Failing to act swiftly and decisively upon taking office is a recipe for inaction and failure. The National Governors Association’s transition manual offers a seductive path to stability—but it’s an apologia for paralysis that threatens the very mandate voters grant governors.
The text warns that veteran governors advise new leaders to minimize downtime by avoiding major reorganizations, large-scale personnel changes, or significant actions beyond normal top-level appointments during the first six to nine months. It cautions against eliminating entrenched bureaucrats who have run bureaus like fiefdoms for decades, noting that “experienced governors advise caution at precisely the time when difficult decisions seem easiest.” Page 19 even sets a quota: only three to five large programmatic changes per term should be undertaken.
This approach, however, is a trap designed to lock in stagnation. The bureaucracy has weathered past governors because they failed to act swiftly—just as it now threatens to outlast new leaders who cling to process over policy. As the text illustrates, Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) rejected this theory immediately after taking office. Within his first term, he suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren, passed parental-rights legislation that education advocates deemed impossible, and dissolved the Reedy Creek Improvement District when Disney used its private government to punish the state. His second term accelerated this pattern: in January 2023, he replaced New College of Florida’s board, which fired its president at its first meeting and shut down diversity offices within weeks; later that year, 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.
Similarly, President Trump’s second transition demonstrated that federal leadership must prioritize speed over process. Inauguration Day produced executive orders revoking prior administration directives and freezing pending rules—actions that rendered bureaucratic resistance impossible by placing policy-making officials in positions where refusal to carry out the president’s program became grounds for removal.
The NGA’s advice, therefore, is not a roadmap for progress but a 48-month holding pattern designed to preserve the status quo. Incoming governors who follow it risk becoming “caretakers” bound to bureaucracies that have previously weathered poor leadership. To avoid this outcome, they must build appointment lists before election night, staff boards defensively only when necessary, and publish shortlists of agencies to shrink—then act while officials are still drafting memos about resistance.
The choice is stark: safeguard left-wing institutions or act boldly with the mandate voters gave you. The record shows that those who reject bureaucratic inertia become the most consequential leaders of their time.
