An annual meeting of the nation’s governors is breaking down over White House invitations, a shift that Democratic governors and the National Governors Association described as increasingly partisan. The NGA said it would no longer hold a formal meeting with President Donald Trump during the governors’ Washington gathering later this month, and 18 Democratic governors announced they would skip a traditional White House dinner.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, the Republican who chairs the NGA, told fellow governors in a letter obtained by The Associated Press that the White House intended to limit invitations connected to the association’s annual business meeting scheduled for Feb. 20 to Republican governors only. Stitt said the NGA’s mission is to represent all 55 governors and, as a result, the association was no longer serving as facilitator for that event and would not include it in the NGA’s official program.
The NGA said it would stop holding a formal meeting with Trump in Washington during the governors’ Feb. 19-21 gathering after the White House planned to invite only Republican governors. Earlier, the association said the meeting was no longer being treated as a bipartisan opportunity in the way it has been for years, according to AP reporting based on the governors’ group’s communications and the letter.
Democratic governors also announced a boycott of the White House dinner tied to the governors’ meeting. In their letter, 18 Democratic governors said they would not attend the dinner if reports that not all governors were invited were accurate, calling the invitation issue a departure from a tradition they said had produced productive and bipartisan collaboration. They added that Democratic governors “remain united” and “will never stop fighting” to improve life in their states.
Stitt’s letter encouraged governors to focus on shared goals rather than responding in kind. “We cannot allow one divisive action to achieve its goal of dividing us,” he wrote. He said the response should be “to rise above and to remain focused on our shared duty to the people we serve,” adding that governors have “always been models of pragmatic leadership.”
The White House defended the approach to invitations. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump has discretion to invite whomever he wants to White House events, saying, “It’s the people’s house” and “it’s also the president’s home.” The White House invitation decision was described by Leavitt as a matter of the president’s choice for dinners and events.
In response to Stitt’s letter and the NGA’s decision, representatives for Stitt and the NGA did not comment on the letter itself, according to AP. The NGA’s chief executive, Brandon Tatum, said in a statement last week that the White House meeting was an “important tradition” and that the NGA was “disappointed” by what he described as the administration’s decision to make it partisan.
The governors’ gathering has long been one of the few remaining places where political leaders from both major parties meet to discuss issues facing their communities, AP reported. Signs of partisan tension at the White House meeting had surfaced last year, when Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills traded barbs after Trump singled out Mills over her position on barring transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports and threatened to withhold federal funding if the state did not comply. Mills later responded, “We’ll see you in court,” and Trump predicted her political career would end after her opposition, AP said.
The back-and-forth had a lasting impact on last year’s conference, and AP reported that some Democratic governors did not renew their dues last year to the bipartisan NGA group, setting the stage for the current dispute over participation and access as the governors convene in Washington later this month.