AI-Summary – News For Tomorrow
Governors Lujan Grisham and Dowd emphasized serving constituents over party lines, fostering respectful dialogue despite differing perspectives. Lujan Grisham highlighted bipartisan collegiality among governors, driven by the need for real-time results, unlike federal politics. They found common ground on crime reduction, mental health, and addiction, even when diverging from party platforms. Dowd promoted Utah’s “way” of seeking solutions beyond partisan divides. Lujan Grisham shared a story highlighting courage and love, emphasizing the importance of advocating for vulnerable groups like children, even when uncomfortable.
News summary provided by Gemini AI.
Throughout the discussion, both governors said that they serve all their constituents, not their parties.
Reflecting on the governors’ relationship, Lujan Grisham said, “Republicans and Democrats are not enemies. We have different perspectives sometimes and maybe different priorities.” She noted that at the end of the day, they “broke down that barrier” and were able to engage in respectful dialogue and help each other where necessary.
She hopes that relationships like theirs “will take hold and more Americans can debate their differences, but to do so with respect and open-mindedness about how you might be persuaded to think about a problem … just a bit different.”
Dowd noted that both governors have served in leadership roles in governors associations both at the regional and national levels, and that it seems to him that there is “a great deal of bipartisan collegiality and pragmatism among governors.”
“We have to deliver real results in real time all of the time, which is different from what happens at the federal level,” Lujan Grisham said.
Both governors discussed the common ground they had found on lowering crime rates and on mental health and addiction, with Lujan Grisham sharing that some of her work on crime and mental health “flies squarely in the face of the Democratic Party” and its understandings of equality and freedom.
Lujan Grisham noted that while the Democratic Party has come to be branded as the party whose social teachings include standing for equality and justice, most Republicans believe in standing up for everyone too.
He spoke on what Utah’s government has labeled “the Utah way,” which he described as an approach to government that favors seeing more than just the two parties’ solutions on any given problem to find alternate choices that serve constituents best.
He shared that his faith has helped him to get past these difficulties.
“He said, ‘Who is speaking for the children? The governor is and is uncomfortable. She chose courage over comfort because she’s speaking for the children.’ And it really touched me. It reminded me that it’s always there. The love of every other human. God’s love is everywhere that it comes to you when you need it most,” she said.
