The Weekender (8/28/20)
Welcome to the Democratic Governors Association’s Friday newsletter, The Weekender.
Let’s get started.
Missouri: Democratic gubernatorial candidate State Auditor Nicole Galloway introduced her plan to combat COVID-19 in Missouri. Galloway’s plan, “Rebuild and Recover: An Action Plan to Address COVID-19 in Missouri”, was created in conjunction with local leaders, public health experts, medical professionals, and business and labor leaders. Galloway’s public plan comes as GOP Gov. Mike Parson has refused to take decisive action against the virus and continues to ignore the advice of health experts to wear a mask in public.
North Carolina: Questions emerged for Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves after he was pictured without a mask while campaigning for North Carolina Lt. Governor and gubernatorial hopeful Dan Forest at his indoor campaign event. Hundreds of people attended, and photos show a lack of mask wearing or social distancing. Both Reeves and Forest were breaking state executive orders by not wearing masks, putting the lives of North Carolinians at risk in order to hold a partisan event. In the midst of the pandemic, Forest has returned to in-person campaigning with no plans to take into consideration public health and safety, adding “it will be a lot more of this.”
“Trump Guy” Chris Sununu Admits Upcoming Trump Rally Is A Danger To Public Health, Bucks Enforcement Responsibility
At a press conference this week, self-described “Trump guy” Gov. Chris Sununu openly admitted that the upcoming Trump rally in New Hampshire is unsafe – but he’s still going to let it happen, without social distancing or an enforced mask requirement. Clearly Sununu’s loyalty to Trump doesn’t stop at putting Granite Staters’ health and safety at risk.
Sununu said during the conference that he tries to “avoid large crowds” and only feels comfortable greeting Trump on the tarmac. Apparently, the rally is unsafe for him, but he’s fine exposing the rest of New Hampshire to a possible superspreader event.
The Trump campaign has been getting extra-special treatment from Sununu. Sununu sidelined state health officials for last month’s planned Portsmouth rally, allowing the Trump campaign to create its own set of rules for the event. And for the upcoming Manchester rally, Sununu doesn’t plan to enforce his own 100+ person gathering mask requirement – he just said: “hopefully” people wear them.
It’s been reported that the Trump campaign is only planning to hold rallies in states with spineless Republican governors who cave easily to political pressure and don’t care about the health and safety of their constituents. Sununu fits the bill – he’s brazenly putting politics above the health and safety of those he is supposed to protect, during one of the worst public health crises in history.
Dem Govs Get It Done: Gov. Sisolak Launches “First-Of-A-Kind” Initiative to Combat Climate Change
Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak unveiled a new initiative to address climate change in Nevada. As part of the initiative, Gov. Sisolak launched the Nevada Climate Initiative website, a first-of-its-kind online resource to provide Nevadans with updated information about climate change and guidance on how to reduce greenhouse emissions, and to allow the public to share their input on the issue.
The NCI website builds on Gov. Sisolak’s executive order from November 2019, which created the State Climate Strategy. Under that order, Gov. Sisolak’s administration planned to develop recommendations with public, private, and tribal partners to reduce the impact of climate change in the state by December 2020.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle, pushing back on President Trump’s false claims on mail-in voting and touting Colorado’s success with vote-by-mail for decades.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on CNN’s New Day, discussing the impacts of Hurricane Laura.
“Americans don’t deserve a period of instability after the election, especially not after the instability that the pandemic has already brought to our communities.”
- Oregon Gov. Kate Brown in an op-ed on CNN.com, calling out President Trump for his dangerous misinformation campaign around the upcoming general election and announcing a coalition of Democratic governors who have pledged to carry out a safe, secure election.
“We’ve seen stories on both sides involving protesters and then against protesters as well.”
Who said it? Send your answer to press@dga.net and we’ll reveal the answer in the next Weekender!
If you guessed Washington Gov. Jay Inslee last week, you were right! Gov. Inslee made a surprise appearance at the DNC Convention during a former presidential candidates video, saying “we are a rambunctious group!”