Declaring Emergencies and Banning ‘Latinx’: First Acts for 9 New Governors

After a midterm election yr wherein statewide races have been virtually solely wrapped up in nationwide points — abortion and democracy — the nation’s newly elected governors are displaying their ambitions with a mixture of virtue-signaling on nationwide points, currying favor with their political bases and, for some, reaching out to broader constituencies.

With the direct duty of working their states, governors should additionally rapidly produce detailed budgets that put their priorities in full view. Elected final yr, 9 new governors have been busy of their first weeks in workplace.

In Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican who served as a press secretary within the Trump White Home, took swipes on the left, on crucial race idea and “Latinx.”

In Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, introduced an essay contest for college students to resolve which former governor would get a portrait to be hung in her workplace. (John Hancock or Samuel Adams? Michael Dukakis or Mitt Romney?)

From the symbolic to the substantive, here’s a take a look at a few of what the nation’s new governors have finished of their first weeks in workplace.