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Fifteen governors announced the Governors Public Health Alliance, a coalition designed to coordinate public health policy across states. The Alliance positions itself as a response to what its members call a lack of science-based leadership from Washington under the second Trump administration.
All founding members are Democrats. They say the group is nonpartisan because it follows scientific guidance. Critics call it a partisan operation that will fragment the nation’s public health system.
What the Alliance Does
The GPHA describes itself as a “nonpartisan coordinating hub for governors and their public health leaders.” The organization connects member states on health surveillance, emergency response, and policy coordination.
Core Functions
Health threat detection: The Alliance creates channels for states to share data on emerging health threats.
Emergency preparedness: Member states pool resources and best practices for crisis response.
Public health guidance: The group aims to align policies on issues like vaccine recommendations across state lines.
Global health liaison: The GPHA plans to engage directly with international health organizations, a role typically held by the federal government.
The Alliance connects with existing regional groups like the West Coast Health Alliance and the Northeast Public Health Collaborative, creating a national platform for their work.
Member States and Leadership
The coalition includes 14 states and Guam, representing roughly one-third of the U.S. population. All founding governors are Democrats.
| State/Territory | Founding Governor |
|---|---|
| California | Gavin Newsom |
| Colorado | Jared Polis |
| Connecticut | Ned Lamont |
| Delaware | Matt Meyer |
| Guam | Lou Leon Guerrero |
| Hawaii | Josh Green |
| Illinois | JB Pritzker |
| Maryland | Wes Moore |
| Massachusetts | Maura Healey |
| New Jersey | Phil Murphy |
| New York | Kathy Hochul |
| North Carolina | Josh Stein |
| Oregon | Tina Kotek |
| Rhode Island | Dan McKee |
| Washington | Bob Ferguson |
GovAct and Advisory Structure
The nonprofit GovAct (Governors Action Alliance), founded by Julia Spiegel, incubated the GPHA. GovAct describes itself as a “centralized platform for collaboration across governors’ offices” to help them “champion fundamental freedoms and improve people’s lives.”
The Alliance uses two advisory groups to claim bipartisan legitimacy:
GovAct’s Bipartisan Advisory Board includes former Republican governors Arne Carlson (Minnesota), Marc Racicot (Montana), and Bill Weld (Massachusetts), along with Democrats Jim Doyle (Wisconsin), Deval Patrick (Massachusetts), and Kathleen Sebelius (Kansas). Former federal officials Sally Yates and Larry Thompson also serve.
Public Health Expert Advisors include Dr. Mandy Cohen (former CDC Director), Dr. Anne Zink (former Alaska Chief Medical Officer), and Dr. Raj Panjabi (former White House Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense). Dr. Zink has said she joined only because the initiative is nonpartisan.
This structure separates the Democratic governors who run the Alliance from the bipartisan and expert advisors who guide it, creating a defense against partisanship accusations.
Why the Alliance Was Formed
The GPHA launched as a direct response to Trump administration health policies, particularly those of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker accused the federal government of “abandoning science for conspiracy theories.”
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said the administration was “wreaking havoc on public health” by undermining vaccine access, attacking abortion rights, and slashing Medicaid funding.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore stated that when the federal government tells states “you’re on your own,” governors must work together.
California Governor Gavin Newsom positioned the Alliance as protection against “political interference” and a counter to “extremists [who] try to weaponize the CDC and spread misinformation.”
These governors believe federal health agencies, particularly the CDC, have been compromised through leadership changes, reduced transparency, and the sidelining of scientific advisory bodies.
The Science vs. Politics Frame
The Alliance pledges to ensure public health decisions are “driven by data, facts, and the health of the American people” rather than political ideology. This positions member states as defenders of evidence-based policy against what they see as federal hostility to scientific consensus, especially on vaccines.
Lessons from COVID-19
Several governors, including Connecticut’s Ned Lamont, have compared the GPHA to regional pacts formed during the COVID-19 pandemic. When federal guidance seemed inconsistent, states collaborated on messaging, travel restrictions, and medical supply procurement. The GPHA formalizes this state-led approach.
The Alliance’s creation opens a fight over who controls the public health narrative in America. GPHA governors argue the administration politicized federal agencies like the CDC, requiring a new source of authority. The administration counters that these governors destroyed public trust during COVID-19 with mask mandates and school closures.
This reflects competing definitions of public health. For GPHA states, it’s a collective good protected by expert-guided government action. For the administration, it’s about individual liberty and freedom from government overreach.
How the Alliance Operates
The GPHA moved quickly to demonstrate its operational capacity beyond political statements.
Initial Actions
Coordinated executive action: Member states share strategies for preserving COVID-19 vaccine access, including standing orders to counteract federal guidance changes.
Expert briefings: Governors and their public health teams receive regular updates from Alliance advisors, providing scientific information independent of federal channels.
Policy toolkits: The GPHA develops resources for responding to major events like sporting competitions or political conventions, and for managing emerging health threats with coordinated cross-state communication.
Regional Coordination
The Alliance serves as a national umbrella connecting regional groups. It links the West Coast Health Alliance and Northeast Public Health Collaborative, amplifying their work on issues like bulk vaccine procurement and supply chain resilience.
The GPHA mirrors core CDC and HHS functions: expert briefings, policy guidance, and national strategy coordination on vaccine distribution and pandemic response. For member states, it operates as a parallel CDC providing services and scientific validation they no longer trust federal agencies to deliver.
This raises questions about resource duplication and whether a nonprofit-backed state coalition can replicate the scale, funding, and research capacity of federal public health agencies.
The Nonpartisan Claim
The gap between the GPHA’s “nonpartisan” branding and its all-Democratic membership generates the sharpest criticism.
Supporters argue the Alliance’s nonpartisanship comes from its mission to follow science, not from member party affiliation. They point to the bipartisan advisory board with Republican former governors and the independent health experts. Dr. Mandy Cohen notes that staff from Republican-led states have attended GPHA briefings.
Critics say an organization of only Democratic governors is partisan by definition. Several founding governors—Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, and Wes Moore—are potential 2028 presidential candidates, suggesting political positioning may drive their participation. GovAct has also coordinated Democratic-led alliances on abortion access, reinforcing perceptions that it advances partisan policy rather than nonpartisan governance.
The Federal Response
The Trump administration rejects the GPHA’s premise. HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon argues that GPHA governors “destroyed public trust” during COVID-19 through “unscientific school closures, toddler mask mandates, and vaccine passports.” He calls these the “failed politics of the pandemic.”
The administration claims it’s working to “rebuild that trust by grounding every policy in rigorous evidence and Gold Standard Science.” This rhetoric mirrors the Alliance’s language about science and evidence, framing the GPHA as a continuation of failed policies by discredited actors.
Risk of a Fragmented System
Policy experts warn the GPHA could create a “two-track system of public health protection.” GPHA states would follow one set of guidelines while non-member states follow different federal guidance or their own policies.
Stanford law and health policy professor Michelle M. Mello says this could create dramatic variations in public health protection by zip code. Because infectious diseases cross state borders, this fragmentation could undermine national pandemic response.
Politically defined health blocs operating with different facts and recommendations could increase public confusion and erode trust in all public health institutions.
The GPHA shifts American federalism. The traditional model features federal agencies setting national standards that states implement and adapt. The Alliance creates parallel guidance competing with the federal government for legitimacy, resources, and public trust.
States are no longer just “laboratories of democracy” testing policies. They’re building rival power centers on national security issues like pandemic preparedness. This competitive federalism could make the public increasingly cynical about all official health advice, regardless of source. Creating an alternative system to “rebuild trust” may further erode the concept of a single, reliable source of scientific truth.
How the GPHA Differs from Existing Groups
The GPHA’s structure and mission contrast sharply with traditional interstate collaboration.
The National Governors Association
Founded in 1908, the National Governors Association represents all 55 states, territories, and commonwealths. It provides a forum for sharing best practices, developing bipartisan policy solutions, and speaking with unified voice on national policy.
The NGA maintains substantial public health infrastructure. Its Center for Best Practices and Public Health and Emergency Management Task Force support governors on health issues. The NGA provides policy analysis, technical assistance, and learning networks on Medicaid, the opioid crisis, chronic disease prevention, and epidemic preparedness. Task forces are typically co-chaired by one Democrat and one Republican.
Key differences:
Partisanship: The NGA is structurally bipartisan. The GPHA, despite its bipartisan advisory board, operates through an exclusively Democratic membership.
Federal relationship: The NGA collaborates with and influences the administration and Congress on behalf of all states. The GPHA was created to counter the federal government.
Scope and speed: The NGA is comprehensive and consensus-driven. The GPHA is focused and designed for quick action on specific public health threats.
The GPHA’s existence suggests its founding members believe traditional bipartisan mechanisms like the NGA can’t address their concerns in a hyper-partisan environment. If the NGA’s consensus model could resolve disputes between GPHA states and the Trump administration over science and public health, the Alliance likely wouldn’t exist.
The NGA seeks common ground. The GPHA defends what its members consider a non-negotiable position: the integrity of science-based policy.
The GPHA’s formation criticizes the NGA’s effectiveness when common ground on fundamental issues has vanished. When one side views the other as operating outside accepted bounds of facts and reason, polite bipartisan negotiation breaks down.
If governors feel they must create partisan alliances because traditional bipartisan forums are inadequate, it signals decay in collaborative structures managing state-federal relations. The GPHA isn’t just a new organization. It’s a symptom of declining influence among the old ones.
