Project 2025 offers conservatives an attack plan for California. Will Trump take it?
The conservative architects of a plan — called Project 2025 — to radically re-shape the federal government aim specifically at California, promising to shake up the Golden State on issues ranging from students’ genders and pronouns to vehicle emission standards to abortion.
Project 2025 is an agenda created by a coalition of conservative organizations spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, with several former President Donald Trump staffers involved in its inception and planned execution.
Trump has attempted to disavow any affiliation with the project, saying in a social media post that he knows nothing of it and disagrees with parts of it.
Despite that denial, some of the people involved in drafting the 922-page Project 2025 manifesto also had a hand in crafting the Republican Party’s 2024 campaign platform, according to ABC News.
Here’s a look at how Project 2025 could impact California, should Trump win the election in November.
Gender identity in schools
The Project 2025 document, called “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” name checks California as a state where educators are barred from informing parents about their child’s gender identity without the child’s consent.
The issue has been the subject of fierce debate in the Golden State, with one California lawmaker attempting to overturn that policy with legislation (that died without a hearing) and another lawmaker introducing a bill to ban school districts from enacting parental notification policies that would “out” transgender students without their consent.
That bill now sits on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
“In California, New Jersey, certain areas of Kansas and elsewhere, educators are prohibited from informing parents about children’s confusion over their sex if the children do not want their parents to know. Such policies allow schools to drive a wedge between parents and children,” the Project 2025 manifesto reads in part.
The document calls on the next presidential administration to work with Congress to enact federal legislation banning school employees from addressing a student by their requested name or pronouns without express parental permission. It also wants to prohibit schools from requiring staff to use requested pronouns if it is contrary to the teacher’s religious or moral beliefs.
“State lawmakers should use this model and adopt similar provisions for public schools within their borders. Federal lawmakers should not allow public school employees to keep secrets about a child from that child’s parents,” the document reads.
The GOP’s 2024 platform, as reported by NPR, calls for cutting federal funding for any school that promotes “radical gender ideology,” and vows to “restore parental rights in education.”
“We will defund schools that engage in inappropriate political indoctrination of our children using federal taxpayer dollars,” the platform reads.
Environmental standards
Project 2025 calls for the next president to revoke the waiver granted to California, under the federal Clean Air Act, to set its own emission standards for vehicles.
Historically, California has set standards for vehicles that often end up implemented by states nationwide.
The Project 2025 manifesto specifically calls out the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for adopting a policy prohibiting the sale of vehicles with internal combustion engines by 2035.
“The federal government should therefore exercise its preemptive authority over CARB 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 document reads.
The GOP platform doesn’t specifically mention California, but it does vow to “save the American auto industry” by “reversing harmful regulations” and canceling the electric vehicle mandate.
Abortion
Abortion, a topic which Trump has sought to downplay or avoid, features prominently in the Project 2025 manifesto.
California, which in 2022 enshrined the right to abortion in the state constitution, would be a prime target of the Project 2025 authors, especially as the state has become a destination for people across the country seeking legal abortions that they are unable to get in their home jurisdictions.
The state’s law could cost California big under the Project 2025 plan.
“Because liberal states have now become sanctuaries for abortion tourism, (the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) should use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method,” the document reads in part.
In addition, the plan calls for Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to withdraw appropriated funding, including up to 10% of Medicaid funding, from states, like California, that require insurers to cover abortion services.
Such a plan, though, would probably require the approval of Congress and almost certainly subject to a court challenge.
The GOP platform takes a somewhat softer stance on abortion, part of Trump’s attempt to appeal to moderate voters.
“We proudly stand for families and Life. We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life or liberty without due process, and that the states are, therefore, free to pass laws protecting those rights,” the platform reads in part. “After 51 years, because of us, that power has been given to the states and to a vote of the people. We will oppose late term abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments).”
