Nearly 40 House Democrats wrote to Heritage leader Kevin Roberts
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The Heritage Foundation's advocacy arm will not say if it will heed House Democrats' demand for a sit-down with its president, Kevin Roberts, about the conservative think tank's Project 2025.
A Heritage spokesman declined to comment to Fox News Digital on Wednesday when asked about the letter from nearly 40 House Democrats that read, "We write to invite you to meet with Members of Congress to discuss the Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project."
"The content within this transition plan will permanently damage federal administrative operations and have a direct impact on all our Districts," reads the letter led by Reps. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., and Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.
"Our offices are increasingly hearing from constituents worried about the impact of Project 2025 on the future of our nation. Many of them see it as an extreme takeover plan to dismantle checks and balances, amass unprecedented presidential power, and exercise total control over our government and our daily lives."
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House Democratic Reps. Jared Huffman, left, and Ayanna Pressley, right, led nearly 40 lawmakers in a request for a sit-down with Heritage President Kevin Roberts, center. (Getty Images)
The initiative, a set of proposals outlining right-wing policy goals and recommendations for a new Republican administration, has prompted a political firestorm in the middle of the 2024 presidential election cycle.
Former President Trump and his top campaign aides have criticized and distanced themselves from the plan, but that has not stopped Democrats from using it as a political cudgel to accuse the GOP of embracing extremism.
Project 2025 is broken into four parts – policy recommendations, a "Presidential Personnel Database" with recommendations for open administration jobs, an "academy" to train new political appointees, and a roadmap for a suggested first 180 days in office.
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Former President Trump has disavowed Project 2025. (Donald Trump 2024 campaign)
Among its proposed overhauls is the elimination of the Department of Education, and dismantling the Health and Human Services Department's Reproductive Healthcare Access Task Force, replacing it with a panel to recommend pro-life changes "to ensure that all of the department’s divisions seek to use their authority to promote the life and health of women and their unborn children," according to its site.
The Democratic letter accused Roberts of not being forthcoming with the fourth pillar of Project 2025, which details the first 180 days of a GOP administration. The Project 2025 website suggests that details of that portion, however, can be viewed in the Heritage Foundation's book, "Mandate For Leadership: The Conservative Promise."
"It is time to stop hiding the ball on what we are concerned could very well be the most radical, extreme, and dangerous parts of Project 2025. If we are wrong about that – if your secret ‘Fourth Pillar’ of Project 2025 is actually a defensible, responsible, and constitutional action plan for the first days of a second Trump presidency – then we hope you will publish it, without edits or redaction. Allow the American people to see it and scrutinize it," the letter said.
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"Allow members of Congress to see it, so that we can discuss it with you and with the growing number of our constituents who seek to understand what Project 2025 portends for their government and their lives."
A separate House Democratic initiative, the Stop Project 2025 Task Force, was panned by Roberts as "unserious."
"It’s amusing how those on the Left seem surprised that conservative policy organizations advocate for conservative policies. Yet instead of addressing the issues caused by this administration and Congress, House Democrats are dedicating taxpayer dollars to launch a smear campaign against the united effort to restore self-governance to everyday Americans," Roberts said in June.
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
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