The Western Governors’ Association celebrated its 40th anniversary with high hopes and low turnout.
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Gov. Mark Gordon, Republican of Wyoming, this week in Kemmerer, Wyo. At a recent meeting of the Western Governors’ Association, he joked to Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California, “You and I shouldn’t be seen together.”
The bipartisan boat ride on Lake Tahoe was scrapped because of scheduling issues. At least three of the participating Republicans were suing the administration of one of the Democrats.
At the opening reception, Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming, a conservative in cowboy boots, turned to Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a liberal in sunglasses and a ball cap, and joked, “You and I shouldn’t be seen together.”
Not everybody laughed.
As the Western Governors’ Association marked its 40th anniversary this week in Olympic Valley, Calif., the organization did its best to maintain a tradition that has long been its hallmark: the increasingly lost art of governing across party lines.
Under sunny skies and a snowcapped Sierra Nevada, experts from the private sector to members of the Biden administration presented on disaster management, opioids and carbon capture. Aides rushed between meeting rooms. Eight governors appeared on a panel examining the organization’s longstanding culture of consensus — but seven of them were no longer in office.
“We used to have this bumper sticker — ‘Bipartisanship Happens,’” Steve Bullock, the former Democratic governor of Montana, said. “But bipartisanship doesn’t just happen. It takes work.”
ImageMr. Newsom welcomed the 300 or so attendees to the meeting, but he did not stay for the full conference.Credit…Jim Wilson/The New York Times
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Source: nytimes.com
