Key Points:

• Gov. Katie Hobbs may cancel National Governors Association membership

• Hobbs questions whether the association still serves Democratic interests

• Governor’s decision on NGA membership is independent of Trump’s National Guard actions

Gov. Katie Hobbs may cancel her membership in the National Governors Association.

Hobbs is acknowledging that some of her fellow governors — particularly Democrats — are questioning whether the nonpartisan association still serves their interests. And that, she said, is leading her to reconsider whether she and Arizona are being truly served by the NGA.

“I’ve had those conversations with some of my colleagues,” she said, declining to “get into details” about those talks.

“But we’re looking at the benefits versus the cost,” Hobbs said.

That cost is $130,000 a year.

The organization describes itself as “a leading forum for bipartisan policy solutions.” And that, it says, “advances bipartisan dialogue” as well as facilitates information sharing and advocates bipartisan policy priorities.

But it is what the NGA is not doing that has irked some Democrats.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly told reporters in July she won’t be renewing her state’s membership.

“The NGA does some very, very good things, particularly in the area of training for governors’ staff,” she said.

“But they also need to be a states’ rights advocate,” Kelly said. “And I think they’ve sort of fallen down on that role.”

And that, she said, makes the cost of the dues not worthwhile.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has a more specific spat with the NGA.

He sent a letter earlier this month to the organization as President Trump announced plans to deploy members of the Texas National Guard to his state. He said such actions, over the objections of affected state governors, show “we have abandoned the foundational principles that have protected our Republic for nearly 250 years.”

More to the point, Pritzker said the NGA should denounce that action.

“Should the National Governors Association leadership choose to remain silent, Illinois will have no choice but to withdraw from the organization,” Pritzker wrote. And he told Rachel Maddow of MSNBC that “we should be standing as one against the idea that Donald Trump can call up the National Guard against our will.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in a post on X earlier this month, expressed a similar view.

“If the National Governors Association cannot stand against states literally invading one another, count me out,” he wrote.

And The Atlantic reported that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will also stop paying dues to the NGA.

Hobbs said she is making her own evaluation of whether her membership in the organization makes sense — and whether there are sufficient benefits.

“As a governor, I would like my national organization to help further the interests of governors,” she said.

“It’s been challenging to be on the same page in these really partisan times,” Hobbs said. “And I’m not sure that’s what’s really happening right now.”

Hobbs, an incumbent Democrat seeking reelection in a state where her party is in the minority, has been less inclined to get in the middle of the debate about Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard into several Democratic states.

She has repeatedly deflected questions of whether she would object to soldiers being sent to Arizona, calling the question “hypothetical.” And Hobbs was one of four Democratic governors who, this past summer, refused to sign a letter to the president that declared that activating soldiers without a state governor’s consent “is an alarming abuse of power, ineffective, and undermines the mission of our service members.”

Hobbs, in discussing whether she will withdraw from NGA, said any decision is unrelated to the president’s action.

“It’s greater than that,” she said.

None of this would affect Hobbs’ membership in the Democratic Governors Association.

There is no cost for membership, as the organization is financed through donations. She actually benefits financially, at least politically – it has given $75,000 this election cycle to Copper State Values, a political action committee run by Nicole DeMont, who also manages Hobbs’ reelection campaign.

But that system works both ways, with the Republican Governors Association backing the unsuccessful 2022 gubernatorial bid by Kari Lake and, prior to that, the election of Republican Doug Ducey.