington D. C. alone during his second term, and several of these directly benefited the DGA and gubernatorial candidates.693 In
1994, the DGA raised a then record $2.4 million for the group, thanks in large part to Clinton’s fundraising efforts, including a major event in Indiana hosted by then DGA Chairman Bayh.694
The DGA, Convention Politics and Elevating the Governorship
The DGA continued to build its fundraising capacity throughout Clinton’s term. In truth,
Clinton’s partnership with the governors was bolstered after the party suffered devastating losses in the “Republican Revolution” of 1994. Carnahan, upon becoming DGA Chairman at a meeting
690 Remarks by the President to the Democratic National Governor’s Association Dinner. National Building Museum, Washington D.C. 22 February 1999. The White House Office of the Press Secretary. Office of Speechwriting and Jeff Shesol, “Federalism Conf. Quebec 10/8/99 - DGA [Democratic Governors' Association],” Clinton Digital Library, accessed January 18, 2018,
1996 elections. He also echoed the sentiment that the party should move to the center.695 By
1999, the group’s annual fundraising dinner in Washington raised $3.2 million with the vast majority of the money raised expected to go towards supporting Democratic candidates the following year.696 The following year’s dinner raised over $5 million.697
Highlighting gubernatorial policy initiatives and fostering partnerships with the party’s governors remained the goal of the DGA throughout this period. This led to the group advocating for candidates to emphasize particular issues leading into the next two election cycles. Leading into the 1996 DNC, the DGA put on a policy-forum entitled “Our Children, Our Future” in which eleven governors participated in addition to Secretaries Riley and Babbitt, along with the
First Lady.698 Caperton also spoke at the DNC highlighting the party’s education platform.699
These efforts countered Republican attempts to undermine the Democrats’ longstanding advantage on the issue in the mind of voters.
The DGA and former members of the group were active at the convention in 1996. The
DGA’s staff coordinated with the congressional and mayoral committees on obtaining speaking slots, office space, and managing events held during the convention. Bayh was given the keynote address at the Convention that year in Chicago as a way of highlighting Clinton’s moderate governing approach. Bayh praised Clinton for balancing the federal budget, cutting taxes and slashing the federal workforce. Bayh defended Clinton’s welfare reform package and noted
695 20 November 1994. “Democratic Governors’ ‘Rebuilding.’” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 10A. 696 24 February 1999. “Fund-raising Dinner a Record for Demos.” South Bend Tribune. 697 Gearan, Anne. 28 February 2000. “Clinton Hosts Governors Minus Bush.” Associated Press Online. 698 Kabler, Phil. 22 August 1996. “Convention Tone Will Be Different, Caperton Says.” Charleston Gazette. 699 Bundy, Jennifer. 27 August 1996. “Caperton in Convention Limelight.” Charleston Gazette. 1A. 319
Clinton’s support of state-based solutions before Congress took action, which included waivers for Indiana.700 Bayh’s speech was not simply a statement affirming the governing philosophy of the DLC. Rather, it demonstrated that the approach to domestic policy taken by the president required coordination between the states and the federal government, and therefore retained a special place for gubernatorial leadership within the party.
Education remained a topic that the DGA sought to elevate going into the 1998 midterms and the 2000 presidential contest. Building off of the passage in 1994 of Goals 2000, the DGA consistently sought to assert the party’s governors’ leadership on the issue. In 1999, for instance, the DGA held a policy conference in Seattle focused on education technology, school safety and international trade.701 The meeting also included sessions with the chairs of numerous state party organizations. The goal was to feature education prominently in gubernatorial races. The party held only seventeen governorships after both the 1996 and 1998 election cycles. However, this was not due to a lack of presidential investment in the party’s governors. Indeed, Clinton’s personal availability to the DGA during this period underscored that even though the president’s image was not always a boon to the party down-ballot, the president was not undercutting support for the governors through the party in service. Clinton may have been the “king” of the party but he seemed to recognize the governors’ status as “princes.”
Road to the New Millennium: The DGA in the 2000 Presidential Nomination Race
Leading into the 2000 election, DGA meetings once again saw ample attention concerning presidential politics. Dean, who had led both the DGA and the NGA, was considered a potential challenger to eventual nominee Gore, but decided against running. Gore had an inside
700 Bayh, Evan.
Vilsack was seen as a critical endorsement as Iowa was the first caucus in the primary schedule
(see Figures 5.5 for a geographic breakdown of governorships by party in 2000).702
The Democratic governors also took part in the criticism of George W. Bush’s presidential bid. At an NGA meeting in Pennsylvania, for instance, the media honed in on the
Democratic governors’ opening press conference which saw a number of critiques raised of the
Texas governor. Carper drew a distinction between Bush and his younger brother Jeb, calling the
Florida governor much more attuned to policy details. Dean attacked Bush’s record on women’s and children’s healthcare in Texas.703 In sum, the DGA continued to provide a venue for presidential candidates to seek out endorsements and to draw media attention and donors. The governors also played a role in critiquing the opposition.
Conclusion: The Rise of an Integrated Democratic Party Politics
The last two decades of the 20th century saw the Democratic governors become increasingly active in national politics through their participation in the DGA. Put simply, their organization now mirrored that of the GOP. The policy agendas pursued by Reagan, Bush and
Clinton regarding domestic policy often included state involvement. Organizations in the state- lobby dealt with a series of issues ranging from education to welfare reform. Whereas
Republican governors, through the RGA, sought to affirm Reagan and Bush’s policy programs
702 Broder, David. S. 24 February 1999. “Governors and Presidential Politics.” The San Diego Union Tribune. B8. 703 Broder, David S. 12 July 2000. “Governors Assess a Colleague: Democrats Not Impressed by Bush’s Role; Republicans Disagree.” The Washington Post. A8. 321 and to highlight conservative alternatives to the liberal welfare state at the state-level,
Democratic governors sought to demonstrate their own leadership on these policy issues. While the party’s governors were often part of the New Democratic movement, their approach to federalism sought to reinvigorate the Democratic coalition and maintain a commitment to the idea that government could be a force for good, as long as said force was applied properly. Thus, the governors provided a distinctive voice within the party, one that pushed the Democratic party in a moderate direction but allowed for states to be venues for the achievement of programmatic action.
The motivation for building and maintaining the DGA as an organization also rested on electoral politics during this era. The most conservative members of the Democratic party’s gubernatorial ranks had been replaced by a new breed of “third way” Democratic governors, ones who recognized the importance of the national party brand on their own electoral fortunes, perhaps especially in the once solid South. Robb, Clinton, Babbitt, Romer and others sought to make the national party more amenable to the prerogatives of the governors rather than to maintain distance between themselves and the national party apparatus. The result of this was a much more robust Association, one that promoted the governors in terms of policy and in elections. The DGA was no longer simply a mouthpiece for the Democratic party during NGA meetings, though it maintained this role. Rather, it was fully a part of the national Democratic party’s service-party apparatus.
Part of the result of the DGA’s development was an unprecedentedly close relationship between President Clinton (not to mention Democratic leadership in Congress) and the governors. Indeed, Clinton’s interactions with the governors through the DGA was much more cooperative than those between LBJ and Carter and the party’s governors in the 1960s and
322
1970s. Clinton’s national ambitions were furthered by his early involvement in the DGA and the relationships he had built with other governors through the DGA and the NGA. Unlike Carter,
Clinton recognized the potential for programmatic advancement through partnership with his party’s governors and invested heavily in maintaining those relationships, often through fundraising for the DGA. Clinton’s partnership with the governors, thus, rested on more than a bond rooted in common experience. His partnership was enhanced by the structure of party organization, which now included a robust DGA, and the ability to coordinate with the governors in terms of both electoral and policy considerations. In this way, his engagement with the DGC before his presidency was far greater than Carter’s despite both being former Southern state governors who sought to find a new path forward in building a viable electoral coalition in a changing political landscape.
The DGA also allowed the governors to influence the direction of the party program and the national party as organization, even during the Clinton presidency. The DGA influenced both the selection of the DNC chairman in the 1980s as well as the party platforms during the 1988 and 1992 presidential contests. During the Clinton administration, the governors became involved in the national partisan messaging around a host of issues, particularly that of welfare reform, an issue on which the governors were, on average, distinctly more moderate than the congressional wing of the party.
In sum, the enhanced role of governors in national politics that federalism scholars have noted was mirrored by their enhanced role in national partisan politics. In truth, the process of party integration that had begun decades earlier reached fruition during the 1990s. To be sure, disagreements often were present over the details of policy. However, the DGA promoted coordination between the governors and national party elites, allowing discussions over the
323 details of policies to be had and providing a means of arriving on agreement over these issues.
The governors were key players in the development of these policies as well as the party’s program regarding these issues and they often helped to sell these policies on the national stage.
The governors and the leadership of the party in Washington were cooperating with each other and they now had the means by which to do this – a robust DGA.
324
CONCLUSION: PARTISAN GOVERNORS ASSOCIATIONS IN A POLARIZED ERA, 2000-PRESENT
The post-2000 period of American politics has often been described as an era of heightened partisan polarization. Of particular importance, for our purposes, is that polarization seems to have “spread” to the states. This trend is applicable to the nation’s governors and presents a tension with how individuals who occupy the office often view themselves – as pragmatists with unique sets of priorities, agendas, and responsibilities. Ultimately, while the
RGA and the DGA have allowed the governors to bring their unique perspectives to national party elites, the coordination between elites within the parties allowed for by these organizations has, I argue, contributed to polarization in its current form.
The trend toward polarization is reflected in developments in intergovernmental relations, state-level politics, and within party organizational development. Regarding intergovernmental relations, measures of ideology in Congress demonstrate that the parties have become more ideological and the overlap between the parties has nearly disappeared. Between 1980 and 2010 for instance, Republican moderates in the House all but vanished and the number of moderate
Democrats in the chamber shrunk from one-third to less than one-quarter of the party caucus.704
Speakers Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, and Nancy Pelosi have all adapted “the almost exclusive use of the governing party strategy” in Congress.705 Similar trends have been seen in the Senate despite the chamber’s reputation as the nation’s “most deliberative body.”706 Further, as Kincaid and Posner note “The rise of more coercive, regulatory federalism was one of the
704 Poole, Keith T., and Howard Rosenthal. 2014a. House polarization 1st to 113th Congresses. Dataset available at Voteview.com. 705 Sinclair, Barbara. 2006. Party Wars: Polarization and the Politics of National Policy Making. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 321. 706 See Poole, Keith T., and Howard Rosenthal. 2014b. Senate polarization 1st to 113th Congresses. Dataset available at Voteview.com. 325 signature developments in American intergovernmental relations over the past fifty years.”707
This increased polarization at the national-level in tandem with strategic use of coercive federalism has altered the environment in which governors engaged in conversations about intergovernmental relations.708
This trend has been reflected, albeit to a lesser degree, among governors and state parties.
Paddock, for instance, demonstrates that state party platforms increasingly reflect national partisan divides with Republicans appearing more conservative and Democrats appearing more liberal, in line with trends among their counterparts in the Congress.709 State legislatures, even the technically nonpartisan Nebraska unicameral chamber, have seen increased party voting over the past few decades. Weinberg demonstrates that gubernatorial rhetoric, even in state of the state addresses, also increasingly reflects the rhetoric of national partisan elites. He argues that
“the word choices of gubernatorial speeches appear to indicate an orientation along a coherent national partisan dimension of political discourse.”710
Moreover, as Jensen notes, “Gubernatorial lobbying in the federal arena has shifted in recent years . . . as governors have begun to function in a more partisan manner. In doing this, they are mirroring an increasingly polarized landscape around them, as seen in party polarization in Congress, state legislatures, and the electorate. Partisanship is a matter of degree, and
707 Conlan, Timothy J. and Paul L. Posner. 2016. “American Federalism in an Era of Partisan Polarization.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism. 46.3: 283. 708 Jensen, Jennifer M. 2017. “Governors and Partisan Polarization in the Federal Arena.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism. 47.3: 326-8. See also Conlan, Timothy J., and Paul L. Posner. 2016. American Federalism in an Era of Partisan Polarization: The Intergovernmental Paradox of Obama’s “New Nationalism.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 46.3: 281–307; Pickerill, J. Mitchell, and Cynthia J. Bowling. 2014. “Polarized Parties, Politics, and Policies: Fragmented Federalism in 2013–2014.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 44.3: 369–398. 709 Paddock, Joel. 2005. State and National Parties and American Democracy. New York: Peter Lang. Inc. See also Coffey, Daniel J. 2011. “More than a Dime’s Worth: Using State Party Platforms to Assess the Degree of American Party Polarization.” PS: Political Science and Politics 44.2: 331–337. 710 Weinberg, Micah. 2010. “Measuring Governors’ Political Orientations Using Words as Data.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly. 10.1: 98. 326 governors have not moved from nonpartisan to partisan actors. Instead, as they conduct their gubernatorial activities in Washington, they are functioning as more-partisan actors, compared to less-partisan actors.”711 In short, since 2000 partisan polarization has increased in importance relative to state interests, even in terms of gubernatorial behavior.
The causes of partisan polarization identified in the literature are many. As Kincaid has recently argued, “an important overlooked factor is the rise of coercive federalism, which has nationalized many issues, especially culturally sensitive issues, previously decided by state and local governments, thereby concentrating conflict in the white heat of national politics rather than diffusing conflict more coolly across the states.”712 I agree with this reflection but add one important element.
The emergence of a more heightened form of partisan polarization is attributable in part to the actions taken by governors of both parties themselves since the 1960s, through the creation of the DGA and the RGA. This is not to say that the governors themselves were intentionally promoting a more polarized form of politics. As demonstrated throughout the analysis, many governors who were active in these organizations, particularly Republican governors during the 1960s and Democrats in the 1980s, were decidedly moderate in their political orientations. However, the actions the governors of both parties took in forming the
DGA and the RGA allowed for coordination within the parties and advanced electoral contestation between them.713 The fact that the Associations brought the governors more consistently into national partisan politics, I argue, is a contributing factor to the emergence of
711 Jensen, Jennifer M. 2017. “Governors and Partisan Polarization.” 314. 712 Kincaid, John. 2017. “Introduction: The Trump Interlude and the States of American Federalism.” State and Local Government Review 49.3: 164. 713 This is in line with the findings of Mann and Ornstein who argue that a more permanent form of campaigning has contributed to changes in the relationship between the parties in Congress. See Mann, Thomas E., and Norman J. Ornstein. 2013. It’s Even Worse than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism. New York: Basic Books. 327 the state of nationally polarized politics in which we currently find ourselves. Put another way, the integration of the parties’ governors into the national parties precipitated a more polarized and programmatic party system.
The basic functions of the DGA and RGA promoted national teamsmanship and partisan branding activities as well as investment in the party’s governors by national party elites. In this sense, the patterns that have emerged from the 1960s onward continued into the post-2000 era. A notable difference from the previous time period was the implementation of campaign finance reform which ultimately extended the RGA and DGA’s role as critical elements of the national party in service. Campaign finance reform shifted the emphasis of these organizations away from policy, and “state interests” in particular, and toward electioneering more exclusively. As Jensen notes, “There is a natural tension between these two roles of protecting state interests and partisan interests.”714 Since 2000, it seems the balance has shifted even further toward partisan interests.
In sum, the three sets of conditions – emboldened governors, the state of American federalism, and national programmatic partisan politics – that have allowed gubernatorial activism in national partisan politics since the 1960s now promote governors to more consistently act as national partisans and not simply be active on the national scene. The results have been more extensive resources being invested in gubernatorial elections, high levels of involvement by governors in national partisan politics, and some degree of influence by governors on the national programs of the party, though, on this last front, state interests have become much more intertwined with national partisan programmatic objectives than ever before.
714 Jensen, Jennifer M. 2017. “Governors and Partisan Polarization.” 317. 328
This concluding chapter first briefly overviews the important points of continuity and change in the DGA and the RGA since the 2000 election. On the one hand, the basic functions of the Associations remain the same: providing opportunities for coordination between the governors and national party elites; contributing electoral assistance to gubernatorial candidates; and allowing governors to elevate their national standing within the parties, particularly those with presidential aspirations. Additionally, the conditions that have precipitated gubernatorial action in the national arena have largely been present in the new millennium: ambitious governors within both parties (though perhaps more-so in the GOP); voters have been responding to national partisan politics in their vote choices; and the states have maintained relevance for the implementation of national partisan agendas. On the other hand, structural changes in the party system now seem to emphasize national teamsmanship to an extent that is unprecedented and, while there are still a number of governors that are distinctly moderate within their respective parties, partisanship along a national dimension seems to have eclipsed the moderating tendencies of state-level executive office. The outcome of these changes seems to be heightened polarization across levels of government.
The chapter returns to where the dissertation began – with a consideration of the significance of these Associations in the age of Trump. Trump’s unexpected ascendance to the
Oval Office challenged Republican Party orthodoxy but also deepened the divide between the two parties. The president’s interaction with state governments follows and extends previous patterns of partisan presidential leadership that has made the partisan divide more rancorous.
Democratic governors have been among Trump’s staunchest critics and Republican governors, while providing a platform to critique the president during the 2016 campaign, have had to grapple with the effect Trump has had both on their electoral prospects and governing agendas in
329 the states. Like many members of Congress, governors often seem to be wary of drifting too far away from national party leadership.
I conclude with a consideration of avenues for future research with an emphasis on how the basic approach taken in this dissertation may be applied to other contexts within American political development but also what other approaches may emerge from the findings of this study, both in the United States and, perhaps, comparatively.
Continuity and Change in RGA and DGA Activity Since 2000
The RGA: The Bush Years
Like in past decades, the RGA has served as a means of furthering the national party’s message, including that of the party’s president. While the party’s governors used the RGA as a venue for bringing state-level concerns to the Bush administration and Republican leadership in
Congress, the trend toward a more national form of conservative programmatic partisanship became clear. As Milkis and Rhodes note, “George W. Bush’s party leadership highlights a long- standing development growing out of the New Deal political order, which weakened localized party politics and spawned a new form of partisanship that was inextricably tied to the expansion of national administrative power.”715
Bush began his tenure with strong support among his party’s governors. Indeed, “Bush’s
2000 presidential bid trumpeted his experience as governor of Texas, and his strongest supporters were fellow Republican governors who hoped he shared their desire for greater state autonomy and authority from the national government.”716 While the recount fiasco was still ongoing, Republican governors, at an RGA meeting in Florida, defended Florida Secretary of
715 Milkis, Sidney M. and Jesse H. Rhodes. 2007. “George W. Bush, the Party System, and American Federalism.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 37.3: 479. 716 Ibid. 483. 330
State Katharine Harris and attacked the Gore campaign for engaging in “character assassination.”717 The president began his first term with an agenda reflecting a continuation of domestic policy initiatives that had been developed in the states. His compassionate conservatism agenda included a model of public-private partnerships for which several
Republican governors had voiced support and many imitated on the state-level by the end of
Bush’s second term.718
The president’s agenda abruptly changed less than a year after he took office. Bush saw his party’s governors, and the nation more broadly, “rally around the flag” after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Vice President Richard Cheney, in a speech before the RGA less than two months after the attacks, spoke almost entirely about the federal government’s response to the attacks but did note that “every state is affected by this crisis. Every governor now faces new and urgent responsibilities in protecting the American people. In both parties and across America, governors have met this responsibility and met it well.” He went on to note that the administration had asked Congress to pass $800 million in funding to incentivize states and localities find and address security vulnerabilities.719 The following year, Bush, in addressing the party’s governors himself, noted that he appreciated “these governors being on the front line of making America a stronger place, a safer place, and a better place for all citizens -- regardless of
717 Ayres Jr., Drummond. 18 November 2000. “The Republicans: Governors Rise to Defense of Bush and Election Official.” The New York Times. A16. 718 See for instance, Sparacino, Anthony. 2018. “Compassionate Conservatism in the Spiral of Politics.” American Political Thought: A Journal of Ideas, Institutions and Culture. 7.3: 480-513. 719 25 October 2001. “Vice President Cheney Delivers Remarks to the Republican Governors Association.” The White House. Bush was originally scheduled to speak at the RGA event but decided against it as to appear non- partisan in the aftermath of the attacks. Cheney replaced Bush at the event. Berke, Richard L. 23 October 2001. “Bush Cancels Appearance at G.O.P. Event.” The New York Times. A10. 331 their party affiliation, regardless of where they live.”720 At that meeting, Thompson and Ridge were on hand to discuss state efforts on emergency preparedness and public health.721
This is not to say that the governors were always in line with the policy proposals stemming from Washington. The governors brought state concerns to conversations about the crafting of national policies and partisan messaging to the administration and members of
Congress. Yet, the RGA tended to downplay, if not outright contest, the idea that the party’s governors were not in accord with the president’s agenda. For instance, a number of the nation’s governors voiced concerns over a White House proposal to alter work requirements in a proposed renewal of the 1996 welfare reform law. States were feeling the burdens of recession in their budgets and the governors called for more flexibility in implementing welfare programs in their states. In a letter to Republican leadership in Congress, however, the RGA said the governors “generally supported Mr. Bush’s proposals.”722 Another of Bush’s key domestic policy achievements, No Child Left Behind, vastly extended the role of the federal government in managing education, dramatically increasing the amount of money spent by the Department of
Education and creating a litany of new standards and regulations that created new administrative burdens on the states. Even here, however, the messaging coming from the RGA tended to promote the idea that the governors and the president were in agreement on the goals of the Act, particularly in terms of raising education standards despite widespread concern over the law’s feasibility.
720 Bush, George W. 19 September 2002. “Remarks by the President at Republican Governors Association Fall Reception.” Office of the Press Secretary. 721 Balz, Dan. 23 November 2002. “Ridge Rebuts Gore Attack; GOP Governors Are Told of ‘Substantial Progress’ in Terror War.” The Washington Post. A7. 722 Pear, Robert. 10 April 2002. “House G.O.P. Softens Bush Welfare Plan.” The New York Times. A23. 332
Electoral concerns were also raised at RGA meetings with regard to the public’s perception of the president and his governing agenda. Even after Republicans performed unexpectedly well in the 2002 midterms, several governors voiced caution in pushing President
Bush’s agenda. Frank Keating of Oklahoma, for instance, called the elections a “mandate with a small ‘m.’”723 As casualties in the Iraq War mounted, the governors voiced concern over the messaging coming out of the White House.724 Bush’s reelection in 2004, which saw his party gain control of twenty-nine governorships, brought new concerns for the party’s governors. At a meeting in New Orleans after the election, several governors voiced the desire for the administration to tackle Medicaid. This followed a 2001 NGA resolution asking Congress to take up the issue. The administration, rather, was preparing to move on reforming Social Security, which would not require much involvement by the states.725 Bush’s falling popularity played into many GOP gubernatorial candidates distancing themselves from the president in the 2006 midterm elections. Then RGA Executive Director Philip Musser argued that “voters in these races go into the booth caring less if the governor is pro life or pro choice and more about whether he is going to reduce their property taxes or make their life easier at the D.M.V.”726
Another set of patterns that were continued during the Bush years concerned the use of
RGA meetings to further the national political ambitions of individual governors, specifically as a venue for potential presidential candidates to develop support. In the aftermath of the 2006 midterms, for instance, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Senator John McCain were both seen as jockeying for support from the governors at an RGA meeting in Florida. Romney
723 Nagourney, Adam. 25 November 2002. “Republican Governors, Giddy with Victory, Consider Whether to Stroll or Steamroll.” The New York Times. A18. 724 Seelye, Katharine Q. 23 November 2003. “Republican Governors Voice Concerns on Iraq.” The New York Times. 28. 725 Balz, Dan. 22 November 2004. “GOP Governors Want a Seat at the Table.” The Washington Post. A2. 726 Steinhauer, Jennifer. 20 September 2006. “For Governors in G.O.P. Slots, a Liberal Turn.” The New York Times. A1. 333 having served as chairman of the RGA, took a very active role in fundraising and campaigning for gubernatorial candidates across the country. McCain, for his part, had set up eight hours’ worth of meetings with a host of Republican governors and hosted a reception at the meeting.727
Additionally, the RGA continued to use the party’s national conventions in 2004 and
2008 as a means of fundraising and governors continued to seek out the spotlight at these events.
In 2004, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle was named a temporary chairwoman of the convention.
Colorado Governor Bill Owens was given a spot on the platform committee. Romney and New
York Governor George Pataki were also given prominent speaking slots. In 2008, the RGA organized an event for its donors featuring Alaska Governor and Vice-Presidential nominee
Sarah Palin.728 Additionally, Romney, former Arkansas Governor and presidential candidate
Mike Huckabee, Lingle, and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty were given speaking slots.
Ultimately, Bush’s programmatic partisanship emphasized the use of national administrative capacity to achieve national objectives. Bush did invest in party-building, but his strategy emphasized building national organizational capacity, which included investment in the
RGA as an organization. The RGA served as a venue through which the governors brought concerns about the effects of Bush’s agenda on state governance and their own electoral fortunes to national party officials but the trend toward emphasis on national programmatic partisanship largely won out.
The RGA: The Obama Years
Barack Obama’s assent to the White House brought familiar themes to the conversations taking place at RGA meetings. In 2008, the Republican party suffered a major loss. At the first
727 Nagourney, Adam. 1 December 2006. “As G.O.P. Governors Meet, McCain Comes Calling.” The New York Times. A28. 728 Schouten, Fredreka. 5 September 2008. “Governors Associations fill coffers at conventions; Millions of Dollars have poured in to groups free of donor Limits.” USA Today. 6A. 334
RGA conference held after the 2008 election, Pawlenty sounded like the moderate governors of decades past, noting that “We cannot be a majority governing party when we essentially cannot compete in the Northeast, we are losing our ability to compete in Great Lakes states, we cannot compete on the West Coast, [and] we are increasingly in danger of competing in the mid-Atlantic states.” He continued, “Similarly we cannot compete, and prevail, as a majority governing party if we have a significant deficit, as we do, with women, where we have a large deficit with
Hispanics, where we have a large deficit with African American voters, where we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes and modest financial circumstances.”729
Rhetorically, however, the RGA, as an organization, emphasized critiques of the Obama administration and the policy proposals of their partisan opponents. The stimulus package passed in 2009 presented one of the first instances in which Republican governors and the RGA became involved in critiquing the Obama administration on policy grounds. In many respects, this pitted state interests against partisan interests. As Conlan and Posner note, “the Obama administration oversaw the most dramatic increase in federal aid to state and local governments since the
1970s.”730 The Great Recession had decimated state and local budgets and the stimulus package funneled approximately $285 billion through the states.731 The Recovery Act included significant expansions to the federal matching rate for Medicaid, a program which was under increasing strain, and a great deal of flexibility for state expenditures through the State Fiscal Stabilization
Fund.
729 Barnes, Robert. 13 November 2008. “Republican Governors Meet, Glumly; After Election Losses, Many See Bleak Future for Party.” The Washington Post. A1. 730 Conlan, Timothy J. and Paul L. Posner. 2011. “Inflection Point? Federalism and the Obama Administration. Publius the Journal of Federalism. 41.3: 424. 731 Conlan and Posner. 2016. “American Federalism in an Era of Partisan Polarization.” Publius: 46.3:284. See also Conlan, Timothy. 2009. Grants and the Recovery Act: Classic Challenges, New Dilemmas, and Best Practices. CGI Initiative for Collaborative Governance. 335
During the debate over the package, the RGA criticized a proposal by Democratic governors which called for $1 trillion in new federal spending which could offset dramatic decreases in state tax revenue due to the financial crisis and resulting recession. Nick Ayers, then
RGA Executive Director, noted that “Now is the time to focus on finding cost-effective ways to provide essential services without burdening future generations with even greater debt.”732 Many
Republican governors were open to federal government spending to address state-level budget concerns. However, partisanship manifested quite clearly in the aftermath of the bill’s passage.
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who chaired the RGA in 2009, noted that his staff was combing the law in order to see if he would reject any of money coming to his state.733 Sanford ultimately did reject some federal stimulus funding, as did several other Republican governors.734
Ultimately, this is one of the clearest instances in which partisan interests seemed to trump state interests. Further, GOP governors were able to advance their own national ambitions by challenging the Obama agenda, in spite of the fact that the stimulus bill incentivized state participation.
Another issue which saw partisanship manifest quite clearly was healthcare. The
Affordable Care Act included state governments in terms of the law’s implementation. States were affected in two main ways: through the potential for the expansion of Medicaid and in the establishment of health insurance exchanges. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision in
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, a number of Republican governors
732 Shulman, Robin. 3 January 2009. “Governors Call for $1 Trillion Stimulus to Offset Budget Cuts.” The Washington Post. A2. 733 Kelley, Matt. 19 February 2009. “Some Governors Might Reject Funds; Republicans Worry What Happens to State Programs When Stimulus Money Ends.” USA Today. A4. 734 This was not done by every GOP governor. Florida’s Charlie Crist accepted stimulus money, causing his star to fade within the party and was one of a series of steps that eventually saw him leave the party. 336 rejected expanding Medicaid in their states.735 Several of them also refused to establish health insurance marketplaces, forcing HHS to do so in their place. In sum, the decision to incorporate states into the implementation of healthcare legislation opened a door for partisan contestation on the issue, allowing Republican governors to challenge critical elements of Obama’s signature legislative achievement. Partisan federalism manifested here through both the use of state power to challenge the federal government, along partisan lines, in the federal courts, and through the use of administrative power by the governors to block or stall the implementation of the law. The
RGA provided a venue for the Republican governors to vocally challenge the Obama agenda even as some Republican governors were open to the potential financial benefits of the stimulus and healthcare reform plans.
Another pattern that Republican governors followed was the use of state-level governing capacity to further national partisan programmatic ambitions outside of direct challenges to
Obama administration policies. A key development here concerned changes to collective bargaining rights within the states, particularly as they related to state employee unions, including teachers’ unions. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was the center of attention in this regard. Walker pushed through the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill in 2011, increasing employee contributions to pension and healthcare benefits and limiting collective bargaining for state employees. Walker was not alone among GOP governors in his attempt to reduce collective bargaining authority by unions in the states. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels had been advocating such changes and pushed through “right to work” legislation in 2012 and a number of
735 See Jensen. 2017. “Governors and Partisan Polarization.” 324-5; Dinan, John. 2011. Shaping health reform: State government influence in the patient protection and affordable care act. Publius: The Journal of Federalism 41.3: 395–420; Rigby, Elizabeth. 2012. State resistance to ObamaCare. The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics 10.2.; Rigby, Elizabeth, and Jake Haselswerdt. 2013. Hybrid federalism, partisan politics, and early implementation of health insurance exchanges. Publius: The Journal of Federalism 43.3: 368–391. 337
Southern states led by Republican governors also attempted to push through legislation reducing collective bargaining power by unions and these efforts were promoted in the messaging of the
RGA. In sum, gubernatorial activism in the states, while often emphasizing budgetary concerns, was used in a way that fundamentally weakened a core Democratic constituency: labor unions.
This case demonstrates that GOP governors could not only use the powers of the office to achieve a partisan objective – an assault on collective bargaining – but also to elevate an issue to the national stage. This was an issue that had not been a priority of the Bush administration.
Rather, governors, including Walker, were able to demonstrate programmatic leadership within the party.
The DGA: The Bush Years
The rhetoric emerging from the DGA during the Bush years often was the exact opposite of that coming from the RGA during that time period. At an NGA meeting in Rhode Island in
2001, Democratic governors used a press conference to question the extent to which Bush was an
“ally” to the states. Maryland Governor Parris Glenderling, for instance, noted costs associated with a White House proposal for education testing and for the negative effects of proposed rollbacks of environmental regulations.736 Glenderling, later that year, used the party’s response to Bush’s weekly radio address to criticize a Republican stimulus proposal which he called
“fiscally reckless” and “potentially devastating to state budgets.”737 State capacity, here, became part of the critique of the Bush agenda.
The following year, Democratic governors continued to use DGA press conferences and resolutions as a means of critiquing Bush’s domestic policy agenda. New Mexico Governor Bill
736 Eckert, Toby. 5 August 2001. “Democratic Governors Attack Bush’s Policies; Republicans Quick to Defend His Education, Environmental Policies 737 8 December 2001. “Democratic Response to President Bush’s Weekly Radio Address By: Governor Parris Glenderling (D-MD).” Federal News Service. 338
Richardson noted that Bush and congressional Republicans were enacting numerous unfunded mandates regarding education and security policies. Several of the party’s governors also encouraged their congressional counterparts to take a harder stand against Bush’s plans to cut federal income and corporate taxes.738 He noted in a radio address that “every dollar governors are forced to cut out of our budgets is a dollar that’s not going into the economy. Every job that must be cut is another statistic in already-escalating unemployment figures.”739 Richardson was chosen to lead a special DGA federal liaison committee to coordinate with Senate Minority
Leader Tom Daschle and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Washington Governor Gary
Locke emphasized these arguments in delivering the party’s response to Bush’s State of the
Union Address that year.
Leading into the 2004 election, Democratic governors participated in the party’s critique of the incumbent administration, but largely continued to emphasize domestic issues in their public statements. DGA Chairman Vilsack, and Governors Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, Ed
Rendell of Pennsylvania and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, used a DGA policy conference in
Michigan less than two months before the general election to attack Bush’s healthcare and economic policies, doubling down on concerns over how these policies were affecting their abilities to govern in the states.740
The DGA also continued to provide a venue for presidential candidates to participate in the “invisible” primary in 2004 and 2008 and for governors to attempt to elevate their standing within the national party. In 2004, Howard Dean of Vermont, for instance, got off to a slow start
738 Pear, Robert. 8 December 2002. “Democratic Governors Seek US Aid: Meeting in Washington to Highlight Differences with President.” The New York Times. 39; Nagourney, Adam. 10 December 2002. “Democratic Governors Push for Bigger Role in Party Policy.” The New York Times. A28. 739 11 January 2003. “Bill Richardson Delivers Democratic Response to the President’s Weekly Radio Address.” FDCH Political Transcripts. 740 Hoffman, Kathy Barks. 17 September 2004. “Democratic Governors Criticize Bush Policies on Healthcare, Economy.” The Associated Press State and Local Wire. 339 in terms of gubernatorial endorsements despite having served as DGA and NGA chairman.741
Dean did go on to become the chairman of the DNC. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who eventually won the nomination that year, did not shy away from reaching out to the party’s governors for support.
A similar pattern emerged during the 2008 contest. Hillary Clinton reached out to the party’s governors through liaisons at DGA meetings. Leading into the 2008 convention, Sebelius was named a co-chairwoman of the event after having chaired the DGA. Richardson and Vilsack received early media attention during DGA conferences as potential presidential contenders. The
DGA, once again, did not make an official endorsement. West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, then serving as DGA Chair, waited until after the conclusion of the primaries before making an endorsement. He noted that he would coral support for the “clear winner” of the primaries.742
Manchin was subsequently given a speaking slot at the DNC in Denver. Ultimately, the DGA provided a venue for the party’s governors and presidential contenders to engage with each other and as a venue for media attention on the Democratic presidential nomination contest.
The DGA: The Obama Years
Obama’s relationship with his party’s governors was not as strong as that between
Clinton and the Democratic governors of the 1990s. Obama was hesitant to fundraise for the
DGA, particularly due to the organization’s reliance on corporate donations. During Obama’s first two years in office, his party had sizable majorities in Congress and an ambitious national agenda. Moreover, Obama lacked experience as a state executive and, unlike Clinton, did not come up through the DGA. In 2008, he also lacked many of the connections that Clinton had
741 Balz, Dan and David S. Broder. 20 August 2003. “Governors Delay on Dean; Democratic Hold Off on Endorsing Former Peer for President.” The Washington Post. A6. 742 Stump, Jake. 22 May 2008. “Manchin Hopes to Get Governors United on Pick; Governor Says He’ll Wait Until After June 3 to Declare Democratic Choice for President.” Charleston Daily Mail. A1. 340 developed over decades with his party’s governors. His approach to party-building emphasized the continuation of his presidential campaign which did not always sit easily alongside the traditional Democratic party apparatus.743
Obama did include a number of former governors as members of his Cabinet, including
Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture, Locke as Secretary of Commerce, Sebelius as Secretary of
Health and Human Services and Napolitano of as Secretary of Homeland Security. The DNC also continued to include the party’s governors as featured members of the national convention.
Martin O’Malley of Maryland, then a two-term DGA Chairman, gave a primetime address at the
2012 DNC that offered a scathing critique of Republican nominee Romney, and, as past DGA chair speeches, noted Democratic gubernatorial leadership at the state-level.
Obama’s partnership with his party’s governors manifested most clearly in executing critical elements of his national agenda, particularly as it related to dealing with the Great
Recession and the implementation of healthcare reform. Regarding the former, Democratic governors used the DGA as a vessel for promoting a broader stimulus package than the one ultimately passed into law – one that would be generous in terms of dispersing federal funds to the states that were dealing with severe budget shortfalls. After the law was enacted, most of its support among the nation’s governors came from Democrats. Rendell was among the party’s governors at an NGA meeting to defend the spending package, arguing that without the bill the effects of the recession would have been even worse, particularly the bill related to programs administered by the states.744
743 See, for instance, Milkis, Sidney M. and John Warren York. 2017. “Barack Obama, Organizing for Action, and Executive-Centered Partisanship.” Studies in American Political Development 31.1: 1-23. 744 Pear, Robert. 22 February 2010. “With the Senate Set to Vote on Jobs Bill, Governors Say They Still Need Assistance.” The New York Times. A12. 341
Regarding the latter, while Democratic governors had concerns over how healthcare reform would be implemented, they did not use the DGA to publicly criticize the president.
Where there was disagreement, the DGA, as a collective body, remained silent. In a letter addressed to Congressional leaders in October 2009, twenty-two Democratic governors noted that “We recognize that health reform is a shared responsibility and everyone, including state governments, needs to partner to reform our broken health care system.”745 Further, whereas
Republican governors used their authority to block the implementation of the healthcare law,
Democratic governors pushed Obama’s agenda forward.
As immigration resurfaced on the national agenda, the DGA helped to bring the party’s governors onto the same page as the Obama administration. In the summer of 2010, the Obama administration filed a lawsuit against the state of Arizona, which had implemented a stringent immigration law. Several Democratic governors met with Patrick Gaspard, Obama’s political director, and Christine Gregoire, the White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs. Some governors expressed concern over the potential electoral implications of challenging Arizona.
Others, including Richardson, noted that such a move would help the party gain additional ground among Hispanic voters who were making up an increasing share of the electorate, particularly in the Southwest. Again, the trend was toward greater coordination on a nationally coherent party message.
Campaign Finance Reform, the Development of the Service Party, and Shifting Priorities
Perhaps the most important sources of change for the RGA and the DGA during this period came in transformations in campaign finance law. Helping elect governors has been a priority of the RGA since the 1960s and the DGA since the 1980s. The RGA also, during the
745 Murray, Shailagh. 5 October 2009. “States Resist Medicaid Growth; Governors Fear for Their Budgets/” The Washington Post. A1. 342
1970s, had been involved in conversations within party circles about how the organization could help the party navigate the campaign finance system established by FECA. Changes in campaign finance law seem to, in the post-2000 period, however, shifted the emphasis the organizations placed on electoral and policy goals toward electioneering. The tradeoff between electoral and policy goals is inherently difficult to measure. Based on reflections from the staff of these organizations and patterns in fundraising, campaign expenditures and structural changes to the organizations themselves, it seems reasonable to argue that the RGA and the DGA have developed as much more professionalized service-providers but have deemphasized asserting gubernatorial prerogative in conversations around party program. Partisanship, again, has trumped state prerogative.
Since 2003, after the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), the
Associations have been classified as “527” organizations which make them subject to national disclosure laws but they retain the capacity for unlimited fundraising and expenditures in gubernatorial elections. Overall fundraising and expenditures by these organizations have exploded since 2003 (See Table 8.1).
Table 8.1: DGA and RGA Fundraising and Expenditures, 2004-2016746 Year DGA RGA Raised Spent Raised Spent 2004 $24,172,761 $24,125,938 $33, 848,421 $49,811,844 2006 $28,640,415 $38,274,658 $42,428,671 $43,068,696 2008 $35,831,960 $26,376,784 $49,505,397 $68,803,996 2010 $55,362,468 $71,367,845 $117,180,064 $289,220,473 2012 $50,136,675 $52,368,060 $100,925,604 $113,356,414 2014 $85,137,462 $98,402,176 $144,761,516 $236,451,191 2016 $58,991,624 $59,852,396 $98,421,464 $118,331,649
746 Data taken from the Center for Responsive Politics. Last viewed 4 March 2019.
Both organizations moved to build on the professionalization efforts begun by their predecessors. Nathan Daschle, for instance, upon taking on the role of DGA Executive Director in 2007, put the DGA on a four-year fundraising cycle. At around this time, the DGA created the position of “finance chair” for one of the governors. Previously, fundraising efforts, were mainly conducted on a year by year basis. As seen in Table 8.1, these increased fundraising efforts allowed both organizations to spend significant amounts of money, especially during midterm elections when the bulk of the nation’s governorships are up for grabs.
One important pattern that emerges from this data is that Republicans have been consistently ahead of Democrats in fundraising and campaign expenditures. Several factors seem to explain this trend. For one, corporate donors have been important to the success of the RGA and the DGA. The RGA’s initial fundraising efforts centered on outreach to corporate donors.
While this trend may be shifting, the Republican party’s pro-business agenda may help to explain its overall advantage. Second, Bush seems to have invested more than Obama in promoting the efforts of his party’s Association. Obama did not invest much time or effort in fundraising for the DGA, in part because he was much more hesitant than Bush to raise money from corporate donors.
Third, the RGA may have benefitted from more governors seeking the presidency during the time period reflected in this data. Romney, Perry, Huckabee, Walker, Jeb Bush and John
Kasich are only a few of the Republican governors who sought the presidency in 2012 and 2016.
Romney and Perry both chaired the RGA while serving as governor and had significant fundraising operations and national ambitions on which to build. In 2008 and 2016, the major contenders for the Democratic nomination were not governors, though New York Governor
Andrew Cuomo, who as of this writing has not announced any plans to seek the presidency in
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2020, did help the DGA raise significant sums leading to 2012 and 2016.747 Finally, it may be the case that part of this difference is the result of the Republicans simply having started their efforts on this front much earlier, and thus having a larger base on which to build.
Nevertheless, the RGA’s fundraising successes reflect and contributed to the GOP’s increasing strength at the state-level during this time period. Between 2004 and 2016, the GOP never held fewer than 21 governorships and maintained a majority of statehouses excepts between 2007 and 2009 after the GOP suffered significant losses as President Bush’s approval ratings plummeted, the Iraq War remained unpopular and the economy fell into the Great
Recession. Indeed, the governors have been one of the strengths of the GOP in the post-2000 period. The RGA’s success in fundraising is indicative and, to an extent, a cause of the party’s successes on this front.
Implications for the Age of Trump
I began this dissertation with brief discussions of recent meetings of the RGA and the
DGA. To recap, Republican governors grappled with how to deal with the implications of
President Trump’s agenda and popularity on their own electoral and policy concerns. Democrats, for their part, were highlighting their own policy accomplishments and drawing sharp distinctions between themselves and President Trump along with congressional Republican leaders. The unexpected election of Trump and the rising polarization of the American party system raises important questions for the conduct of partisan politics today, including the place of the DGA, the RGA, and the governors in the American party system more broadly. I raise and discuss three here.
1. Cooperation or Tensions Between the National and State Parties?
747 Kaplan, Thomas. 25 January 2012. “Cuomo is Lure for Donors to Democratic Governors.” The New York Times. A27. 345
One question that emerges concerns the relationship between the national and state parties, and in particular the power of governors within the party system in terms of intraparty disputes. Since the 1960s, it seems that state parties, including the power of governors, have been hollowed out in terms of their influence of the national parties’ presidential nomination outcomes. Trump’s ability to win the Republican nomination, opposed by many Republican governors and state party officials especially early on (not to mention the vast majority of the
GOP “establishment”), demonstrates this phenomenon and bears similarities but also some striking differences with the 1964 Republican nomination contest.
One of the core arguments concerning the development of the American party system, especially over the course of the 20th century has been that the parties have become increasingly nationalized and “executive-centered.”748 This development has deep historical roots in
Progressive Era assaults on local and state party organizations, the rise of the national administrative state during the New Deal, and the party reform era launched in response to the
1968 Democratic presidential nomination. Trump’s election seems to only confirm and extend this line of development. Trump ran as a political outsider, one who was anything but shy about attacking the leadership of the Republican party. He also ran on certain policy positions that challenged Republican orthodoxy, including a sharp critique of free trade and a less interventionist foreign policy but has embraced the use of expansive presidential authority.749 His leadership style is in line with the “unitary” executive that has been embraced by Republican presidents since Nixon.
748 See Milkis, Sidney M. 1993. The President and the Parties: The Transformation of the American Party System Since the New Deal. New York: Oxford University Press. 749 See for instance, Milkis, Sidney M. and Nicholas Jacobs. 2017. “‘I Alone Can Fix It’ Donald Trump, the Administrative Presidency, and Hazards of Executive-Centered Partisanship.” The Forum 15.3: 583-613. 346
In the 2016 Republican nomination contest, Republican governors, and former governors, made up a critical element of the failed #NeverTrump movement. Bush and Kasich were but two former governors who ran against Trump in the primaries and refused to publicly support
Trump’s general election campaign. Trump did not receive strong backing from the party’s governors as a whole, though he did receive endorsements from New Jersey Governor Chris
Christie, Florida Governor Rick Scott, and Walker. Then RGA Chairwoman Susanna Martinez of New Mexico, considered a rising star within the party and someone who could help the party reach out to Hispanic voters, endorsed Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Trump criticized Martinez while campaigning in her state, lacing into her policies concerning food stamps and Syrian refugees.750 RGA meetings held during the primary season served as venues for the
#NeverTrumpers to develop strategies over how to block Trump.
Several GOP governors, including Kasich and Nevada’s Brian Sandoval, refused to attend the GOP Convention in Cleveland. This decision seems to represent something of a development in how national partisan politics is conducted today. As shown in previously, gubernatorial participation at conventions was on the rise over the course of the 20th century and both the RGA and the DGA sought to make their members’ roles at the conventions prominent.
Today, the fact that a governor will not be attending the convention is often taken as a political statement. In the case of Kasich and Sandoval, their decisions were explicitly related to their unease over Trump’s candidacy.
As Trump’s nomination became increasingly likely, numerous Republican officials sought ways of blocking him at the convention. However, two points deserve attention here.
First, despite Goldwater being to the right of many Republican leaders at the time, his campaign
750 Hohmann, James. 27 May 2016. “Seven Reasons for the GOP to Fret About Trump’s Latest Jab at a Top Republican.” The Washington Post. A16. 347 relied heavily on an “insider” strategy in securing the nomination. Goldwater developed a robust organization that wooed many state-level officials, even if he did not receive significant backing from the party’s governors specifically. Trump did no such thing. Trump ran the campaign of a true outsider, and as his attacks on Martinez indicate, he was not shy about lambasting leaders within his own party.
Second, the power of state party officials at the convention seems to have diminished.
Several Republican leaders sought to free individual delegates to “vote their conscience” at the convention.751 This mirrored the attempts of the likes of Chafee and Love in 1964 when they attempted to free delegates who were potentially open to not voting for Goldwater. However, these attempts were fruitless. In fact, the odds of such maneuvering succeeding seem even less likely today than it did in 1964. The “smoke-filled” rooms that once determined presidential nominations reflect a bygone era. Voters no longer seem willing to allow party elites to determine the results of such contests, preferring the more open and transparent primary election system that we have today. This likely means that gubernatorial influence over the process will, going forward, be public and conditional on their ability to influence voters rather than party officials directly. Further, the power of collective action through the RGA, and possibly the
DGA, on nomination contests is likely to be diminished, if it was never that great to begin with.
Despite winning only 45 percent of the votes cast in Republican primaries and caucus,
Trump won 41 state contests and took the nomination on the first ballot. Moreover, unlike
Goldwater, Trump won the general election contest. His rise to power may yet prove to be an anomaly but his victory raises questions over the ability of state parties, the governors, other
751 See Haugland, Curly and Sean Parnell. 2016. Unbound: The Conscience of a Republican Delegate. CreateSpace. 348 elected officials and state party organizations, to successfully reach out to minority, especially
Hispanic, voters as the electorate becomes increasingly diverse.
2. Partisanship Over Gubernatorial Prerogative?
A second question concerns the balance between partisan and state interest by the governors and how this relationship manifests within and through the RGA and the DGA. One of the findings of this study is that at times governors have been able to bring state-level interests – their own electoral and policy goals – to the national parties. Governors have been able to influence what the national parties were saying and doing, at least some of the time. However, given just how unique Trump’s candidacy and presidency is, the ability for governors to have influence over the national party brand also can be called into question. To cite just one example,
Republican governors were generally in favor of passing NAFTA in the 1990s. Trump’s victory seems to, at least for the time being, have altered what Republican party policy is on the issue of international trade. Presidential programmatism, in this instance, triumphed over the voices of many others in the party, including many of the party’s governors. While trade is often seen as an issue under the domain of the federal government, a number of states, such as New Mexico under Governor Martinez, had important stakes in US trade with Mexico, as business activity at the border contributed to the state’s tax base and economy more generally. Thus, changes in the national party program have important implications for state governance, and hence for the party’s governors.
The governors’ influence in terms of state prerogative is mitigated by the rise of polarized partisanship in the new millennium. One of the findings concerning the rise of gubernatorial partisanship has been its effect on the NGA. In 2002, Rick Perry, who later chaired the RGA, dropped out of the nonpartisan organization. In 2003, several Republican governors raised the
349 potentiality of withholding dues.752 Jensen has also found that media attention has also shifted in recent years away from the NGA and toward the partisan organizations. Further, despite many
Republican governors voicing concerns over Trump during RGA meetings, it does not seem that the RGA will provide a meaningful counter-voice to the president anytime soon. Governors can, and have, continued to bring their unique governing prerogatives to national political elites through the partisan organizations. However, the NGA has always been much more driven by policy considerations, but its significance in national politics seems to be waning.
Trump’s approach to federalism has been just as partisan as any previous president, if not more-so. Trump has, for instance, used waivers to undermine President Obama’s signature initiatives, including in terms of healthcare and environmental regulations. He has also used the executive branch’s power to allow for states to experiment with work requirements for social welfare program benefits. In this way he has extended policy developments promoted by governors, especially Republicans, since the 1960s. Moreover, Trump’s tax plan, which limits state and local tax deductions (SALT), disproportionately benefits low-tax states which are much more likely to be controlled by Republicans. Lastly, Trump’s assault on sanctuary cities, if successful, risks reducing funds going to areas controlled by Democrats, whose base of support is in urban areas.
This strategy seems to also have intensified partisanship among Democratic governors who have begun challenges to Trump’s actions on climate change, for instance by pledging that their states will uphold the terms of the Paris Climate Accord despite Trump withdrawing the
United States from the agreement and have refused to work with the administration’s attempts to undermine sanctuary city policies.
752 Russakoff, Dale, and Mike Allen. 24 February 2003. “Governors’ Meeting Verges on Partisan Warfare; Usually Harmonious Group Argues Over Bush’s Responsibility for States’ Fiscal Crisis.” The Washington Post. A5. 350
In sum, Trump’s deployment of partisan federalism probably goes further than any previous president in promoting governors to act like national partisans even within in their states. The extent to which partisanship will manifest in terms of the relationship governors have with the national administration based on the president’s approach to interstate relations appears heightened.
Moreover, partisanship as manifested in gubernatorial races seems to intensify this trend toward partisanship over state prerogative. As the literature cited above indicates, governors seem to be acting more partisan, both in terms of their actions in state politics and intergovernmental relations, including through the Associations. This is in part due the fact that more conservative Republican and more liberal Democratic governors are being elected. As the memberships of the Associations become more ideological, it seems natural that the Associations will act more partisan.
3. Governors, Partisan Governors’ Associations and the Constitutional Order
Finally, a question arises concerning the broader health of American democracy given the developments under study here. This discussion goes beyond the concerns over heightened polarization between the national parties that has been the main subject of this chapter. Here, I wish to briefly return to three features that motivated the creation of the RGA and the DGA and the implications for understanding gubernatorial behavior in a nationalized polity.
First, the independence of the office of the American governorship seems to have been diminished in part by the emergence of much more nationally programmatic parties and the expansion of the national state. Even though governors often have fought for flexibility in terms of policy implementation in their dealing with the federal government, these conversations have often taken place with the assumption that the federal government has some stake in establishing
351 the contours of public policy on a range of issues, including those typically seen as the traditional domain of the states. Governors have sometimes adopted the rhetoric of dual federalism in their discussions of intergovernmental relations, but the federal government has often been the first mover on many policy proposals. Moreover, involvement by the federal government tends to be
“sticky.” Even the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced NCLB, did not return federal government involvement to the level before Bush signed his education bill into law. Thus, while federal involvement in these policy areas, mixed with a degree of state- level discretion, has created opportunities for governors to act as policy entrepreneurs, power still seems to have shifted to national-level political elites who maintain control over the basic contours of policy action as well as the amount of funding that is made available to the states.
The ability of states to act as “laboratories of democracy” may be limited by partisanship. The decentralization of governing authority valued by the Anti-Federalists may be waning because of the Associations.
Second, governors created the RGA and the DGA in part because they were concerned about their ability to influence important national political outcomes. While governors may be losing influence within the national parties relative to the president, there remains a concern over the extent to which American politics has become centered on executives, whether at the national or state-level. Executives value autonomy, independence and the ability to get things done. As flexibility at the state-level diminishes, the possibility for tensions to reemerge between governors and the national government appear heightened. This may result in governors being able to check national power by using the legal and administrative capacities of the states, but that potentiality seems increasingly predicated on the national partisan attachment of the governors.
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Finally, governors created the RGA and the DGA with a sensitivity toward the attachments of voters to political elites of the national parties. Rather than resisting nationalization, governors have often worked to integrate the national parties. They have, at times, embraced national standards on issues such as education. They have also promoted the national party brand on a consistent basis. The extent to which these actions reinforce national political cleavages has not been resolved by this study. However, the rising tide of nationalized political behavior may only undercut the independence of state-executive office, potentially leading to further polarization. Heightened polarization may have resulted in a more
“responsible” form of party government (in some way), but governors seem to have been complicit in the overall trend toward greater polarization that has defined American politics over the last few decades. This seems to be an unintended consequence of their actions, but a consequence nevertheless.
In the final analysis, the potential for meaningful checks on executive power that have been a constitutive element of Madison’s constitutional design seem to be under assault. The creation of the RGA and the DGA may offer governors an important means of influencing the affairs of the national parties, perhaps moderating them. However, the extent to which they can do so in an environment that is increasingly polarized along partisan lines seems subject to question and the effect on American democracy undetermined.
A Road Forward: Nationalization and Organization Building
With these normative concerns and the approach taken in this manuscript in mind, two avenues for future research seem particularly promising. Both center on what V. O. Key has
353 called the “party-in-organization,” the element of Key’s tripartite approach to understanding political parties that has probably received the least amount of attention within the field.753
First, governors are not the only state and local elected officials who now have national partisan organizations dedicated to represent their interests in Washington and assist them in elections. Mayors and the states’ attorneys’ general have developed their own organizations within the national party infrastructures. Future research could approach these organizations asking similar questions as those addressed here: Why do these types of organizations form?
What impact does the formation of these organizations have on the parties? And, what do these organizations mean for the functioning of the American party system and for American governance more broadly? For instance, recent fights over Obamacare, Medicaid, and immigration, as discussed above, have included bold action by state and local officials on both sides of the aisle. State attorneys general, in particular, were incredibly important in launching legal fights in the federal courts against Obamacare. The extent to and ways in which organizational developments within the parties have contributed to these disputes warrants further investigation. Thus, one avenue for future research would build on the historical- institutionalist approach taken here – attempting to analyze the development of new national party organizations and the impacts these developments have on the party system and the
American polity more broadly.
A second avenue concerns putting this line of inquiry in a comparative perspective. The methods of historical institutionalism have deep roots in the field of political science and were
753 See for instance Key Jr. V. O. 1952. Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. As Heersink notes “the third domain of American political parties—the party-in-organization—has received considerably less attention from political scientists.” Heersink, Boris. 2018. “Party Brands and the Democratic National Committees, 1952-1976. Studies in American Political Development 32.1: 79. 354 crucial in the emergence of APD as a distinctive subfield in American politics.754 Scholars of comparative politics have traveled along parallel lines in terms of their concentration on the emergence of “national” party systems.755 Yet, to my knowledge, the role party organizations have played in the development of national electorates and the impact they have on governance across nations with divergent constitutional, institutional, legal, and cultural contexts, is understudied. In particular, nation-states with federal constitutional structures seem to be appropriate sites to investigate patterns of organizational development and the potential for the rise of nationalized electorates and polarization that are at the heart of this study. If party organizations matter, and I argue that they do, then investigating potential generalizable trends in processes of party nationalization across nation-states may prove fruitful.
Last Word
The creation of the DGA and the RGA were important moments in American political development. Through these organizations, the governors have become important players in the development of a more programmatic form of national partisanship. This has been the case within both parties. While the Democratic governors were slower to develop their own organization and many Southern Democrats through the 1970s adopted the rhetoric of dual federalism within a broader and ideological diverse Democratic party, the governors, in developing the Associations, have traveled on parallel paths. The rise and development of these organizations have contributed to a more integrated party system.
754 See for instance Pierson, Paul. 2000. “Not Just What, but When: Timing and Sequence in Political Processes.” Studies in American Political Development 14.1: 72-92; Thelen, Kathleen. 1999. “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Perspective.” Annual Review of Politics 2: 369-404; Skocpol, Theda. 1995. “Why I Am a Historical Institutionalist. Polity 28.1: 103-6. 755 See for instance Chhibber, Pradeep, and Ken Kollman. 2004. The Formation of National Party Systems: Federalism and Party Competition in Canada, Great Britain, India, and the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press; Morgenstern, Scott, Stephen M. Swindle and Andrea Castagnola. 2009. “Party Nationalization and Institutions.” Journal of Politics 71.4: 1322-1341; Caramani, Daniele. 2004. The Nationalization of Politics: The Formation of National Electorates and Party Systems in Western Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 355
Governors have been, and remain, important players in state politics, national politics, and partisan politics. However, the partisan governors’ associations have implications for the ways in which governors matter within all three of these areas of American politics. The rise of national partisanship coupled with organizational developments within the parties provides a vessel for national programmatic partisanship to spread to the states. Simultaneously, governors have a new means of bringing concerns of the states to national party elites. Finally, the party organizations provide a new means of coordinating and expanding electoral resources, which can go to assisting gubernatorial candidates across the country.
In the final analysis, in responding to prior developments in intergovernmental relations, state politics, and partisan politics, governors helped to build the modern American party system, particularly through the creation of the DGA and the RGA. The effects of these organizations may not have been totally consistent with the moderating tendencies of executive office or the factional whims of the particular governors who were paramount in forming them. Unintended consequences are fundamental features of APD. Nevertheless, the impact of these organizations on the American party system has been real and profound.
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