In 2023, I started working at an organization called the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) — the free market organization representing state treasurers, auditors, and controllers. This organization may sound quite niche (though you may have heard of its amazing work fighting politicized finance), but the foundation itself is a spinoff of another organization, the National Association of State Treasurers (NAST). SFOF was founded by Derek Kreifels, then an assistant state treasurer of Kansas, in 2012 when NAST began injecting left-wing politics into state financial issues. Effectively, what Kreifels created was an organization dedicated to political neutrality in public finance.
Organizations that are similar to NAST represent virtually every function of state governments. From state school boards to Medicaid directors, state transportation officials, insurance commissioners, and on and on. There is no function of state (and often local) government that is too obscure to warrant a national association for that function. Virtually all these associations (which are often standard-setting organizations for best practices and serve as de facto regulators and lobbyists for their departments) are ideologically captured by the left.
But in virtually all cases, there is no ideologically neutral alternative. What that means is that the organizations that set standards and regulations and draft legislation for critical state government functions are tools of the left. That translates to left-wing policies becoming the norm across state governments, regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans govern the state.
The National Association of State Medicaid Directors (NAMD) is a prime example of how ideological capture can influence critical state functions. In the association’s 2022 policy brief on equity, it emphasized the need to address “health disparities” through Medicaid policies that prioritize groups based on race. The brief explicitly stated, “Behavioral health providers in the United States are disproportionately White.” For the solution, the authors argued that “Congress and HHS should work to increase the diversity of the behavioral health workforce.”
NAMD has received grants to advance DEI initiatives, entrenching this ideology into its operations. This worldview may fit California’s model for governance, but it is directly at odds with Republican governors’ efforts to rein in DEI. But even in 2025, with less public fanfare, these influences linger in state standards.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) offers another glaring case. In 2023, the organization passed a resolution committing to “addressing race, equity, diversity, and inclusion” in transportation policy. This isn’t just lip service — the association created a program devoted to utilizing census data to advance “transportation equity.” Concrete actions are driving transportation planning decisions based on race and other DEI factors.
AASHTO’s DEI obsession even extends to its advocacy for race-driven government contracting, which is how you end up with most states in America — even red states — maintaining race-based mandates for transportation contracts. This approach is entirely at odds with American values and civil rights law.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) holds immense sway over state insurance regulations, yet it is also steeped in leftist ideology. The association’s recent article questions whether a rating based on sex in auto insurance is “unfairly discriminatory,” effectively questioning if we should sacrifice actuarial science for the sake of social equity. The “gender rating,” based on data showing risk differences between men and women, is a cornerstone of insurance pricing. The idea that the national association responsible for governing state insurance markets is taking on this woke crusade is a disservice to states, which have repeatedly rejected this ideology at the ballot box.
The three organizations mentioned above are just examples — there are dozens more organizations representing what effectively amounts to a left-wing shadow government guiding states in an increasingly leftist direction.
What’s the solution? Governors, elected officials, and policy organizations need first to understand that these organizations are not politically neutral. They should prioritize sending seasoned political appointees to these meetings with a mandate to safeguard the values of their states.
Adopting a model of building alternative organizations should always be an option, but it likely isn’t practical in most cases. In those cases, red states should work together to demand strong governance of these organizations through active involvement. By understanding the reality that they are, in every case, political, we can insist that they cut out the left-wing activism from their work and adopt worldviews consistent with American values.
Despite the ideological capture, some of these organizations have historically played an important role in shaping public policy. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials played a leading role in the adoption of standards during the building of our national highway system and apparently came up with the highway numbering system we all use today. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners helped to codify insurance as a state-regulated industry.
It is an interesting question as to why the left has near-universally captured these organizations, and answering it points to the solution. There are two primary reasons. First, bureaucratic entities tend to veer left naturally, and this has been a subject of empirical study going back decades. Second is a phenomenon that Cleta Mitchell has discussed at length: The left pays far more attention to process than those on the right — who may find it mind-numbingly tedious — but with decades of work, you can end up capturing an entire system and have it reflect your values, as the left has done.
The solution is crystal clear: Treat these organizations like the political entities the left assumes them to be. Lobby them, get involved, pay attention, and work to make them better.