Major Win
for Freedom
When we say “always on offense,” you can believe that we mean it, and nothing showcases this better than Heritage’s first-ever lawsuit against the federal government to block the Biden administration’s draconian—and illegal—vaccine mandate on employers.
Heritage’s legal scholars had already done yeoman’s work on your behalf explaining how the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had no legal authority to enforce this mandate, including a report in the peer-reviewed Administrative Law Review.
But implications of this mandate were too profound to simply complain about it and hope for the best. If left standing, President Biden’s mandate would have opened the floodgates to federal intervention in every corner of our lives. If the government can force Americans to undergo a medical procedure of uncertain merit, what can’t they do? This is why, in a Nov. 29 statement announcing the lawsuit, Heritage President Kevin Roberts called the Biden mandate “a deadly serious threat to our individual liberty and the values that make America great.”
Heritage retained the American Center for Law and Justice to represent us in this matter, whose chief counsel, Jay Sekulow, defended President Trump during his first impeachment trial.
Our case, along with many others filed to block this mandate, ended up in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which denied the stay. So, we appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep the mandate from going into effect until there was a final ruling on its legal merits.
On Jan. 13, 2022, the Supreme Court did the right thing and kept the mandate from going into effect, suggesting that the mandate would not likely survive a ruling on the merits because Congress had never given OSHA the power to mandate “vaccination of 84 million Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 employees.”
In his appearance on the “Jay Sekulow Live” show, Roberts responded to this major victory by saying, “We’re ecstatic because it is a line in the sand against the Biden regime that they better not cross again.”
Your influence on this case extends beyond Heritage’s scholarly work and litigation to the fact that you helped tilt the balance of the Supreme Court in favor of justices who see their job as interpreting the Constitution as written, not imposing a liberal agenda from the bench. There’s no telling how this mandate would have ended up if conservatives didn’t have a majority on the court.
Reverberates
Around the World
That
Reverberates
Around the
World
One of the great strengths of The Heritage Foundation that you make possible is the ability to pull together vast amounts of data on the most important issues of the day and present them in highly influential reports.
Two of these are the Index of Economic Freedom and the Index of U.S. Military Strength.
The Index of Economic Freedom collects data on 12 measures of economic freedom from 184 countries, analyzes this data, and ranks these nations based on the results. The index provides definitive proof of the benefits of limited government, free markets, the rule of law, and prudent fiscal policies because it consistently shows a direct connection between freedom and prosperity.
The index doesn’t just influence policy debates here in the U.S.; its rankings can rankle the leaders of nations.
Such was the case when the index dropped Hong Kong as a separate country. Hong Kong had held the No. 1 spot in the world in every one of the index’s 25 years, until it fell into second place behind Singapore in 2020. The next year, the editors removed Hong Kong altogether from the list in the wake of Communist China’s increased interference.
That didn’t sit well with Hong Kong officials. In fact, Hong Kong’s finance secretary, Paul Chan, attacked our decision to remove Hong Kong’s standalone ranking.
“When they arrived at that decision, they must have been clouded by their ideological inclination and political bias,” Chan said, according to Radio Television Hong Kong.
Another highly influential publication you make possible is the Index of U.S. Military Strength, which provides a detailed assessment of the readiness of every branch of the military. It is without question the most authoritative unclassified reference for information on the U.S. military.
The eighth edition, which runs 587 pages and was published in October, notes storm clouds on the horizon as President Biden proposes to underfund several key capabilities. It also includes a new chapter on cyber security and brand-new scoring for the U.S. Space Force. Asia, and the China threat in particular, figures prominently in the report.
The launch event featured Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., who is the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee and one of the leading voices in Congress for a strong national defense. At that event, Rogers said, “The 2022 Index of U.S. Military Strength could not have come at a better time. As a policymaker, I rely on the insights of experts such as the scholars here at Heritage. With the index, I can contemplate what some of the best thinkers have to say about the U.S. military. I’m constantly looking for conservative insights into how Congress can further strengthen our national defense. Please know that the work you produce will help shape the policy that I will put forward and the oversight that I will conduct as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee after next November.”
The 2022 Index of U.S. Military Strength could not have come at a better time... The work you produce will help shape the policy that I will put forward and the oversight that I will conduct.
Added to this list of publications is the China Transparency Report, the first of which was published last year and measures China’s transparency across eight different sectors.
“The Chinese government has a history of withholding, manipulating, and falsifying data for its own purposes,” says Walter Lohman, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center. He adds that this independent data “exposes areas where China poses the greatest threat to U.S. interests, and examines where threats are overstated.”
Also added to the list of major publications in 2021 was the Election Integrity Scorecard. We also brought forth the interactive “Essential Constitution” e-book, which explores the U.S. Constitution’s origins, busts myths, examines threats, and includes a primer on how to interpret this seminal document. An accompanying website includes a host of resources for anyone wanting to understand America’s founding.
A big part of staying on offense is adapting to changes on the field. That’s nowhere more important than in communications, where there has been an absolute upheaval in how people get information. When not fighting Big Tech, you’re helping us expand our reach on social media, whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or other platforms.
One big way you’re reaching new audiences is through our growing stable of influential podcasts, which now features “The Kevin Roberts Show,” hosted by our new president.
Another increasingly popular show is “The Daily Signal Podcast,” hosted by Virginia Allen, Doug Blair, and Rob Bluey. Each weekday, the podcast shares leading headlines being covered in Heritage’s news outlet, The Daily Signal, and provides smart and sophisticated commentary on what’s important.
Last year, “The Daily Signal Podcast” generated more than 2 million listens. The most popular episode of the year focused on former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s attempt to cover up the vast number of COVID deaths in nursing homes in his state. The second most popular was on the plight of overwhelmed Border Patrol agents.
“The Daily Signal Podcast” guest list is a veritable who’s who of lawmakers, leaders in the conservative movement, and scholars inside and outside Heritage.
Check out all the shows at heritage.org/podcasts, and share them with your friends and family.
- The Daily Signal Podcast
- The Kevin Roberts Show
- Heritage Explains
- SCOTUS 101
- Heritage Events
- Problematic Women
- China Uncovered
- America’s Biggest Issues
That’s how we stay on offense. That’s how we change minds and win the war of ideas.
Big Tech
It’s no secret that Big Tech companies actively discriminate against conservative voices and viewpoints.
While conservatives used to be hard pressed to present hard evidence of this discrimination, Heritage has done major work to shine a light on the truth—arming you in the battle against the dangerous, politically motivated censorship by these behemoths.
In her testimony before a U.S. House committee recently, Heritage research fellow and former Facebook employee Kara Frederick put it bluntly, calling Big Tech “an enemy of the people.” In May 2021, Heritage signed a pledge along with other conservative leaders calling out Big Tech censorship and refusing to accept contributions from them.
Addressing this threat has been and will continue to be a priority for Heritage going forward. We are recommending that Congress update Section 230 of the 26-year-old Communications Decency Act, which currently provides Big Tech with blanket liability immunity. Lawmakers wanted to incentivize these platforms to improve communication, not silence political dissent.
We are also helping to shape state legislation regarding Big Tech censorship. And since the public helped grow these tech platforms into what they are, it makes sense that the public ought to be the ones to bring them back in line. You need to be able to see—and understand—the platforms’ rules and terms of service. And you need to know your rights. What recourse do you have if your account is taken down or labeled? And most importantly, are these monopolists even following their own rules?
Heritage is taking your fight for free expression to the next level. Thanks to your support, Frederick has been able to gather up hard data on how malicious these companies have become. You deserve better. The nation deserves better.
From the Report:
- A 2019 study found that Twitter suspended users in the “conservative” category at a ratio of 21-to-1 compared to “liberals.”
- Twitter and Facebook censor Republican members of Congress at a rate of 53-to-1 compared to Democrats in Congress.
- In 2020, Google suppressed conservative-leaning outlets such as the Daily Caller, Breitbart, and The Federalist. For instance, Breitbart’s Google search visibility shrank by 99 percent during the 2020 presidential election cycle compared to the same period in 2016.
- Facebook created and used two internal tools in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2016 electoral victory that suppressed right-wing content, media traffic, and reach on the site. One of these tools was still in use by Facebook as of October 2021.
Narrative on the
Border Crisis
the Media
Narrative
on the
Border Crisis
Soon after Joe Biden took office, the border was overrun by illegal immigrants, a story that the administration and the liberal media were happy to downplay or ignore.
But that was impossible thanks to you and your support of The Heritage Foundation.
Together, we were able to mount a media blitz that kept the story alive, exposed the dire humanitarian crisis the Biden administration had unleashed, and held the current leadership to account for this unprecedented crisis.
You knew as well as we did that illegal immigrants would flood across the border if the open-borders crowd gained control of Congress and the White House. In anticipation of that, we recruited three veterans of the Trump administration who have unmatched expertise on border security: Chad Wolf, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Ken Cuccinelli, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; and Mark Morgan, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Between the three of them, they made nearly 500 national broadcast segments in 2021, including nearly 200 in their first three months as Heritage visiting fellows.
Their constant media presence helped build and expand the border crisis narrative, which was a constant story throughout 2021.
In tandem with this, Heritage’s media and public relations team released regular statements in response to Border Patrol’s monthly reports on border crossings, which were skyrocketing throughout the year. They hosted two national press briefings on the crisis and produced five fact-checks of Biden administration officials’ statements that were well-received in the media, including a plug on Sean Hannity’s show and his website: “[The] Heritage Foundation fact-checked Biden’s bogus claim about the border when he said the expulsion of single adults did not pose an operational challenge for the Border Patrol.”
We also used social media to advance the border crisis narrative, doing rapid response when Press Secretary Jen Psaki accidentally called the border crisis a “crisis,” and sharing photos of overcrowded Border Patrol facilities.
All told, Heritage experts were featured in 784 total broadcast segments about the border, roughly 15 percent of all Heritage broadcast hits for the year, and secured more than 260 print mentions on the issue, as well.
Simply put, you forced the press to pay attention.
Despite the left’s control of the White House and Congress, the Institute for Economic Freedom scored several victories in 2021.
The Institute’s research, op-eds, media presence, and close relations on Capitol Hill, for example, were instrumental in blocking President Biden’s $4 trillion “Build Back Better” disaster. Our work exposed this bill for what it was—a radical leftist ploy to vastly expand the federal welfare state that no Republican or centrist Democrat should support.
We were also key in keeping another policy disaster—the $15 minimum wage—out of Biden’s “American Rescue Plan.” This success comes not just through the quality of our research, but our ability to show the real-world impact of the left’s policies.
Rachel Greszler, a research fellow in economics, budget, and entitlements in the Institute for Economic Freedom, knows how effective this is. So, when she’s making her case, she doesn’t just gather the data, she does the hard work of finding real people to share their stories.
For example, Greszler hosted a public event featuring restaurant owners and workers (most of whom were liberal) about why doubling the federal minimum wage was a bad idea. When she testified before Congress on the issue, she shared the views of several business owners, one of whom told her, “I am a staunch supporter of Joe Biden and voted for him to save this country. Now I ask him to save my restaurant from the good intentions of progressive policymakers.”
To explain why the federal COVID unemployment bonus discouraged people from returning to work, she produced a video with The Daily Signal about how the resulting worker shortage was harming a person with disabilities.
To fight the PRO Act, a union-backed bill that would harm independent contractors, Greszler shared stories about working women who would be harmed by the bill, including a “Mercedes-driving grandmother in San Antonio, [who] was driving an Uber as a way to earn extra money to help send her grandchildren to parochial school.”
This is what you are accomplishing. Real stories. Real impact.