EXCLUSIVE: Dem Governors Get Strategy for National Guard Deployment, Executive Orders to Resist Trump

Democrat governors have a “resistance” playbook created for them that includes draft executive orders to defy the administration’s immigration policies as well as instructions on deploying the National Guard. 

The Governors Action Alliance, a Democrat organization that founded the group Governors Safeguarding Democracy, provided such guidance to the staffs of Democrat governors across the country after the election of President Donald Trump.  

The 126 pages of the playbook—including emails, talking points, and a “Firewalling for Freedom – Template Gubernatorial Executive Order”—were obtained in a public records request from the office of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro by the private nonprofit watchdog group Government Accountability and Oversight and shared with The Daily Signal. 

The documents offer a potential glimpse for what’s ahead as Democrat-run states prepare to clash with the federal government. The organization laying out the strategy is run by a host of former staffers for Democrat governors and liberal organizations, including NARAL Pro-Choice America, Demos, and Common Cause.

The “Firewall for Freedom – Template Gubernatorial Executive Order” directs that “no state agency, employee, or agent may comply with a request for information or assistance if they have reason to believe the request is in furtherance of any investigation, arrest, prosecution, or other sanction of conduct initiated by federal authorities or out-of-state authorities.” 

This includes no assistance to federal officials regarding “health care services … lawful under state law”; and no assistance to the federal government to “identify or apprehend a person in order to subject them to civil immigration detention, removal, or deportation proceedings,” or “to prosecute a person or persons for offenses related to immigration status.”

While the descriptions for “health care services” aren’t explicit, elsewhere in the documents, the group references abortion and “gender affirming care,” a phrase used to describe surgical sex operations.

“What leaps out is not just the sheer number of consultants being provided by donors for governors willing to serve the donors’ resistance agenda, but the functions they are serving: drafting executive orders, talking points, and white papers to assist in resistance advocacy … up to and including deploying the National Guard,” Chris Horner, a lawyer for Government Accountability and Oversight, told The Daily Signal.

In a Dec. 12 email to the staffs of governors’ offices, Emma Clough, special assistant to Governors Action Alliance CEO Julia Spiegel, wrote: “Please join for a briefing on executive actions governors can take to protect sensitive data and prepare for potential National Guard deployments.”

The model executive order on the National Guard says, “No assistance to deployments over objection of the office of the governor.” The draft order says state employees “shall provide no time, money, facilities, property, equipment, personnel, or other resources for purposes of: assistance to any National Guard unit of another state that is deployed to this state, if the Office of the Governor of [this state] has objected to such deployment.” 

A Dec. 3 email from Spiegel to governors’ offices offers staff assistance, including a former Democrat Senate aide who “has offered white glove service to support staffing efforts at the state level (gov offices and agencies).” The guidance further says that American Civil Liberties Union national support staff would be available to help. 

It’s not clear yet if any Democrat governors have enacted executive actions based on the template. 

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis are the co-chairs of Governors Safeguarding Democracy. 

Neither has signed such an executive order, though Pritzker has supported Illinois’ litigation against Trump’s immigration policies and said Trump administration officials “are threatening people. We’re just standing up for people who live in our state and in our city.” 

Polis, meanwhile, has reportedly backed elements of Trump’s plans to deport illegal immigrants. Neither the office of Pritzker nor Polis responded to inquiries for this story. 

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson signed an executive order to create a rapid response team coordinating state agencies to respond to Trump’s enforcement of immigration law. However, the order doesn’t mirror the Governors Action Alliance template  executive order. Ferguson’s office did not respond to an inquiry for this story. 

Shapiro’s office, which provided the documents to Government Accountability and Oversight, also did not respond to an inquiry for this story. 

Neither Spiegel, the CEO of Governors Action Alliance, nor Allegra Chapman, the managing director of Governors Safeguarding Democracy, responded to inquiries from The Daily Signal for this story. A spokesperson for the group also did not respond. 

Spiegel is a former legal counsel for California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Chapman is a former assistant attorney general under then-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Emily Kirby, the Governors Action Alliance director for legal strategy and policy, is a former general counsel for North Carolina’s Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper. The alliance’s director of external affairs, Kristin Ford, previously worked for then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris as a deputy communications director.

In a Jan. 19 email to Democrat governors’ offices one day before Trump was sworn in, Chapman promoted a briefing that included personnel from at least two organizations that have consistently sued the new Trump administration. 

The briefing was titled, “What Governors Need to Know, with Norm Eisen.” Eisen, the former White House ethics czar under President Barack Obama, is the founder of the State Democracy Defenders Fund and said his group planned more than 100 lawsuits against Trump this year.

Among the “suggested talking points” Chapman listed for governors included pragmatic sentiment, such as: “Our immigration system is deeply broken. … The last thing we need is another four years of chaos and bad judgment under President Trump.” 

Other points were more partisan, such as: “Trump Republican immigration extremism is targeting trusted members of our communities. … This chaos is tearing families apart.”

The Governors Action Alliance is a project of the Global Impact Social Welfare Fund, a left-leaning advocacy group that has given grants to liberal groups advocating for gun control and stronger environmental regulations, according to the Capital Research Center, a think tank that monitors nonprofits. The Governors Action Alliance received $500,000 last year from liberal billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s group, the Democracy Fund. The Governors Action Alliance seven-member advisory board is mostly Democrat but does include two anti-Trump former Republican governors—Arne Carlson of Minnesota and William Weld of Massachusetts. Weld unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the GOP presidential nomination in 2020.

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