The books have traditionally been released to coincide with an incoming U.S. presidential administration. The first edition was released in 1981, following the election of Ronald Reagan, to serve as policy guidance for the incoming Reagan administration. The latest edition, published in April 2023, is a major component of Project 2025.
In 1979, at a trustees' meeting of The Heritage Foundation, Jack Eckerd, former head of the General Services Administration in Ford administration, suggested that the foundation draw up a conservative plan of action for the next incoming presidential administration in January 1981. Robert Krieble proposed that Heritage produce a manual to help policymakers "cut the size of government and manage it more effectively".[1]
The first edition was overseen and edited by Charles Heatherly, a former field director of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. In late January 1980, Heatherly produced a five-page outline titled Mandate for Leadership. Heatherly explained that the purpose of the project was to present concrete proposals to "revitalize our economy, strengthen our national security and halt the centralization of power in the federal government".[1][2]
Both the Reagan and Carter campaigns were approached by Heritage to discuss the project. However, they only received a reply from the Reagan–Bush campaign, and in July 1980, Reagan aide Edwin Meese was a surprise guest at a dinner held by Heritage for the project's team chairmen and co-chairmen. There, Meese gave the Heritage study his blessing, which was seen as a sign of the Reagan administration's receptiveness to the project.[1]
Mandate I
In January 1981, Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration was released as a 20-volume, 3,000-page publication. Mandate contained more than 2,000 individual suggestions to move the federal government in a conservative direction, focusing on management and administration. The report "presented an explicit plan for reshaping public discourse on civil rights issues".[3] To that end, it recommended the Justice Department "halt its affirmative action policies to remedy past discrimination against women and other minorities."[4]
Specific suggestions related to spending included raising the defense budget by $20 billion in fiscal year 1981 and increasing it by an average of $35 billion over the next five years; establishing urban “enterprise zones” to encourage businesses to move into the nation's inner cities; reducing personal income tax rates by 10 percent across the board; calling for line-item veto power by the president; and developing a new strategic bomber by using B-1 and advanced bomber technology.[1]
At the first meeting of his cabinet, President Reagan passed out copies of Mandate, and many of the study's authors were recruited into the White House administration. In particular, the Reagan administration hired key Mandate contributors: William Bennett as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (and later as Secretary of Education) and James G. Watt as Secretary of the Interior.[5]
According to Mandate's authors, around 60% of the 2,000 proposals in it were implemented or initiated at the end of Reagan's first year in office.[1][6] In a report on the first year of the Reagan administration, The Heritage Foundation expressed disappointment with the government's defense and foreign policy, while it lauded the Office of Management and Budget.[7]
Mandate for Leadership appeared on The Washington Post's paperback bestseller list[1] and the Post called it “an action plan for turning the government toward the right as fast as possible.”[8]The New York Times in 2002 called it “the manifesto of the Reagan revolution.”[9]
Mandate II
In 1984, Heritage released Mandate for Leadership II: Continuing the Conservative Revolution. The study featured 1,300 recommendations from 150 contributors, and continued the original Mandate's aim of reforming the federal government and strengthening U.S. defenses.[10]
Mandate III
Heritage published its third manual for an incoming administration in 1988, titled Mandate for Leadership III: Policy Strategies for the 1990s. This edition was edited by Charles Heatherly and Burt Pines.[11]
Mandate IV
Prior to the 1996 presidential election Heritage published the fourth Mandate for Leadership edition. Mandate for Leadership IV: Turning Ideas into Action was aimed at Congress, and focused on presenting a political strategy for Congress to continue the conservative policies of the outgoing Republican presidential administration.[12] This edition of Mandate was offered as study material at an orientation conference attended by both Democratic and Republican freshman congressmen held by The Heritage Foundation and Empower America.[13] In particular, a chapter on moving an agenda through Congress was recommended by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott to House Speaker Newt Gingrich.[13]
Mandate V
The fifth edition in the Mandate series, Mandate for Leadership 2000, included the edited transcripts of nine nonpartisan public sessions held by Heritage in 2000 called “The Keys to a Successful Presidency”. The forums focused on how past presidents and administrations implemented their policy agendas from their first day in office. Participants included Leon Panetta, former chief of staff to President Clinton; Martin Anderson, who advised President Reagan on domestic policy; Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Carter; and columnist Robert Novak. Historian and former congressional aide, Alvin S. Felzenberg was Mandate for Leadership 2000's project director.[12]
Mandate VI
In 2005, Heritage published the sixth edition, Mandate for Leadership: Principles to Limit Government, Expand Freedom, and Strengthen America. This edition of Mandate was just 156 pages long. According to Heritage, the shorter length reflected that policies and ideas from the early Mandate editions had, by the time of this publication, largely become part of the mainstream debate.[5][14]
Mandate VII
The seventh edition, Mandate for Leadership: Blueprint for Reform, was published in November 2016, shortly after the 2016 election of Donald Trump as president. This edition was longer than prior editions, published in three volumes,[lower-alpha 1] in part because much of the progress of the foundation's public policy agenda had been lost during the presidency of Barack Obama.[15] In 2018, Heritage claimed the Trump administration had by then embraced 64%, or nearly 2/3rds, of 334 proposed policies in the foundation's Mandate for Leadership.[16][17]
Mandate VIII
The eighth edition, Mandate 2020: Clear Vision for the Next Administration, was published in July 2020.[18] A companion document, Solutions 2020, was also released.[19]
The ninth edition in the Mandate series, Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise, was published in April 2023, its earliest publication before the presidential election. Edited by Paul Dans and Steven Groves, it has 30 chapters and is over 900 pages in length.[20] This document provides the policy agenda for Project 2025.[21]
References and notes
↑ PartI, Blueprint for Balance: A Federal Budget for 2017; PartII, Blueprint for Reform: A Comprehensive Policy Agenda for a New Administration in 2017; and PartIII, Blueprint for a New Administration: Priorities for the President.
↑ Heatherly, Charles (1981). Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration. Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation. p.vii.
Arthur Betz Laffer is an American economist and author who first gained prominence during the Reagan administration as a member of Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board (1981–1989). Laffer is best known for the Laffer curve, an illustration of the theory that there exists some tax rate between 0% and 100% that will result in maximum tax revenue for government. In certain circumstances, this would allow governments to cut taxes, and simultaneously increase revenue and economic growth.
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government by an act of the U.S. Congress, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 29, 1965. It is a sub-agency of the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, along with the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The Heritage Foundation, sometimes referred to simply as "Heritage", is a U.S. conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1973, it took a leading role in the conservative movement in the 1980s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage Foundation studies, including its Mandate for Leadership.
Edwin John Feulner Jr. is a former think tank executive, Congressional aide, and foreign consultant who co-founded The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in 1973 and served as its president from 1977 to 2013 and again from 2017 to 2018.
Young America's Foundation (YAF) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit conservative youth organization founded in 1969. In 2018, the Los Angeles Times called YAF "one of the most preeminent, influential and controversial forces in the nation's conservative youth movement." Scott Walker, former governor of Wisconsin and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, became President of YAF on February 1, 2021.
Stephen Moore is an American conservative writer and television commentator on economic issues. He co-founded and served as president of the Club for Growth from 1999 to 2004. Moore is a former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board. He worked at The Heritage Foundation from 1983 to 1987 and again since 2014. Moore advised Herman Cain's 2012 presidential campaign and Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
In American law, unitary executive theory is "an expansive interpretation of presidential power that aims to centralize greater control over the government in the White House". The concept often comes up in jurisprudential disagreements about the president's ability to remove employees within the executive branch; transparency and access to information; discretion over the implementation of new laws; and the ability to influence agencies' rule-making. There is disagreement about the doctrine's strength and scope, with more expansive versions of the theory becoming the focus of modern political debate. These expansive versions are controversial for both constitutional and practical reasons. Since the Reagan administration, the Supreme Court has embraced a stronger unitary executive, which has been championed primarily by its conservative justices, the Federalist Society, and the Heritage Foundation.
Donald J. Devine is an American political scientist, author, former government official and politician who has studied, written and promoted the philosophy of conservative fusionism as taught to him by the U.S. philosopher Frank Meyer.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth is an American economist who is adjunct professor of economics at George Washington University and a columnist. She served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the United States Department of Transportation during the Trump administration. She previously served as Acting Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Kiron Kanina Skinner is an American academic and former government official. She was Director of Policy Planning at the United States Department of State in the Trump administration. Skinner is presently the Taube Professor of International Relations and Politics at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy, where she teaches graduate courses in national security and public leadership. Prior to that, she was the Taube Professor of International Relations and Politics at Carnegie Mellon University, and the founding director of the Institute for Politics and Strategy and associated centers at the university. She is also the W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. After leaving the Department of State, she returned to her position at Carnegie Mellon University until stepping down in 2021.
Ricky "Rick" Allen Dearborn is an American government official and lobbyist who served as the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Intergovernmental Affairs and Implementation in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump for less than a year from 2017 to 2018. Prior to this role, he was the executive director of Donald Trump's presidential transition team and served in various positions on the U.S. Senate staff.
Russell "Russ" Thurlow Vought is an American former government official who was the director of the Office of Management and Budget from July 2020 to January 2021. He was previously deputy director of the OMB for part of 2018, and acting director from 2019 to 2020.
Brooks D. Tucker is a former American government official who most recently served as the Chief of Staff for the Department of Veterans Affairs from April 29, 2020 to January 20, 2021 and as Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Legislative Affairs for the Department of Veterans Affairs from August 10, 2017 to January 20, 2021. For his contributions and accomplishments in the Senior Executive Service, he was awarded the Exceptional Service Medal by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Patrick Pizzella is a former American government official who served as the 36th United States Deputy Secretary of Labor from April 17, 2018 to January 20, 2021. He was formerly a member of the Federal Labor Relations Authority appointed by President Barack Obama. He held positions in several agencies during four prior Administrations. In 2019, after the resignation of Alexander Acosta, Pizzella served as the acting United States Secretary of Labor for more than 2 months. He currently serves as the elected Mayor of the village of Pinehurst, North Carolina.
Paul Winfree was Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic policy, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council, and Director of Budget Policy in the Trump administration. He was also formerly the distinguished fellow in economic policy and public leadership at The Heritage Foundation. In addition, he was director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and the Richard F. Aster Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Winfree was Chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board from 2020 until 2022.
Roger Thomas Severino is an American attorney who served as the director of the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) at the United States Department of Health and Human Services from 2017 to 2021. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a contributor on health policy, including abortion, to Project 2025.
Kent Lassman is the president and CEO of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an American free market think tank. His analysis and commentaries focus on regulatory law and economics.
The presidential transition of Ronald Reagan began when he won the 1980 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Reagan was inaugurated on January 20, 1981.
Charles L. Heatherly is an American bureaucrat who was the acting administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA) from 1986 to 1987 following the resignation of James C. Sanders.
Project 2025 is a political initiative published by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation in 2022. The project aims to promote conservative and right-wing policies to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power, under the premise that Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
