Southern Governors' Association

The Southern Governors' Association (SGA), formerly the Southern Governors Conference,[1] was a United States association of governors founded in 1934 and dissolved in 2016. It was the oldest and historically the largest of the regional governors associations. Since its first meeting 89 years ago to discuss the repeal of discriminatory rates for transporting goods by rail, the SGA had represented the common interests of Southern chief executives and provided a vehicle for promoting them. SGA was a nonpartisan enterprise where shareholders could exchange views and access data, information and expertise on issues of general importance in order to augment the deliberations of public, private and non-profit decision-makers in the American South. SGA operated as an instrumentality of the states.

The last SGA Chairman was Jay Nixon of Missouri. After nearly 82 years, the Southern Governors' Association was officially dissolved on June 30, 2016 by the majority of its members-in-good standing. At the time of its dissolution, the association membership included sixteen states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia), the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.