Project 2025 is already happening in Iowa 

Here are five things from Project 2025 that have already been implemented in the Hawkeye State.

By now, you’ve probably already heard about Project 2025, a detailed and intricate plan created by the right-wing Heritage Foundation to completely overhaul the federal government and the American way of life under a second Trump presidency.

Project 2025 has more than 900 pages, and many of the authors are alums from the Trump administration. The plan covers everything from banning pornography to banning schools from providing universal free lunch.

However, some of Project 2025’s loftier ambitions have already been implemented in red states, including Iowa, a Petrie dish for conservative legislation for nearly a decade.

Here are five aspects of Project 2025 that are already in effect in Iowa:

Topic: Ban abortion

What Project 2025 says: Implement a federal abortion ban. (page 6)

What Iowa did: Iowa Republicans passed a near-total abortion ban during a special session in 2023. Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the legislation into law; however, it was held at bay for nearly a year due to an injunction. The Iowa Supreme Court struck down the injunction on June 28, and the abortion ban will soon go into effect.

Topic: Reducing and restricting participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

What Project 2025 says: Create stronger work requirements for SNAP recipients and place more substantial limits on who is able to qualify for SNAP (pages 299-301).

What Iowa did: Despite objections from working-class and low-income Iowans, food banks, and more than 200 Iowa religious leaders, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill in 2023 that’s projected to kick nearly 2,800 people off SNAP. She also rejected $29 million in federal assistance to feed Iowa kids via the Summer SNAP Program.

Topic: Ban teaching about LGBTQ people and Black History

What Project 2025 says: “The noxious tenets of ‘critical race theory’ and ‘gender ideology’ should be excised from curricula in every public school in the country” (pages 5, 87, 103, 322, and more).

What Iowa did: In 2021, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the “divisive concepts” bill into law to stop public schools from teaching the non-existent threat of critical race theory (CRT), a graduate school-level concept that Republicans have falsely claimed public school educators are using to indoctrinate children into Marxist beliefs. In 2023,  Reynolds signed SF 496 into law, and this bill banned teaching about gender identity in grades K-6 and implemented a vague book ban intended to remove books about LGBTQ experiences or that violate the “divisive concepts” law from shelves.

Topic: Killing off diversity programs

What Project 2025 says: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) would be removed from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists” (Pages 5, 258, 355, 358, 370, and more).

What Iowa did: In 2023, the Iowa Board of Regents—after pressure from Republicans in the Iowa Legislature—developed a plan to eliminate DEI initiatives at all three state universities; the process was codified when Republicans in the Iowa Legislature included language in the 2024-25 education appropriations budget to restrict DEI expenditures.

Topic: Use taxpayer dollars for private school tuition

What Project 2025 says: “Ultimately, every parent should have the option to direct his or her child’s share of education funding through an education savings account (ESA), funded overwhelmingly by state and local taxpayers, which would empower parents to choose a set of education options that meet their child’s unique needs” (page 319).

What Iowa did: In 2023, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the Students First Education Savings Accounts bill, which will divert hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to private school tuition in Iowa. The 2023-24 school year was the first year in the program’s existence, and it cost Iowa taxpayers nearly $128 million, while projected costs for year two have already surpassed $230 million.