A group of Democratic governors has launched a new alliance aimed at coordinating public health efforts.
They are framing it as a way to share messages about data, threats, emergency preparedness and public health policy, as well as a rebuke to President Donald Trump’s administration, which they say is not doing its job in public health.
“Governors are standing together as the federal government tells states to stand on their own feet,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement.
The group’s formation marks a new chapter in a partisan battle over public health measures that intensified after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s advisers declined to recommend coronavirus vaccinations, leaving the choice to individuals.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon said in an email that Democratic governors who closed schools and mandated mask-wearing, including for young children, at the height of the pandemic “destroyed the public’s trust in public health.”
“The Trump administration and Secretary Kennedy are rebuilding that trust by basing every policy on rigorous evidence and gold-standard science, rather than the politics of the pandemic,” Nixon said.
All early members were Democrats.
The Governors’ Public Health Alliance bills itself as a “bipartisan coordination hub,” but its initial members are all Democrats, including the governors of 14 states and Guam.
That includes the governors of the most populous blue states, California and New York, as well as several governors considered possible 2028 presidential candidates, including California’s Gavin Newsom, Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker and Maryland’s Moore.
The idea of coming together for public health is not new to the Democratic governor. They formed regional groups to deal with the pandemic during President Trump’s first term, and have launched new groups in recent months amid uncertainty over federal vaccine policy. States are also taking steps to maintain access to coronavirus vaccines.
The new alliance is not intended to replace those efforts or the coordination already being made by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, organizers said.
Former CDC director named as advisor
Dr. Mandy Cohen, who served as CDC director under former President Joe Biden and before that as secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, is part of the alliance’s bipartisan advisory group.
“CDC has provided a critical backstop for expertise and support,” she said. “Now that some of that is gone, I think it’s important to make sure that states are sharing best practices and working together because the problem hasn’t gone away. The health threat hasn’t gone away.”
Along with other restructuring and layoffs, other efforts have also begun to help the CDC fill the role it held before the director’s firing.
The Governor’s Public Health Alliance is supported by GovAct, a nonprofit, bipartisan donor-funded initiative that also implements projects aimed at protecting democracy and reproductive freedom, another partisan hot topic.
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This article has been corrected to show the governors of 14 states are part of the group, instead of 15.
