President’s failures on coronavirus force states’ hands on partnerships

In a textbook case of necessity being the mother of invention, the governors of several states did the right thing recently in forming regional pacts in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Amid the Trump administration’s abject failure in dealing with the crisis, the governors were forced to essentially create regional versions of what a well-functioning federal government would look like in a pandemic.

Take the Western States Pact, the agreement between California, Oregon and Washington. Under that agreement, the states will share purchasing power for medical equipment, trade data and co-develop strategies for reducing the spread of the coronavirus and for restarting the economy.

It’s designed as an antidote for Donald Trump’s every-man-for-himself approach, in which he deflected blame to the governors for not having enough resources to contend with the outbreak. As Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s chief of staff told Wired, that created a situation like “the ‘Hunger Games,’ everybody out there fighting for their life, people buying orders out from under you.”

It was anything but the type of coordinated, cooperative, multistate effort needed in the face of the crisis.

So the Western states did something about it by teaming up, as did groups of states in the Great Lakes region (Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin) and in the Northeast (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Massachusetts).

Such agreements are nothing new. Several Western states, including Nevada, have long been partners in a cooperative pact for wildfire protection, for example, and there are similar accords for environmental issues.

On Wednesday, Gov. Steve Sisolak said the state was in “close conversations” with other Western states about how to “share challenges, solutions and best practices.”

“I look forward to strengthening this partnership in the near future,” he said.

Sisolak didn’t offer further details, but if that means the Western States Pact is expanding and Nevada will become part of it, good for him for pursuing the partnership. And good for the residents of our state.

The coronavirus agreements are different than other accords in that they’re an emergency response to a complete breakdown in the federal government. Trump’s failures to ship supplies, develop an adequate testing regimen and provide guidance on social-distancing practices, not to mention his support of those protesting stay-at-home orders, brought the governors together in search of a coordinated response. Combining purchasing power, pooling resources and bringing together experts is a pragmatic solution.

It also makes sense for states to consider reopening the economy on a regional basis. Especially in places with heavy travel over state lines — the Northeast is a prime example — the consequences of one state opening early could be severe for the surrounding states.

With Trump all over the board on rebooting the economy, issuing guidelines one day and tweet-yelling about liberating certain states from shutdowns the next, it’s clearly in states’ best interests to take coordination into their own hands.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom put it well in saying, “This pandemic virus knows no boundaries, knows no borders, you can’t build walls around it, and you can’t deny basic fundamental facts.”

Many Republicans, to their discredit, don’t see it that way but rather view the agreements as a secession from the union.

That’s ridiculous. This is a matter of maintaining public health and public safety, which is directly in the states’ wheelhouse. These states are not spoiling for another civil war anymore than the states in the wildfire and environmental pacts. They’re simply taking care of their residents, for whom the White House’s response has been too little and too late.