Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore sworn in as president of National Association of Counties

Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore has stepped into the top position leading the National Association of Counties, a key organization representing county governments across the country.

Gore was sworn in as the association’s president Monday morning following years of serving in executive leadership for the group. His term as president will span a year.

The National Association of Counties, or NACo, is the main lobbying and policymaking coalition of the nation's 3,069 counties, boroughs and parishes. As president, Gore will set policy goals and is responsible for appointments to key leadership roles within NACo.

“The only real results in this world are imperfect, comes from imperfect relentless progress,” Gore said during his speech Monday at NACo’s annual conference in Tampa, Florida. “There is no progress that is perfect in this world, you and I know that, we know that and so we got to get back to business each and every day on the ground, in the trenches where we live and where we serve.”

Gore’s remarks included a call on NACo’s members to “rise above, and not succumb, to the angst, the dismay and the anxiety that threatens our democracy.”

Among the family members and colleagues Gore recognized in his speech was J.D. Clark, a Texas judge and NACo’s First Vice President, who Gore described as his “brother from another mother, state, and political party.”

“Over the next two years we’re going to show this country and the world that a Texas Republican and a California Democrat cannot only coexist, they can get stuff done together,” Gore said.

Gore is the first Sonoma County supervisor to serve as NACo president since Valerie Brown, whose term was in 2009-10. He has served on NACo’s executive team since 2022, most recently in the role of First Vice President.

Sonoma County’s other sitting supervisors have all been involved with NACo to varying degrees.

Gore became heavily involved with the California Association of Counties, or CSAC, following Sonoma County’s devastating 2017 wildfires and served as CSAC’s president before he was elected to NACo’s executive team. He has made disaster and climate resilience the foundation of his tenure in both associations.

“While I’m the president of NACo for this year and have the opportunity to frame the issues and the resources that we’re going to be deploying, at the same time, the main reason I’ve done all this work is to deliver locally,” Gore said in an interview following his swearing in.

One of goals that Gore has laid out for his tenure as NACo president is to establish a national commission to look at the Stafford Act, a federal law outlining authority and roles for a number of agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, during presidential disaster declarations.

The commission’s objectives include: bolstering the individual assistance program, which helps people who are uninsured or underinsured; requiring a timeline for FEMA disbursement of funds that have been approved; and calling for a congressional report and hearings on the small business loan program which Gore, in a text, said “over promises and under delivers.”

All of these issues will require lobbying, Gore said.

A Healdsburg native and former Obama administration appointee, Gore was first elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2014. He represents the 4th District, which encompasses much of northeastern Sonoma County including northern Santa Rosa, Windsor, Healdsburg, Cloverdale, the Alexander Valley and Dry Creek Valley. He was reelected to his third term in 2022.

He is positioning himself to run for the 2nd District state Senate seat representing the North Coast, which is held by fellow Democrat Mike McGuire, the Senate president, who is termed out after 2026.

You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MurphReports.