Dear John,
Project 2025 embodies an agenda led by the Heritage Foundation to revise, reorganize and eliminate vast portions of the statutes, rules and norms that were built over decades, and that have guided our democracy and preserved our freedoms during Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Embodied in a 900-page document entitled “Mandate for Leadership – The Conservative Promise,” and developed in collaboration with more than 100 other organizations, Project 2025 would dramatically change both.
It is important to stress that recent changes in the Project’s leadership alter neither the document’s text nor the “Mandate for Leadership” that lies behind it. The president of the Heritage Foundation has made clear that the policy work has been completed as scheduled and their efforts to build a personnel apparatus to carry out this work at of levels of government continues.
All of us, and lawyers in particular, have a role to play in discussing with others the nature of the proposed changes and how they endanger our freedom. To facilitate those discussions, Lawyers Defending American Democracy is publishing a series of “Talking Points” that highlight changes Project 2025 is intent on making and their potential effect.
Each Talking Point will quote directly from the document and explain its impact on our democracy, our freedom, and the rule of law. Please share this information widely with your friends, family, and colleagues in the upcoming months.
Introductory Chapter: A Note on Project 2025 (Page xiv):
"Our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State."
Why it Matters: Talking Points
The words "Administrative State" have become a pejorative description used to denigrate workers who perform the functions of the federal government. Those functions include, for example: national defense; law enforcement; the protection of public health and the environment; the postal service; public works; and all forms of public transportation, including rail and air travel.
The dismantling of these functions ignores the carefully crafted checks and balances that have been built into the governmental workforce over many decades. As future LDAD Talking Points will further develop, Project 2025 seeks to upend these checks and balances in a way that will directly threaten the rule of law by removing legions of federal workers whose fidelity remains fixed on the oath they took to support and defend, and to bear true faith and allegiance to, the Constitution of the United States. But, as future comments will show, Project 2025 envisions measures far beyond dramatic changes in personnel, measures that, if enacted, would have a dramatic impact on our democracy and on our freedoms.
Thank you for your dedication to maintaining our democracy. Please support our efforts by donating to LDAD and by sending this email to your networks. As always, please also feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] if you may be interested in volunteering or if you wish to share your ideas.
Lawyers Defending American Democracy
