Democratic governors form a public health coalition in defiance of the Trump administration
A group of Democratic state governors has launched a new coalition aimed at coordinating their public health efforts.
They’re building it as a way to share data, messages about threats, emergency preparedness and public health policy — and as a rebuke to President Donald Trump’s administration, which they say isn’t working on public health.
“At a time when the federal government is telling states, ‘You’re on your own,’ governors are banding together,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement.
The formation of the group touches on a new chapter in a partisan battle against the public health system after advisers to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. refused to recommend a COVID-19 vaccination, instead leaving the choice up to the individual.
Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the US Department of Health and Human Services, said in an email that Democratic governors who imposed school closures and mask mandates for young children at the height of the pandemic had “undermined the public’s trust in public health.”
“The Trump administration and Secretary Kennedy are rebuilding that trust by basing every policy on hard evidence and gold standard science — not the failed politics of pandemics,” Nixon said.
The primary members are all Democrats
The Governors Public Health Alliance bills itself as a “nonpartisan coordinating center,” but the primary members are all Democrats — the governors of 14 states and Guam.
Among them are the governors of the most populous blue states, California and New York, and several governors considered potential 2028 presidential candidates, including California’s Gavin Newsom, Illinois’ JB Pritzker, and Maryland’s Moore.
The idea of banding together for public health is not new to Democratic governors. They formed regional groups to tackle the pandemic during Trump’s first term and launched new ones in recent months amid uncertainty over federal vaccine policy. States have also taken steps to preserve access to COVID-19 vaccines.
The new coalition is not intended to replace those efforts, or coordination already done by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, its organizers say.
A former CDC director is among the advisers
Dr. Mandy Cohen, who was CDC director under former President Joe Biden and before that headed the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, is part of a bipartisan group of advisers to the coalition.
“CDC has provided an important backstop of expertise and support,” he said. “And I think now that some of that is gone, it’s important for states to make sure that they’re sharing best practices and that they’re coordinating, because the problems haven’t gone away. The health threats haven’t gone away.”
Along with other reorganizations and downsizing, other efforts have also sprung up to try to fill the role CDC played before the director’s ouster.
The Governor’s Public Health Alliance has support from GovAct, a nonprofit, nonpartisan donor-funded initiative with projects aimed at protecting democracy and another partisan hot-button issue, reproductive freedom.
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This story has been corrected to show that 14 state governors are part of the group, not 15.
