The day after your victory, the National Governors Association will reach out to you. They’ll offer a seminar, a binder filled with info, and even connect you with some former governors who will tell you why it’s best to take it slow. Sure, you can attend that meeting if you feel obligated, but, honestly, don’t buy into their approach.
The midterm elections might mean that Republicans lose the House, and potentially even the Senate. However, they won’t lose ground at the state level. With 36 governorships up for grabs—including positions in Ohio, Alabama, Iowa, Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and other states—it’s likely that we’ll see one of the most conservative groups of new governors in decades.
The federal government may be stuck in gridlock by 2027, but state governments could be a beacon for pushing forward an ambitious national agenda.
To implement such initiatives, the incoming governors need to disregard the advice in the NGA’s transition manual, which essentially promotes inertia. One former governor’s suggestion highlights this: “As a businessman, I dedicated 90% of my time to process and a mere 10% to policy. But as governor, I’ve reversed that.” Ironically, this came from a person who let someone else manage their schedule, and unsurprisingly, he didn’t make substantial changes while in office.
The NGA’s recommendations are crafted to stall your momentum. In the first six to nine months, they say, “Veteran governors suggest that a new governor should generally avoid major reorganizations or significant personnel changes unless absolutely necessary.”
Moreover, they caution against using that initial favorable period to remove long-standing bureaucrats who might have been running departments like personal fiefdoms for decades. This is because, they claim, it is wiser to err on the side of caution when tough decisions appear to be the easiest to make. Page 19 gives a specific guideline: veteran governors favor limiting actions to just three to five significant program changes throughout their term.
The NGA seems intent on keeping you locked in a state of stagnation, primarily to maintain a positive image with the legislature, state bureaucracy, media, and public. If you fail at that, you risk being labeled merely a “caretaker,” reliant on a bureaucracy that has survived worse governors.
This bureaucracy has stayed intact precisely because previous governors didn’t act quickly. As a new governor, you face a choice: protect outdated institutions or boldly fulfill the mandate given to you by the voters.
Take Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, for example. He dismissed the NGA’s slow-and-steady theory. During his first term, he suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren and pushed through a parental rights law that many thought would never see the light of day. When Disney attempted to counteract him through its private government, he moved to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
He didn’t slow down in his second term either. In January 2023, he quickly shifted the board of trustees at New College of Florida, resulting in the firing of the president at their first meeting and closing the diversity office within weeks. That summer, he suspended State Attorney Monique Worrell and filled the newly established Central Florida Tourism Oversight District with his appointees. All of this occurred before the tenth month in office—and none of it was restricted by a “three-to-five” change quota.
Ron DeSantis targeted the offices that interpret the law, making him one of the most impactful governors in recent history.
President Trump’s second transition parallels this choice at the federal level. His government overhaul began well before he was inaugurated, with a significant list of executive orders on Inauguration Day that overturned previous directives and paused upcoming regulations.
Trump positioned policy-making career officials in such a way that refusal to implement the elected president’s agenda became grounds for dismissal. This decisive action and speed left little room for bureaucratic interference. He grasped that since bureaucracy thrives on inaction, being swift and determined is the ultimate counterstrategy.
However, the challenges at the state level can be even more daunting than the NGA manual admits. Many agencies are overstaffed relative to their workload. A significant portion of their professional staff likely opposed your election and may resist any changes that threaten their funding, job security, or established programs.
The NGA’s recommendations for filling numerous boards and commissions—essentially to take a defensive stance, avoid controversies, minimize demands on the governor’s time, and wait until the whirlwind of transition has passed—essentially creates a four-year hold pattern. Their objective is simple: to outlast you.
It’s crucial to prepare your appointment list before election night. Familiarize yourself with which boards can be dissolved by legislation and which must be filled in the first 60 days. Get your counsel, budget director, and personnel leads in place before the inaugural celebrations have even concluded. Implement the reorganizations the NGA manual advises you to delay. Announce the agencies you plan to downsize— and do it while their management is still caught up in mundane memos.
The bureaucracy is not your ally, and it isn’t sitting idle waiting for you to convince it otherwise. It’s excessively staffed, and many of its long-term employees do not wish for you to succeed. If you treat it as Trump and DeSantis have, you’ll avoid the frustration that previous conservative governors felt—walking away with merely a binder of processes and a state that remains stagnant.
