Nevada governor among 7 GOP peers who didn't sign letter to Trump supporting spending bill

McKenna Ross, Las Vegas Review-Journal on May 23, 2025

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An open letter from Republican governors told President Donald Trump they were “UNITED in strong support” of his sprawling tax and spending bill moving through Congress — but Nevada’s governor was not among the signatories.

Gov. Joe Lombardo was one of seven Republican state leaders who did not sign the Tuesday letter from the Republican Governors Association to the president praising the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” a massive bill to extend 2017-era tax cuts and impose other areas of Trump’s presidential agenda.

Trump has been eager to drive the legislation through the U.S. House of Representatives, despite holdouts from his own party who expressed concerns about Medicaid cuts and the bill’s impact on the nation’s debt. The 1,118-page bill advanced through the Republican-controlled House on Thursday by a single-vote margin.

The letter, signed by about three in four Republican governors in the country, praises the package for extending the tax breaks and increasing spending on border security, military spending and deportation efforts.

“This landmark piece of legislation embodies your powerful vision to bring about the next great American revival,” governors wrote.

A spokesperson for Lombardo did not return a request for comment on the letter.

Governors from Florida, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Vermont also did not sign the letter.

Lombardo has previously said he did not want to see “an abrupt reduction in federal funding” to Medicaid. Last week as the details of congressional proposals became public, Nevada Medicaid Administrator Stacie Weeks said the impact in the state would likely not be as large as initially feared.

Still, some could go uninsured because of the proposed work requirements in the federal bill. One in three Medicaid adults are not working in Nevada, according to a May report from nonprofit KFF, formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation. There are about 738,000 children and adults enrolled in Nevada Medicaid, the report found.

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