Zachary Albert: How the Heritage Foundation pushes right-wing policies
As the 2024 presidential election heats up, some people are hearing about the Heritage Foundation for the first time. The conservative think tank has a new, ambitious and controversial policy plan, Project 2025, which calls for an overhaul of American public policy and government.
Project 2025 lays out many standard conservative ideas – like prioritizing energy production over environmental and climate-change concerns, and rejecting the idea of abortion as health care – along with some much more extreme ones, like criminalizing pornography. And it proposes to eliminate or restructure countless government agencies in line with conservative ideology.
While think tanks sometimes have the reputation of being stuffy academic institutions detached from day-to-day politics, Heritage is far different. By design, Heritage was founded to not only develop conservative policy ideas but also to advance them through direct political advocacy.
All think tanks are classified as 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations, which are prohibited from engaging in elections and can take part in only a small amount of political lobbying. But some, like Heritage, also form affiliated 501(c)(4) organizations that allow them to participate in campaigns and lobby extensively. Heritage is one of the sponsors of the Republican National Convention, which wrapped up in Milwaukee on July 18.
In research for my forthcoming book, Partisan Policy Networks, I’ve found that a growing share of think tanks are explicitly ideological, aligned with a single political party, and engaged in direct policy advocacy.
Still, Heritage stands out from all of the groups I investigated. It is much more conservative and more closely aligned with former President Donald Trump’s style of Republicanism. Heritage is also more aggressive in its advocacy for conservative ideas, pairing campaign spending with lobbying and large-scale grassroots mobilization.
Americans should expect to hear a lot more about its ideas, like those outlined in Project 2025, if Trump is reelected in November 2024.
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, speaks with members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus during a Capitol Hill news conference in September 2023. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
A new type of think tank
Two Republican congressional staffers, Ed Feulner and Paul Weyrich, formed Heritage in 1973 as an explicit rebuke to existing think tanks that they thought were either too liberal or too meek in advancing conservative ideas.
Feulner and Weyrich were particularly incensed about how a preeminent conservative think tank at the time, the American Enterprise Institute, or AEI, timed its release of a policy report in 1971 on whether to approve government funding for supersonic transport airplanes, which can fly faster than the speed of sound. AEI published its recommendations several days after Congress voted on the issue, because it “didn’t want to try to affect the outcome of the vote.”
Heritage turns this philosophy on its head. Rather than producing policy research for its own sake, Heritage conducts research, as one employee told me in 2018, “to build a case, to make the argument for policy change.”
For example, Heritage’s affiliated 501(c)(4) advocacy organization, Heritage Action for America, and Sentinel Action Fund, a Super PAC set up by Heritage Action in 2022, spend money to influence elections and lobby elected officials on issues as diverse as taxation, abortion, immigration and the environment.
For this reason, some scholars and politicos call Heritage and other similar groups “do tanks” rather than “think tanks.”
Because Sentinel Action Fund is a Super PAC, it can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections so long as they do not coordinate with candidate campaigns. Sentinel Action Fund then spent more than US$13 million on voter outreach and advertising in the 2022 midterm elections. The fund’s self-described aim was to ensure GOP majorities in the House and Senate by aiding “key conservative fighters” in “tough general elections.” Sentinel Action Fund Vice President of Communications Carson Steelman said that in 2024, “the Sentinel Action Fund is totally legally separate from Heritage Action.”
Former Vice President Dick Cheney addresses the Heritage Foundation in April 2007 in Chicago. Jeff Haynes/AFP via Getty Images
People, not just money
But it’s the people, even more than money, that make Heritage influential, my research shows.
Heritage has directly worked to place former and current employees in congressional offices and the executive branch. More than 70 former and current Heritage staffers began working for the Trump administration by 2017 – and four current Heritage staffers were members of Trump’s cabinet in 2021.
Heritage also says that it has more than 2 million local, volunteer activists and roughly 20,000 “Sentinel activists” who receive information from Heritage and take part in organized campaigns to push for conservative policies. My interviews show that activists who partner with Heritage take part in strategy calls, contact elected representatives with coordinated messages and amplify the organization’s messaging on social media.
In one example from 2021, Heritage Foundation developed a report on election fraud and voter integrity. Heritage Action for America, meanwhile, coordinated volunteers to deliver this report to Georgia legislators, had staffers meet with these legislators to advise them on passing new voting restrictions, and paid for television advertising urging citizens to support such laws.
Heritage, Trump and Project 2025
All these efforts add up to a great deal of influence within the Republican Party. Heritage has played a key role in pushing Republicans toward more conservative policies since its creation.
When Ronald Reagan took office as president in 1981, for example, the Heritage Foundation had a ready-made conservative agenda for the new administration. By the end of his first term, Reagan executed more than 60% of the think tank’s policy recommendations.
When Trump took office in 2017, Heritage was again ready with friendly staffers and a handy policy agenda, called the Blueprint for Reorganization. By the end of Trump’s first year in office, Heritage boasted that he “had embraced 64 percent of our 321 recommendations,” among them key conservative priorities like tax reform, regulatory rollback and increased defense spending.
Project 2025 is similar to these other sets of recommendations for Republican politicians and presidential candidates. It outlines an agenda for a new president to adopt and a team of experts to help them.
But Project 2025 has taken on a different bent compared with earlier blueprints. Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage, has described the group’s role as “institutionalizing Trumpism.”
This is probably why Project 2025, and Heritage, have received such an unusually large amount of attention in recent months. The fact that a wonky, 900-page policy memo has been the focus of countless news articles and hundreds of Biden campaign tweets, especially before the 2024 election, is a telling indication of its expected influence.
For its part, the Trump campaign has maintained distance from the project, as Trump himself has implausibly claimed that he knows nothing about it.
He is likely keeping his distance from Project 2025 because parts of the agenda are far too extreme for all but the most die-hard conservative activists. But even if Trump isn’t campaigning on these policies, Americans should expect Heritage ideas to matter greatly in a second Trump administration. The Heritage Foundation is built for this goal.
Zachary Albert is an assistant professor of politics at Brandeis University, in Waltham
Zachary Albert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond his academic appointment.
N.E. responds: B.U. starts experimental COVID-19 treatment; companies give more relief money
The stunning Dana Hall-Integrated Science, Engineering, and Technology Complex at the University of Hartford. The university is offering free housing to first responders.
From our friends at The New England Council: (newenglandcouncil.com):
As our region and our nation continue to grapple with the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic, The New England Council is using our blog as a platform to highlight some of the incredible work our members have undertaken to respond to the outbreak. Each day, we’ll post a round-up of updates on some of the initiatives underway among Council members throughout the region. We are also sharing these updates via our social media, and encourage our members to share with us any information on their efforts so that we can be sure to include them in these daily round-ups.
You can find all the Council’s information and resources related to the crisis in the special COVID-19 section of our website. This includes our COVID-19 Virtual Events Calendar, which provides information on upcoming COVID-19 Congressional town halls and webinars presented by NEC members, as well as our newly-released Federal Agency COVID-19 Guidance for Businesses page.
Here is the Friday, April 17, roundup:
Medical Response
Boston Hospitals Begin Using Experimental Treatment on COVID-19 Patients – Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General) and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have begun using hydroxychloroquine, the now-famous anti-malarial drug, as a potential treatment on COVID-19 patients. Mass General is sponsoring a controlled study with the drug that plans to test patients around the country in order to assess its effectiveness beyond initial, anecdotal reports of success. The Boston Globe has more.
Brandeis University, Boston University Collaborate on Coronavirus Research – Researchers at Brandeis University and Boston University are working together to study how the coronavirus penetrates cells and causes infection. Labs at the two universities are working to visualize how COVID-19 affects humans at a cellular level to better understand how it operates and to measure the effectiveness of varying antibodies in combating the virus. Read more.
MilliporeSigma Prepares for Large-Scale Production of Potential Vaccine – MilliporeSigma, in partnership with The Jenner Institute, has announced the foundation for large-scale production of a vaccine candidate. With the potential treatment in clinical trials, the partnership will ensure that the manufacturing and distribution processes—which would normally take up to a year—can be ramped up should the vaccine prove effective. Read the press release here.
Economic/Business Continuity Response
University of Hartford Providing Free Housing to First Responders – In an effort to support those working on the front lines of the pandemic, the University of Hartford has announced free temporary housing for 200 first responders. The school’s residence halls will be used to house the essential workers who are self-isolating while they work to combat the virus. WTNH has more.
Tufts Health Plan Offers Healthcare Service Information Hub – To provide its members with information on available resources during the pandemic, Tufts Health Plan has created a resource page outlining what services are available to them from the insurance provider. The page addresses a variety of concerns and questions, such as the cost of testing and treatment, availability of telehealth services, and increased access to prescriptions.
Community Response
Stanley Black & Decker Launches $10 Million Relief Program – Manufacturer Stanley Black & Decker has launched a charitable outreach program, providing over $10 million to support populations most heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The program will support emergency relief funds for employees and families impacted by the crisis, as well as nonprofit organizations around the world. The company also plans to purchase 3 million face masks and additional protective equipment for essential workers in locations where it operates. The Hartford Business Journal has more.
Eversource Donates $1.2 Million to United Ways Agencies in New England – Eversource is hastening its annual donation of $1.2 million in New England to s in the region. The energy company will also donate funds to Connecticut’s statewide relief fund. Read more in The Hartford Business Journal.
UMass Medical School Produces Hand Sanitizer for Local Hospitals – At the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Medical School, students in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences have begun producing hand sanitizer for hospitals in the area. The students have already produced almost 130 gallons in three days, and plan to make another 100 along with distributing their procedure to expedite production. Read more.
Stay tuned for more updates each day, and follow us on Twitter for more frequent updates on how Council members are contributing to the response to this global health crisis.
John O. Harney: News and random thoughts from the region
“If Wishes Were Horses (For Dad)”, by Timothy Harney, a professor at the Montserrat College of Art, in Beverly, Mass. He’s the brother of John O. Harney.
From The New England Journal of Higher Education, a service of The New England Board of Higher Education (nebhe.org)
FICE-y conditions. MIT recently alerted its staff that federal immigration officials would be checking the status of foreign postdoctoral students, researchers and visiting scholars in the sciences, and urged them to cooperate. … Meanwhile, an Iranian student, returning to study at Northeastern University, was detained at Boston’s Logan International Airport then deported, despite having a valid student visa and court order permitting him to stay in the U.S. The stories reminded me of Politico’s report on “5 ways universities can support students in a post-DACA world” by Jose Magaña-Salgado, of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. And of own NEJHE piece by Harvard attorney Jason Corral, whose job is advising undocumented students in the age of the Trump administration.
Caste away. Brandeis University announced it will include “castes” in its non-discrimination policy. Discrimination based on this system of inherited social class will now be expressly prohibited along with more familiar measures such as race, color, religion, gender identity and expression, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, age, genetic information, disability, military or veteran status.
Institution news. Massachusetts approved new regulations on how to screen colleges and universities for financial risks and potential closures. … The University of Maine System Board of Trustees adopted a recommendation from Chancellor Dannel Malloy to transition the separate institutional accreditations of Maine’s public universities into a single “unified institutional accreditation” for the 30,000-student University of Maine System through the New England Commission on Higher Education (NECHE). One institution the UMaine System is likely to collaborate with according to Malloy’s office: Northeastern University’s planned Roux Institute for advanced graduate study and research to open in Portland, Maine. … In Connecticut, meanwhile, Goodwin College became Goodwin University. Such rebranding has been something of a trend in recent years. … In other institution news, monks at Saint Anselm College challenged the New Hampshire Catholic college’s board of trustees over a move the monks say could lead to increased secularization. The college’s charter dictated that the monks have the power to amend laws governing the school. Saint Anselm College President Joseph Favazza said in a letter that the board was not trying to change the mission of the college, but rather aiming to meet the standards set by NECHE, the accrediting body.
Cold War chills. Primary Research Group Inc. has published its 2020 edition of Export Controls Compliance Practices Benchmarks for Higher Education with this grim reminder: “Increasingly, U.S. universities and their corporate and government research partners are under pressure to demonstrate compliance with U.S. export control and other technology transfer restriction and control policies. The deterioration of U.S.-relations with China and Russia threatens the return of export control philosophies common during the Cold War. Major universities in the U.K., Australia and Canada, among other countries, are experiencing similar changes.”
Media is not the enemy, but … The free Metro Boston newspaper ended operation after 19 years, following the sale of the New York and Philadelphia Metro papers. One explanation offered by a columnist at The Boston Globe, which is a part-owner of the Boston Metro: more commuters using their phones to catch up on news.
Latest from LearnLaunch. Watch NEJHE for reports from the 2020 Learn Launch Across Boundaries Conference, including an exclusive Q&A with the new LearnLaunch president, former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift.
John O. Harney is executive editor of The New England Journal of Higher Education.
A notably timid, hypocritical Kerry at Yale
By DON PESCI
VERNON, Conn.