How Groups Influenced Court This Term

Topline

Groups involved with controversial right-wing agenda Project 2025 were broadly successful at the Supreme Court this term, a Forbes analysis shows, as justices sided with arguments pushed by organizations linked to the agenda in a majority of major cases but ruled against three groups who were directly representing parties at the court.

People gather to protest Project 2025 in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on March … More 16.

AFP via Getty Images

Key Facts

While spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, more than 100 conservative organizations were listed as being on the “advisory board” for Project 2025, a multi-pronged agenda drafted before the 2024 election that proposed a broad overhaul of the executive branch by the next conservative president.

Approximately 30 of those organizations filed briefs with the Supreme Court in major cases this term, according to an analysis of 12 significant cases the court decided between October 2024 and June.

There were four major cases in which parties were directly represented by groups linked to Project 2025: Alliance Defending Freedom represented challengers in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond and Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic—concerning religious charter schools and Planned Parenthood funding, respectively—while America First Legal represented parties in Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, on the Affordable Care Act, and Texas Public Policy Foundation represented challengers to the Federal Communications Commission’s universal-service obligation in FCC v. Consumers Research.

Those organizations and dozens of others also signed on to amicus briefs—filings by outside parties that urge the court to rule a particular way—nearly 60 times in major Supreme Court cases this term.

Justices rejected the cases Project 2025-linked groups brought over religious charter schools, the Affordable Care Act and the FCC, as well as a case challenging federal rules regarding ghost guns.

Which Project 2025-Linked Groups Filed Briefs With The Supreme Court?

The organizations that have both been listed as members of Project 2025’s “advisory board” and filed briefs with the Supreme Court last term are the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs, Alliance Defending Freedom, America First Legal, American Principles Project, Americans United for Life, the Association of Mature American Citizens, The Claremont Institute, Concerned Women for America, Defense of Freedom Institute, Eagle Forum, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Family Policy Alliance, Family Research Council, Foundation for Government Accountability, Gun Owners Foundation, Institute for the American Worker, Leadership Institute, Makinac Center for Public Policy, Moms for Liberty, Mountain States Policy Center, National Center for Public Policy Research, National Religious Broadcasters, National Rifle Association, Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, Project 21, Protect Our Kids, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (through its research arm, the Charlotte Lozier Institute), Texas Public Policy Foundation and Young America’s Foundation. That list is based on an archived version of Project 2025’s website from July 2024, before some organizations removed themselves from the Project 2025 website as the policy agenda gained controversy.

Which Project 2025-Linked Group Had The Biggest Supreme Court Presence?

The group with the biggest presence at the Supreme Court was right-wing legal group Alliance Defending Freedom. In addition to the two cases in which it was a party, ADF also filed three amicus briefs in its own name in various cases, and its lawyers drafted multiple briefs on behalf of other organizations that hold similar views.

What About The Heritage Foundation?

The Heritage Foundation was the main organization behind Project 2025. It did not have any involvement in major Supreme Court cases this term, and noted to Forbes that Project 2025 has no connection to anything involving the judiciary branch. The organization directed Forbes to a number of statements the organization put out praising many of the court’s rulings this term, however, including on transgender healthcare, Trump’s birthright citizenship case, Texas’ age verification law, LGBTQ books in schools and Planned Parenthood funding.

Contra

Project 2025 noted on its website that its opinions “do not necessarily represent the opinions of every one of its advisory board partners,” and multiple organizations listed as members of the group’s advisory board told Forbes they do not consider themselves to be affiliated with Project 2025. Americans United for Life removed its name from Project 2025’s website in summer 2024, telling Forbes it is a nonpartisan organization that no longer wished to be affiliated with Project 2025’s right-wing aims, and the National Center for Public Policy Research told Forbes it was unexpectedly listed as a member of the advisory board after a staff member attended one meeting in 2023. Mike Farris, general counsel at National Religious Broadcasters, told Forbes he has not read Project 2025 and any affiliation between the group and Project 2025 “came from the action of prior staff members on the legislative team—none of whom are still at NRB.” “I can say with complete confidence that our amicus briefs had absolutely nothing to do with Project 2025 and any parallel is because members of the conservative movement often have similar views,” Farris told Forbes in an email. Trump administration adviser Stephen Miller, who founded America First Legal, also told ABC News last year he had “zero involvement with Project 2025,” after America First Legal removed its name from Project 2025’s website. Groups who did acknowledge an affiliation with Project 2025 also distanced the project from the Supreme Court’s rulings, with Family Policy Alliance CEO Craig DeRoche telling Forbes the court’s decisions “are unequivocal wins for children and parents,” but “these cases and their corresponding decisions had nothing to do with Project 2025, which was focused on what President Trump would do in his second term.”

Do The Supreme Court’s Rulings Follow Project 2025’s Agenda?

Project 2025 is focused solely on actions through the executive branch, and does not discuss any policies that could be enacted through the judicial branch or involve the courts in its plans. But its conservative policy blueprint has a number of places where its policy aims overlap with the Supreme Court’s most recent rulings. Project 2025 decries “woke transgender activism” and describes gender-affirming medical procedures as “dangerous” and unsupported by medical evidence, a view that conflicts with many medical professionals, but is in line with the bans on gender-affirming care for minors that the Supreme Court upheld. The agenda also places a strong emphasis on parental rights in education, as the court did with its ruling allowing parents to opt children out of objectionable content—with Project 2025’s agenda claiming, “Schools serve parents, not the other way around.” The Supreme Court further supported Project 2025’s policy aims by upholding the federal ban on TikTok and greenlighting state bans on Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, which Project 2025 proposes banning at the federal level. Justices’ decision to uphold Texas’ age verification law for porn sites, which makes it harder for minors to access obscene content, is also in line with Project 2025, which calls for a ban on pornography and argues it “has no claim to First Amendment protection”—a stance that goes further than the Supreme Court’s opinion. One area where the Supreme Court diverged more with Project 2025 was charter schools, as the court voted not to allow a religious charter school in Oklahoma, while Project 2025 pushes to increase charter schools in the U.S. education system and roll back existing federal regulations over them.

Key Background

Project 2025 was a multi-faceted project by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups to prepare for the next GOP administration, providing a LinkedIn-style database of potential White House workers, White House employee training materials and a reported playbook for Trump’s first few months in office. The group’s 900-page policy agenda gained the most attention, proposing a policy blueprint for all major federal agencies that pushed controversial right-wing policies and sought to give the president more power by replacing career civil servants with presidential appointees. While the Heritage Foundation said it has provided similar documents to past Republican presidents dating back to Ronald Reagan, the 2025 plan became embroiled in national controversy ahead of the 2024 election, as Democrats highlighted its proposals as a key reason to oppose Trump. Trump publicly disavowed Project 2025 ahead of the election and denied having any connection to it, despite it being created by many people who worked with him at the White House in his first term. Since taking office, however, Trump has appointed many people involved with Project 2025 to key roles in his second administration, and many of the president’s policies overlap with policy suggestions made in Project 2025. In a March interview with Politico, former Project 2025 head Paul Dans described Trump’s agenda in office as being “actually way beyond my wildest dreams.” “What we had hoped would happen has happened,” Dans said about Trump’s policies reflecting Project 2025’s agenda.