A conservative plan to reshape the federal government under a future Trump administration could also factor into state legislative races in Arizona.
Project 2025 is a broad, 900-page roadmap developed by former President Donald Trump’s conservative allies that sets an aggressive agenda to shrink and remake the federal government should Trump defeat President Joe Biden in November.
The plan lays out policy goals in a wide-variety of areas that Trump critics call an “extreme” agenda. It calls to shutter government agencies like the Department of Education; install Trump loyalists throughout the federal government; and restrict access to abortion services.
“Donald Trump’s Project 2025 will radically change our government into an authoritarian state without the crucial checks and balances that keep Arizonans safe,” said James Martin, a spokesman for the Biden campaign in Arizona.
But, while Project 2025 is squarely focused on the federal government, Democrats running for office in Arizona say it also has the potential to impact state legislative races, too.
“Republicans are putting what they have previously hidden as the most extreme version of the agenda that they have pursued, they have finally put it together in one document,” said state Sen. Priya Sundareshan (D-Tucson), co-chair of the Arizona Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
Sundareshan said Project 2025 focuses on reducing federal power and giving more authority to state governments.
“And so now more than ever, we really need to make sure that our state legislatures are going to be able to fight back and affirmatively protect rights within our own states and in our state laws and our Constitution,” she said.
Republicans currently hold a slim one-vote majority in both chambers at the Arizona Legislature, and a handful of competitive districts that are up for grabs this year in the state will likely determine which party controls the state House and Senate next year.
Several Project 2025 proposals could have a direct impact on Arizona. That includes a call for Congress to explicitly authorize state and local police to enforce immigration laws and border security. That action could resolve potential legal questions surrounding Proposition 314, a measure sent to the November ballot by state Republican lawmakers that calls on state and local police to arrest people who cross the border outside of a legal port of entry.
“And what we've seen in the states is Republicans have been testing out these concepts since Trump's been around,” said Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
Williams suggested if Trump defeats Biden, plans laid out in Project 2025 could also impact access to abortion services in Arizona, where lawmakers passed a 15-week abortion ban in 2022. A ballot question that would enshrine more expansive abortion access protections in the state Constitution is also likely headed to Arizona ballots in November.
Project 2025 mentions abortion over 150 times, calling on the U.S. to cut ties with any international aid programs that pay for abortion services and end the use of public monies to pay for abortions for members of the military.
The document also praises the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. And it says, “the next President has a moral responsibility to lead the nation in restoring a culture of life in America again.”
“We've seen this since the fall of [Roe],” Williams said. “If you look at what Republicans have done to women across this country, to our rights to make decisions about our bodies, to our rights to have access to important health care, to decide when you want to have a family like this is not new.”
Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” also includes sections inspired by legislation passed by Arizona lawmakers. It heavily references Arizona’s school voucher program, suggesting the federal government should create similar programs for students in Washington, D.C., and those attending schools under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The Arizona Republican Party and the Republican State Leadership Committee, which supports Republican legislative candidates across the country, did not respond to requests to comment on Project 2025 and how it will factor into local races in Arizona.
Meanwhile, Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025 in recent days, posting on social media that he knows “nothing about Project 2025” and he has “no idea who is behind it.”
However, many close Trump allies played a role in crafting the document, which was published by the Heritage Foundation — whose president, Kevin Roberts, said the goal was “institutionalizing Trumpism,” according to the New York Times.
And Trump himself said The Heritage Foundation would play a role in a future administration during a speech in 2022.
“They are going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America, and that’s coming,” Trump said.
CNN reported that six former Trump cabinet members helped write the document, and many others in the former president’s orbit were also involved, including people he nominated as ambassadors and former White House staffers, like Rick Dearborn, Trump's former deputy chief of staff. Former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, currently indicted in Arizona for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, works with a group that advised Project 2025.
And ABC News reported that the new Trump-endorsed Republican Party platform was also written by individuals with ties to Project 2025, including Russ Vought. Vought, who was the director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump Administration, wrote a chapter in Project 2025’s guiding document and was also a policy director who helped craft the new RNC platform.
