The Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation, sometimes referred to simply as Heritage,[1][2] is an activist American 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.[5]
Abbreviation
February 16, 1973
214 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Washington, D.C., U.S.
- Washington, D.C., U.S.
Barb Van Andel-Gaby
US$106 million[3]
US$93.7 million[4]
The Heritage Foundation has had significant influence in U.S. public policy making, and has historically been ranked among the most influential public policy organizations in the United States.[6] In 2010, it founded a sister organization, Heritage Action, an influential activist force in conservative and Republican politics.[7][8][9][10]
Positions[edit]
Anti-critical race theory legislation[edit]
In 2021, the Heritage Foundation said that one of its two priorities, along with tightening voting laws, was to push Republican-controlled states to ban or restrict critical race theory instruction.[111] The Heritage Foundation sought to get Republicans in Congress to put anti-critical race theory provisions into must-pass legislation such as the annual defense spending bill.[111]
Black Lives Matter[edit]
In September 2021, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow, Mike Gonzalez, released a book, BLM: The New Making of a Marxist Revolution, that characterizes Black Lives Matter as "a nationwide insurgency" and labeling its leaders "avowed Marxists who say they want to dismantle our way of life".[112]
Climate change denial[edit]
The Heritage Foundation rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.[113][114] The foundation is one of many climate change denial organizations that have been funded by ExxonMobil, an oil and petroleum company that is the eighth-largest corporation in the world with over $413 billion in revenue as of 2022.[113][115]
The Heritage Foundation strongly criticized the December 1997 Kyoto Agreement to curb climate change, arguing that American participation in the treaty would "result in lower economic growth in every state and nearly every sector of the economy".[116] The foundation projected that the 2009 cap-and-trade bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, would result in a cost of $1,870 per family in 2025 and $6,800 by 2035, which varied greatly from those of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which projected that it would cost the average family $175 in 2020.[117]
Transgender rights opposition[edit]
The Heritage Foundation has engaged in several activities in opposition to transgender rights, including hosting several anti-transgender rights events,[118][119] developing and supporting legislation templates against transgender rights,[120][121][122] and making claims about transgender youth healthcare and suicide rates based on internal research, which are contradicted by numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies.[123]
Ukraine[edit]
In May 2022, Heritage Action, the Heritage Foundation's political activism organization, announced its opposition to the $40 billion military aid package for Ukraine passed that month following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, completely reversing the organization's previous position of support for such aid.[124][125] The Heritage Foundation's foreign policy director at the time, Luke Coffey, said he was ordered to retract his earlier statements supporting aid to Ukraine; he subsequently left the foundation.[126]
In August 2023, newly installed Heritage president Kevin Roberts stated in an op-ed that Congress was holding victims of the 2023 Hawaii wildfires hostage "in order to spend more money in Ukraine". The op-ed was followed by a public messaging campaign with the same message and with a tweet by a Heritage vice president, who argued, "It's time to end the blank, undated checks for Ukraine." This, in turn, led the foundation's second senior official, Lt. Gen. (Ret) Thomas Spoehr, director of Heritage's Center for National Defense, to submit his resignation.[82][127]
Voter fraud claims[edit]
The Heritage Foundation has promoted false claims of electoral fraud. Hans von Spakovsky, who heads the Heritage Foundation's Election Law Reform Initiative, has played an influential role in elevating alarmism about voter fraud in the Republican Party, despite offering no evidence of widespread voter fraud.[128][129] His work, which claims voting fraud is rampant, has been discredited.[130]
Following the 2020 presidential election, in which President Donald Trump made baseless claims of fraud after he was defeated for reelection, the Heritage Foundation launched a campaign in support of Republican efforts to make state voting laws more restrictive.[131][132]
In March 2021, The New York Times reported that the Heritage Foundation's political arm, Heritage Action, planned to spend $24 million over two years across eight key states to support efforts to restrict voting, in coordination with the Republican Party and allied conservative outside groups, including the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, American Legislative Exchange Council, and State Policy Network. Almost two dozen election bills introduced by Republican state legislators in early 2021 were based on a Heritage letter and report.[133] Heritage also mobilized in opposition to H.R. 1./S. 1, a Democratic bill to establish uniform nationwide voting standards, including expanded early and postal voting, automatic and same-day voter registration, campaign finance law reforms, and prohibiting partisan redistricting.[131][132]
In May 2021, Heritage Action spent $750,000 on television ads in Arizona to promote the false claim that "Democrats...want to register illegal aliens" to vote, even though the Democrats' legislation creates safeguards to ensure that ineligible people cannot register.[132] In April 2021, Heritage Action boasted to its private donors that it had successfully crafted the election reform bills that Republican state legislators introduced in Georgia and other states.[134]
On January 21, 2024, after three years of silence on Trump's position that Biden was an illegitimate president and that Trump actually won the 2020 election, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a reporter for The New York Times, presented the question to Heritage president Kevin Roberts: "Do you believe that President Biden won the 2020 election?" "No", Roberts replied.[135]
Funding[edit]
In 1973, businessman Joseph Coors contributed $250,000 to establish the Heritage Foundation and continued to fund it through the Adolph Coors Foundation.[136][137] The foundation's trustees have historically included individuals affiliated with Chase Manhattan Bank, Dow Chemical, General Motors, Mobil, Pfizer, Sears, and other corporations.[138]
Heritage is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization and BBB Wise Giving Alliance-accredited charity funded by donations from private individuals, corporations, and charitable foundations.[139][140][141] It is not required to disclose its donors and donations under the current laws that guide tax-deductible organizations.[140]
In the 1980s, the Heritage Foundation reportedly received a $2.2 million donation from South Korea's National Intelligence Service, South Korea's intelligence agency, then known as the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.[142]
As of 2010, the foundation reported that it had 710,000 individual financial contributors.[143]
For the fiscal year ending December 31, 2011, CharityWatch reported that Edwin Feulner, the Heritage Foundation's past president, received the highest compensation in its top 25 list of compensation received by charity members. Two years later, in 2013, according to CharityWatch, Feulner received $2,702,687, which included investment earnings of $1,656,230 accrued over 33 years.[144]
As of 2013, the foundation was a grantee of Donors Trust, a nonprofit donor-advised fund.[145][146][147]
In 2022, the foundation's total revenue was $106 million and its expenditures were $93.7 million, according to ProPublica.[148]
