272 State Legislators. 30 States. Less Than 24 Hours.
When Washington goes silent, the states get loud — and if you didn't hear about it, that's about to change.
On Monday, April 7, as the President of the United States threatened to destroy a civilization on social media and Congress sat on its hands, 272 state legislators from 30 states did something about it.
Recognizing the gravity of the moment, and the vacuum of federal leadership, Michigan state Rep. Carrie Rheingans authored a joint statement for state legislators, demanding that the Vice President and Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office, and that Congress assert its constitutional war powers. She and Rhode Island state Sen. Tiara Mack, with State Futures helping to circulate the letter, organized the full effort in less than 24 hours.
You probably didn’t hear about it.
That’s worth sitting with for a moment. More than two hundred elected officials — from Minnesota to North Carolina, from North Dakota to Florida — put their names on a letter demanding the removal of a sitting president. The signatories represent states that are home to over 200 million people, roughly 65 percent of the U.S. population. And the mainstream conversation barely registered it.
But I want to be clear about something: what matters here is not whether the 25th Amendment gets invoked. It’s a long-shot — not this Cabinet, not this Vice President.
What matters is what this action represents — and what it’s building toward.
What Prompted It
On Easter Sunday, the President posted on Truth Social threatening to destroy civilian infrastructure in Iran — power plants and bridges — in language that threatens war crimes. By Tuesday morning, he escalated further, posting that “a whole civilization will die tonight.” When asked to clarify whether the conflict was winding down or intensifying, his answer was: “I can’t tell you. I don’t know.“
But, of course, it was TACO Tuesday. By the evening, he’d walked it back in another rambling social media missive. The cycle is familiar by now: escalation, shock, partial retreat, normalization, repeat.
Our federal leaders have gotten almost all the attention in this episode. But that clickbait coverage hides something really important — our state leaders are absolutely outraged. They increasingly feel the urgency to call this madness out, and go on record to catalogue a pattern — not a single outrageous post, but a sustained record of executive overreach that requires removal: unilateral military action without congressional authorization, alleged constitutional violations across the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Amendments, emoluments concerns, the weaponization of federal agencies, and actions undermining electoral integrity.
As Rep. Rheingans put it: “Together in one voice, as legislators across states and as a nation, we must stop normalizing and accepting the unthinkable.”
A Movement That’s Been Building
This letter didn’t come out of nowhere.
In late January, more than 110 state legislators from 27 states traveled to St. Paul, Minnesota for a Day of Solidarity, to stand alongside Minnesota colleagues and communities at the state capitol in response to appalling violence by federal immigration agents during Operation Metro Surge. In just 10 days, State Futures helped organize that delegation, bringing lawmakers together from places as far-flung as Montana, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. Many had only met in the familiar Zoom boxes where most meetings happen these days. But by the end of the day, they had stood together, raised their voices, and signaled that state leaders are ready to work across borders in ways we haven’t seen before.
Then came the launch of the State Futures Federal Response Coalition — a cross-state alliance of 113 lawmakers across 35 states, together home to 276 million people, coordinating on immigration enforcement, rule of law, and election integrity. And now this: 272 signatories, 30 states, organized in a literal day.
Each of these actions has been bigger than the last. Each has moved faster. And each has drawn on the same underlying infrastructure — the relationships, the networks, the trust built through sustained cross-state work.
This is what I’ve been calling ‘collective state action.’ And it’s accelerating.
Why This Matters
For decades, conservatives have treated cross-state coordination as a core organizing principle. ALEC, the State Policy Network, the State Financial Officers Foundation — they’ve mastered the art of collaboration: drafting model bills, convening officials, spreading ideas from state to state. They didn’t treat states as isolated “laboratories of democracy.” They treated them as crucial nodes in a larger system of power.
Those of us committed to democracy and human rights have been slower to build comparable infrastructure. We over-indexed on federal power while underinvesting in the states.
That imbalance is no longer sustainable — and I am extremely excited to say that it’s no longer the reality.
What’s emerging is a different model: states functioning not in isolation, but in concert, to protect communities and assert the rule of law. Pooling resources. Harmonizing policies. Coordinating responses. And — as this letter shows — wielding their collective voice when the moment demands moral clarity.
Here’s a really important thing to understand about this letter, and about the Day of Solidarity in Minnesota before it: it’s the lawmakers who have these ideas. While it’s my honor and privilege to help mobilize these leaders, every organizer knows that you can’t manufacture interest and enthusiasm. You can nurture, harness, and mobilize it. But the spark and the desire needs to come from those you are organizing.
And let me tell you — in this moment, state legislators who share our values feel the urgency and the desire to act together. They know what needs to be said and done. What’s been missing has been the infrastructure and support to bring those ideas to life at speed and at scale, across state lines. That’s the role I feel so lucky to play, leading State Futures (our first birthday was last month!). And it’s why actions like this one are now possible in ways they simply weren’t a few years ago, or honestly, even a few months ago.
Yesterday’s signatories span across 30 states — not just deep blue states, but also states where signing a letter like this carries real political risk. They come from Michigan and Montana, from New Hampshire and North Dakota, from California, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Ohio. Some are from states where their party holds a trifecta; others are in the minority. What unites them is a shared conviction that silence is no longer an option, and that speaking together and creating a firewall is a critical tool that must be wielded collectively and immediately.
What Comes Next
In Washington, the institutional mechanisms designed to check executive power remain largely unused, or purposely withheld.
But in statehouses across the country, something different is happening. Leaders are linking arms. They are building the relationships and the infrastructure that make rapid, large-scale action possible. They are refusing to accept the premise that nothing can be done.
The federal government may be frozen. But the states are not.
From 110 legislators standing in solidarity in St. Paul, to a 113-member Federal Response Coalition across 35 states, to 272 signatories for a letter calling for Trump’s removal in 24 hours — the trajectory is clear. This is still just the beginning of what cross-state collaboration looks like.
As I often say, states cannot just be a fallback for us when we’re out of power in DC. They are a core site of governing power in the American system that requires our sustained energy, engagement, and attention. Increasingly, they are the place where our elected officials are willing to exercise bold leadership, and do it together. As always, the states are the story.
Brilliant idea bringing state legislators together! Can you tell me if any from AZ were signatories? I'd like to thank them if they were. Also, can I help facilitate this in any way as a constituent in AZ?
I’d like to work together 858-518-3858