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Comment by jcranmer | Hacker News Reader

Also relevant is that the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware made a similar pact today.

Edit: Massachusetts has also joined this pact as well (I thought it was surprising that it hadn't when I first read the news).

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If only there was some sort of multi-state organization through which individual states could pull together on issues spanning multiple states. Such a "federal" approach would be very useful. If only someone had thought of this years ago. Of course it would have to be staffed by people selected and respected by all, but surely there is some way of doing that too.

It would be especially good if that kind of organization had limited and agreed-to powers that were written down in some sort of document, and then those constraints were respected and not repeatedly gamed around.

Surely any document is just as smart and wise as the people interpreting it. (Are we back to square one or do we have to go through Internet fueled partisan hyper-polarization and "big data" aided gerrymandering? Oh, yes, we need to vacant a seat on the Council of the Interpreters and mysteriously leave it empty and let the winner of the aforementioned social-media campaign pick the next interpreter!)

I mentioned the Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois consortium the other day. Theirs was formed to solidify buying power. These are looking analogous to the relationship between cities and and a county. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22835488

You can roughly see where you would expect these to form on this map. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaregions_of_the_United_Stat...

MA joined in as well on that pact

No Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts? I would think at least Massachusetts would want in.

MA joined the pact as well, now.

Governor Baker is a Republican and Trump is big on “loyalty” and deference. Since the pact is a way for the Governors to collectively let Trump know who will actually be “restarting” the states I would guess the short delay in Massachusetts joining was so Baker could sort out the politics ahead of time with DC.

Baker (and Hogan, for that matter) are very popular Republican governors in pretty deep blue states. They haven't been big on kissing Trump's ass, both before and during this crisis.

Yes, I’m about as liberal as they come and I voted for Baker in the last election. Being well-liked on both sides of the aisle doesn’t happen by accident. Baker puts in considerable planning and effort to make that happen.

Yeah MA has a habit of that, e.g. Mitt Romney, who is also vocally critical of the POTUS.

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