This may be a misguided attempt to revive a horse already beaten to death, but I've had to wait until Friday (too cheap to subscribe) so I can't resist a response regarding the big "who wrote the letter" debate. As one who has been on both sides of similar issues, here's exactly how the sequence of events usually transpires:
1. Constituent calls/writes representative (the governor is this case) and asks for an endorsement/letter of recommendation/positive comment, etc. on some project/proposal/regulatory action, etc.
2. Representative's surrogate, usually a staffer with some level of knowledge or involvement with the issue at hand, says "Sure, we'd be glad to. Can you draft something up?" This practice is not evidence of some kind of conspiracy, merely a concession to the reality that the government is inadequately staffed to research and/or write letters or even legislation on most technical matters. The text of many laws is actually written by third parties such as "advocacy organizations" (i.e., lobbyists) or ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council)
3. A letter is drafted by the constituent, and the draft is passed back-and-forth until both parties are happy, and the representative's surrogate feels he/she can draft a cover memo that will address any questions the signer, in this case the governor, might have. That cover memo may be topped with an even shorter signing memo, that condenses with issue into a sentence or two. (The rule is that the higher up you go, the shorter the cover or signing memo has to be.)
4. The letter and cover/signing memo go into the chief-of-staff's in-box. He or she reads the letter and cover memo, and in the course of the representatives daily signing session (which is pretty much a daily duty), gives the signer a one or two sentence explanation of what he or she is signing, for each of the half- to several dozen documents in the pile. It would be a rare exception if a governor asked a question, or even read the full cover memo. That's what the staff is for. Even though the governor may not have read the cover memo, it serves as a valuable history of "why" should someone later ask the question.
5. So, I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but the endorsement of a government representative to a Federal regulatory body is a very routine operation at nearly all levels of elected government. It's SOP to request a letter from your congressional representatives even for relatively modest grant proposals. If you've got some state-level mojo, you ask your governor to send one to the President. Although he's not likely to read it, it lets the target audience know that you are at least able to get your representative's attention, with the potential for future action, if necessary.
