In The Governors’ Lobbyists, Jennifer Jensen details the roles that governors’ lobbies assume in federalist structures, Washington, DC politics, and communities of organized interests. From the outset, Jensen clearly demonstrates the need for a better understanding of these organizations, particularly for scholars of federalism, state politics, and interest groups. Governors' associations work towards unique policy goals that bridge levels of federalism by addressing simultaneously the interests of both state and national governments. These groups also occupy distinct spaces in the organized interest population; they work on behalf of high profile political elites while mostly refraining from the fundraising and vote mobilizing aspects of lobbying. In some ways, governors' associations are the ultimate “insiders lobby,” enjoying high levels of access to members of Congress while maintaining strong connections outside of the District of Columbia via representation of state interests.

Jensen structures her examination of governors' associations around three central puzzles. The first focuses on how governors' associations reinforce federalist structures and power in state governments. Specifically, how and for what purpose do governors’ lobbies act as safeguards of federalism? In the second puzzle, she turns her attention to the origins of governors’ lobbies and how these organizations fit within broader understandings of interest group formation and activity. Finally, she turns to the puzzle of proliferation: why are there so many different types of governors' associations (state-level, regional, and national)? Though her initial presentation of the puzzles seems to imply that the text will progress in three major sections, she instead discusses one or multiple puzzles in each chapter throughout the book.

Early chapters focus on the role that governors’ associations play in the federal system (Chapter 1), the political development of the National Governors Association (NGA) and governors’ offices in the District of Columbia (Chapters 2 and 3), and the purposes and goals of Washington offices representing individual states (Chapter 4). Throughout these chapters, Jensen showcases extensive archival research and qualitative interview data which she supplements in Chapter 6 with a quantitative event history analysis (EHA) of the factors that shape states’ decisions to open and maintain governors’ offices in Washington. While mixed methods do not always equal “better” methods, she executes multiple methodologies thoroughly and purposefully. Her combination of American political development approaches with qualitative interviews and quantitative EHA produces a more nuanced and holistic picture of the development, operations, and influence of governors' associations than would any one method alone.

Despite their unique clientele and policy goals, governors' lobbies have been a relatively understudied element of interest group scholarship and frequently join “state and local” governmental interests in subcategories of lobbying groups. However, Jensen’s analysis makes clear the fact that “state and local lobbying interests” should be separate rather than joint categories in future research on organized interests. Governors often compete with mayors of large cities for federal funding, thus creating more of an adversarial than collaborative relationship between state and local governmental interests vis-à-vis the federal government. Similarly, though governors partner with state legislators in their work representing state interests, their party identities, policy goals, and career ambitions may differ markedly from those of state legislators. By raising these points early in the book, she highlights the relevance of her research to a range of subfields in American politics via her description of the distinct policy spaces occupied by governors' associations and by governors themselves.

In addition to detailed examinations of the contextual factors that shape the establishment, growth, and development of governors' lobbies, Jensen offers a secondary focus on the role of partisanship within this population of organized interests. More specifically, she suggests that some governors associations have shifted away from policy positions united by federalism to policy positions united by party. She first introduces the importance of partisanship in Chapter 3 when discussing the fact that unlike their partisan counterparts, (and many organized interests in Washington), the National Governors Association does not contribute money to legislators’ campaigns. Though traditional Washington lobbies may be able to work across party lines, she also notes that the party identification of state offices in Washington are frequently tied to that of states’ governors (p. 143). With increasing party polarization, the associations of Republican and Democratic governors have increased in importance and power, particularly with respect to their ability to raise and distribute campaign contributions to Democratic and Republican congressional candidates. Jensen’s figure 5.1 (p. 160) shows notable partisan differences in the amount of fundraising between partisan governors' lobbies with the Republican Governors Association consistently outspending the Democratic Governors Association, recently by large margins.

Though Jensen notes the traction gained by partisan governors associations in polarized political climates, she does not discuss how party polarization shaped the bipartisan NGA over time nor how the NGA’s lack of fundraising affects their relationships in Washington. Partisan differences in fundraising are not further explored nor discussed apart from the fact that fundraising as a whole has increased in recent years. This raises the only shortcoming in her text: a few missed opportunities to tie her analyses into broader contextual focus. This is certainly not to say that she never contextualizes her findings—she does so in many places throughout the book, particularly in her concluding chapter. For example, Jensen compares staff size and issue area focus in governors' offices with those of most organized interests, citing previous research that only 17% of all interest groups with small staff sizes have a large issue portfolio, whereas 15 out of 21 (70%) governors' offices have broad issue agendas with few staff (p. 146). This contextualization within the broader interest group literature allows the reader to make better sense of her findings and demonstrates the larger implications of her work. Exploring further the effects of fundraising differences between partisan governors associations or unpacking the distinct challenges faced by the NGA’s bipartisan, non-fundraising position would connect Jensen’s work to broader understandings of how increasing party polarization and money shape lobbying and policymaking. That said, her analysis raises interesting questions about the roles of partisanship and fundraising within a distinct group of organized interests, creating paths for future research.

Overall, Jensen’s rich archival and interview data provide a nuanced view of the origins of governors' lobbies and their evolving role in the American political landscape. She makes a strong case for the consideration of subgroups of state and local lobbying organizations, even for those that comprise a small share of the overall lobbying population. By closely examining governors' lobbies, she reveals variation among organizations that are commonly assumed to have homogenous policy preferences due to their positions vis-à-vis the national government and sheds light onto the unique position assumed by governors associations in the federalist structure. In doing so, Jensen raises important secondary questions regarding the role of partisanship and polarization in lobbying organizations and state/national government relations. The Governors’ Lobbyists is an accessible, informative, and carefully researched text that addresses fundamental questions of federalism and lobbying in American politics.