Failing to act swiftly and decisively upon taking office is a recipe for inaction and failure.
The morning after victory, the National Governors Association will contact new governors, offering seminars, binders, and rosters of former leaders who argue that slowing down is essential. While attendees may take the meeting, they should not accept its advice.
With midterms likely to cost Republicans the House and possibly the Senate but not the states—thirty-six governorships are on the ballot—the incoming class in Ohio, Alabama, Iowa, Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and others will likely produce the most conservative slate of governors in a generation.
The bureaucracy has weathered past governors because they failed to act swiftly. New leaders face a critical choice: safeguard left-wing institutions or act boldly with the mandate voters granted.
The NGA’s strategic advice encourages minimal action in the first six to nine months, urging new governors not to undertake major reorganizations, large-scale personnel changes beyond normal top-level appointments, or other significant actions unless absolutely necessary. It warns against using the honeymoon period to eliminate entrenched bureaucrats who have managed their departments for decades and cautions that experienced governors advise caution precisely when difficult decisions seem easiest. Page 19 of the NGA manual even sets a quota: only three to five large programmatic changes per term.
The association seeks to lock new governors into stagnation by maintaining credibility with legislators, state bureaucracies, the press, and the public. Failure in this effort could transform them into “caretakers” who remain dependent on a bureaucracy that has previously weathered poor leadership.
Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) rejected such caution. In his first term, he suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren and secured passage of parental-rights legislation the education establishment predicted would never pass. When Disney used its private government to penalize the state, DeSantis dissolved the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
His second term began with immediate action: in January 2023, he replaced New College of Florida’s board of trustees, which fired its president at its first meeting and shut down the diversity office within weeks. That summer, he suspended Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell and filled the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District with his appointees—none of this waited for month ten or counted against a “three-to-five” quota.
DeSantis targeted entities that interpret laws, resulting in his status as one of modern America’s most consequential governors.
Similarly, President Donald Trump’s second transition mirrored this approach. Inauguration Day produced a seismic list of executive orders revoking prior administration directives and freezing pending rules. He moved policy-making officials into positions where refusal to carry out the president’s agenda became grounds for removal. His speed made it impossible for bureaucracy to stop him.
The state-level challenge is more severe than the NGA manual admits. Agencies are overstaffed relative to their work, and a significant portion of career employees opposed the new governor’s election and will resist any order that threatens programs, grants, or headcounts.
The NGA’s advice—staffing boards defensively, avoiding embarrassment, keeping them from consuming the governor’s time, and waiting until transition concludes—amounts to a four-year holding pattern designed to outlast the new leader.
