Project 2025 is not a hypothetical proposal but is a reality already being tested in state legislatures and federal courts, Skye Perryman warned Congress Sept. 19.
Perryman, a Baylor University alumus who leads Democracy Forward, was the only witness before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability who is not an author or architect of Project 2025. The hearing ostensibly was about Republican complaints against the Biden administration, which committee Chairman James Comer, R.-Ky., called a complete failure.
But Democrats turned the hearing into a review of Project 2025, the controversial blueprint produced by the Heritage Foundation to guide the next Republican president. One of the Republican-called witnesses was Brendan Carr, commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. Carr wrote a chapter of Project 2025.
Skye Perryman
The Democratic charge was led by Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, who challenged Carr’s criticism of a Biden administration plan to increase broadband internet access as nothing more than another DEI initiative.
That set up Perryman’s testimony on Project 2025.
“Project 2025 is not a hypothetical collection of policy proposals but represents a vision that many special interests and far-right leaders are already implementing through the courts and in communities across the country,” Perryman said. “The American people are rightfully concerned about the harmful threats that Project 2025 and other extreme proposals pose to our way of life, our freedom and our democracy.
“Project 2025 is an outgrowth of a broader, concerning trend in our nation and for our democracy. It is important that Congress understand the threats posed by Project 2025 and the harms of far-right, anti-democratic movements that are active in the United States so as to protect our nation’s democracy and the American people’s freedom.”
She warned that far-right groups already are using the courts to push Project 2025’s agenda.
“It is no surprise, then, that execution of many of the harmful and unpopular proposals in Project 2025 — from seeking to restrict access to medication abortion to compromising protections for overtime pay — is already underway in the courts. In many of these cases, groups behind Project 2025 and aligned far-right attorneys general are seeking to undermine people-centered policies and progress that the Biden-Harris administration has achieved, threatening the wellbeing of the American people. In other cases, they are promoting legal theories that are a threat to our Constitution and protections that the American people have long enjoyed.”
And she warned of testing Project 2025’s agenda in states.
“Project 2025 and other extreme proposals are already taking hold at the state level,” she said. “Far-right leaders are using the states as a testing ground for carrying out and normalizing Project 2025 and other extremist tactics. For example, Project 2025 seeks to undermine a range of worker protections from those that ensure safety to those that protect children and young people. Already in states like Florida, far-right leaders have banned workplace heat safety measures and there are proposals to reduce worker protection for minors.
“Far-right leaders are using the states as a testing ground for carrying out and normalizing Project 2025 and other extremist tactics.”
“Arkansas has passed a law that weakens employment protections for children under the age of 16, turning back a century of progress. As noted above, there are a number of extreme laws that are being enforced in states across the country that ban or restrict reproductive health care, consistent with Project 2025’s vision of restricting reproductive freedom.
“Education is another area where many of the proposals in Project 2025 are already taking hold at the state level. States like Florida and Texas are seeking to restrict access to books and ideas in schools and a range of states are undermining the benefits of public education for all.”
Among other criticisms, she also focused on how the plan would weaponize the U.S. Department of Justice.
“Project 2025 threatens to weaponize the U.S. Department of Justice against the American people through encouraging the next president to ignore a long-standing norm of not interfering in certain Justice Department operations, such as specific decisions regarding investigations and prosecutions,” she said.
The plan “targets career civil servants who have sworn an oath to the Constitution and do work throughout our federal government to deliver for people, wanting to replace many of them with those who hold political or ideological loyalty.”
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