In the era of President Donald Trump, Democrats are the ones looking to return power to the states.

On climate, guns, trade, infrastructure, immigration and more, they’ve gone from talking about the importance of a strong federal government to looking for any and every way to do the opposite of what the federal government is doing — and in many cases, to take action where the administration won’t.


“We have a national administration that is not keeping with where the American people are, and when it becomes as evident as it is, then it’s incumbent on people with half a brain to figure out a way around that,” said Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy.

Malloy is a member of the Climate Alliance, formed in the wake of Trump’s announcement that he’d withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, and last week joined three other governors in forming States for Gun Safety. Both groups are explicitly aimed at taking action in opposition to policy being written in Congress and making agreements among states that circumvent Washington.

Just as Democratic attorneys general have borrowed the strategies Republicans used in the courtroom against the Obama administration, Democratic governors are now learning from GOP counterparts who once turned down stimulus money and declined to open Obamacare exchanges.

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Asked whether moves like Democrats are now making violate the traditional concept of federalism, Malloy shot back, “I think it goes against the concept of a federal government that will consistently deny reality.”

Trump is set to host many governors on Monday at the White House, on their last day in town as part of this weekend’s National Governors Association conference. But over the weekend, Democratic governors boasted of “pushback to damaging Trump policies” and providing “an alternate vision for governing.”

Trump has not shown much interest in hearing from Democratic governors. Many remember their reception at the White House last year, when the president took questions from only one Democratic governor and many Republican governors. Though he speaks with Republicans, he has rarely consulted with Democratic governors on anything, including in recent weeks when Republican governors were among those he called in for a session on infrastructure.

There are only 16 Democratic governors, though they’re hoping to boost that number in November. Jay Inslee, the Washington governor who’s a member of the Climate Alliance and chair of the Democratic Governors Association, said he sees turning states away from Trump policy as an essential part of the campaign-trail argument for gubernatorial candidates this year.

He’s already making that argument in his state, Inslee said.

“This is the tale of two Washingtons: Washington state and Washington, D.C.,” Inslee said. “In the real Washington, we just passed a $4 billion dollar infrastructure plan and the largest infrastructure transportation plan in the history of the state of Washington. In Washington, D.C., Donald Trump can't build a birdhouse.”

“In the real Washington, we just passed a bump stock ban and we're looking at some other issues,” he said. “In the fake Washington, they're totally shackled from progress by the NRA.”

Republicans aren’t as impressed with the Democratic governors’ actions.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, said he sees the Democrats’ turn away from emphasizing the importance of the federal government as “circumstantial ethics” at play.

As someone who’s always liked states to have the power, Herbert said, he’s glad to see the Trump administration leave the states to themselves.

“I appreciate the fact that we have an administration ... that many governors say, ‘This administration is easy to work with,’” Herbert said. “They understand the sovereignty of the states, and are trying to give us more flexibility and autonomy to implement programs.”

Democratic governors don’t see themselves as gaining autonomy from an easy administration. They say it’s more about rushing to the barricades to stop Trump and picking up the slack when he won’t act.

“It falls to governors to take action, and Dem governors are here, we stand ready not just to protect our people to get the president, but to get the job done,” said Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo.

“Democrats do have a sense of a stronger role for the federal government, but they also have a sense of what we need to do to make lives better if the federal government’s not going to do its job,” said Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf.

Democrats acknowledge that what they’re doing themselves these days would likely lead to even more Republicans turning away from the next Democratic president. But they say that the necessity they feel in resisting Trump means they can’t be worried about that.

“My effort at net neutrality was because Montanans and Americans expect it, and at times when there’s a lot of inaction in Washington, D.C., that we can still move things forward,” said Montana Gov. Steve Bullock. “So it’s not necessarily partisan: Governors get things done when there’s nothing getting done in the Senate.”

“I know how we have to behave, given this administration,” said New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who’s a month into a job he won by campaigning with plans to run a state government that is very liberal and very different from that of his predecessor, Chris Christie.

Maybe, Wolf said, this is all about Democrats rediscovering roots that go back long before modern politics and Franklin Roosevelt’s assertion of power during the New Deal.

“Go back to Jefferson,” Wolf said. “It’s exactly the way Democrats were.”

