A week after former President Donald Trump won a return to the White House, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has joined with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to announce a new effort “pushing back against increasing threats of autocracy,” as Pritzker described it.
But both Democratic governors shied away from pointing the initiative directly at the incoming Republican administration.
The new effort, dubbed Governors Safeguarding Democracy, stands apart from the longstanding National Governors Association — which Polis now chairs — and the party-aligned Republican and Democratic governors associations. It aims to corral governors’ offices, think tanks, legal experts, and democracy and open government advocates “to shape policy and plans that truly protect the rule of law,” Polis said ahead of a formal Wednesday announcement.
The governors positioned it as a potential bipartisan group against overreach, though Pritzker declined to name any Republicans currently in office he’s talking to.
Its governing board includes two former Republican governors, Arne Carlson of Minnesota and Bill Weld of Massachusetts, according to a list of names shared on a call with reporters on Tuesday. Neither man held the office in the 21st century.
“This is about whatever threats come our way at the federal level. It’s not about a particular threat,” Polis said during the media call. He listed election systems, the independent judiciary and constitutional principles as key areas of concern.
“It’s about being proactive around educating people,” he said, “and making sure governors have the tool kit to support our small-d democratic institutions as well as, of course, reacting effectively and coordinating (the) response to any threats to our democracy that come from any president or from foreign powers.”
The unmistakable context surrounding the announcement was worry among the governors’ fellow Democrats about the prospect of Trump’s second term in office after he won last week’s election.
Pritzker said the example of Trump aide Stephen Miller proposing to send National Guard troops from red states to blue ones to enforce federal immigration policy is an example of one question the new group aims to answer. Pritzker called such a potential use of the National Guard “unacceptable,” while Polis said that making sure the military is not used for domestic police actions is part of the mission of safeguarding democracy, as well as protecting the constitutional order.
Polis and Pritzker referenced the incoming administration only in response to questions from the media, even as the two have pledged varying degrees of pushback toward perceived federal oversteps.
Pritzker on Friday told Chicago media: “To anyone that comes to take away freedom and dignity of Illinoisans, I would remind you that a happy warrior is still a warrior. You come for my people, you come through me.”
Polis, who declined multiple requests for interviews from The Denver Post last week, said in a previous written statement that Colorado “will do everything in our power to protect all Coloradans and our freedoms.”
Trump has made mass deportations a priority of his new administration, raising concerns among immigrant rights activists. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has raised a specific concern about Coloradans losing access to the abortion drug mifepristone.
Public lands are also set to be the center of a fight between conservationists and energy production advocates. Colorado, meanwhile, is one of the only states to shift further blue in the Nov. 5 election amid a nationwide right turn.
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