A lengthy “governing agenda” for the next conservative president is becoming a growing matter of contention in the 2024 election cycle — and it specifically targets California.
Billed as an effort to “pave the way for an effective conservative administration,” Project 2025 is a vision from the right-wing Heritage Foundation and other conservative authors of how the country should operate if former President Donald Trump is elected to a second term.
Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, has said he was not involved with Project 2025 and has “no idea who is in charge of it,” but several of his former cabinet members and an estimated 140 people from his administration played a hand in its creation.
The nearly 1,000-page playbook calls for ramped-up deportation efforts, removal of transgender people from the military, a ban on pornography, elimination of the Department of Education, encouragement of “unmarried couples to commit to marriage” and more.
The project is a bit of a response to Trump’s first term in office, said Matthew Beckmann, who teaches political science at UC Irvine.
“Donald Trump did not expect to win in 2016, and he entered office without clear plans for how to govern,” said Beckmann. “During Trump’s presidency, what emerged was less a coherent governing philosophy than ad hoc workarounds to exigent constitutional, legal, bureaucratic and political obstacles. Project 2025 seeks to replace past improvisations with prospective intentionality.”
The document also has great implications for the nation’s economy, said Rep. Lou Correa, D-Anaheim.
Pointing to proposed mass deportations, Correa said: “Can you imagine an Iowa farmer who has farmworkers who are undocumented, and you’re going to get rid of his workers? What is that going to do to American food production?”
The document takes aim at California, from education and climate policies to access to reproductive health care. It also suggests there could be a home in the state for a Space Force academy.
Here are some specific examples of the role California plays in Project 2025:
Abortion
Project 2025 suggests the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should have better “abortion surveillance and maternity mortality reporting systems.”
It specifically wants every state to report how many abortion procedures were conducted, the state where the woman having the procedure lives and the reasons for an abortion — and it notes that California does not report abortion data at all now.
The document also took issue with California’s requirement that health plans provide “all of the basic health care services,” including abortion. It pointed to the Trump administration’s move to withhold some $200 million in Medicaid funding because of the mandate — which was reversed under President Joe Biden’s administration.
Project 2025 calls for California to again lose out on Medicaid funding because of the insurance requirement as well as to incur penalties for the state’s policies regarding pharmacies carrying chemical abortion drugs.
“This is certainly a blueprint on how they can whittle away at (abortion access) through economic barriers and different tactics,” said Jodi Hicks, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California.
“They intend to use old laws and they want to reenact broad use of amendments that have been interpreted differently to really threaten the policymakers and policies we have in California to support their extremist views and take away reproductive health care rights and access for people here in California,” she said.
In 2022, California voters overwhelmingly supported enshrining access to abortion and contraception in the state constitution.
Project 2025 said liberal states “have now become sanctuaries for abortion tourism.”
Education
Teachers and school officials should not call a student by a name other than what is on their birth certificate without written permission from their parent or guardian, Project 2025 instructed.
Similarly, Project 2025 calls for Congress, in tandem with the White House, to offer instruction that would prohibit teachers from using a pronoun for a student that differs from their gender assigned at birth without written permission from parents and guardians.
And public education employees should be protected from having to use someone’s preferred pronouns if it’s contrary to their religious or moral values, the guidelines said.
Amid ongoing fights in local school districts about what’s been called “parental notification policies” — specific instructions of how and who should notify parents if their child may be transgender — the California Legislature this year passed a bill that would block school districts from notifying parents should their child identify as a different gender or use different pronouns. It is awaiting the governor’s signature.
Project 2025 said that in California, “educators are prohibited from informing parents about children’s confusion over their sex if the children do not want their parents to know.”
“The next administration should take particular note of how radical gender ideology is having a devastating effect on school-aged children today — especially young girls,” Project 2025 said.
Defense
Project 2025 wants the U.S. to prioritize a “mature” U.S. Space Force.
It suggested creating a Space Force academy — potentially in partnership with a research school like the California Institute of Technology — to attract aerospace engineers and scientists.
“The United States must regain its role as the ‘Arsenal of Democracy,’” the document said.
Climate
Under Project 2025’s guidelines, a waiver granted to California regulators to create their own rules for automobile pollution, including a ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, should be rescinded.
It’s been predicted that California could cut emissions from cars in half by 2040. And it’s expected that other states would follow California’s lead.
But Project 2025 said: “California has no valid basis under the Clean Air Act to claim an extraordinary or unique air quality impact from carbon dioxide emissions, and (the Energy Policy and Conservation Act) is clear that under no circumstances may a state agency regulate fuel economy in place of” the Department of Transportation.
“The federal government should therefore exercise its preemptive authority over (California Air Resources Board) and take all steps necessary to invalidate any inconsistent fuel economy requirements imposed by CARB, including its ban on sales of internal combustion engines,” the guidelines said.
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