Gov.-elect Ferguson creates subcommittee to combat new administration’s Project 2025: ‘It is dark’
Washington Gov.-elect Bob Ferguson believes in being prepared. The Democrat is gearing up to potentially take on President-elect Donald Trump amid his return to the White House.
Ferguson last month announced the launch of a transition team subcommittee aimed at shielding Washington state residents from Project 2025, a wide-ranging federal policy agenda. At least 140 members of Trump’s first administration have ties to the blueprint, published by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, CNN has reported.
Ferguson has warned that freedoms at risk under Project 2025 include abortion access and LGBTQ+ rights. Mass deportations could be imminent, as well as the erosion of protections for workers and the environment.
“We can’t be naive to the potential threats that aspects of Project 2025 represent for Washington state, if implemented,” Ferguson said in a Nov. 29 phone interview. “It seems prudent to me, as an incoming governor, to make sure that our transition team is considering options for how Washington can be prepared if some aspects of Project 2025 are, in fact, put in place.”
Ferguson is no stranger to challenging Trump. As attorney general, his office sued the Republican president’s administration nearly 100 times, according to Democracy Docket.
The New York Times reported on Nov. 29 that Trump has recruited “at least a half dozen” of Project 2025’s backers and architects to roles in his second administration. Still, he consistently distanced himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail.
“As President Trump said many times, he had nothing to do with Project 2025,” Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for the president-elect’s transition team, told McClatchy via email.
Leavitt, incidentally, appears on Project 2025’s website as an instructor in the “Conservative Governance 101” program, aimed at training aspiring political appointees. She is also Trump’s pick for White House press secretary.
Abortion access
Ferguson’s camp is planning for a number of possible scenarios, including the gutting of abortion access.
He said one concern is if Trump opts to enforce the Comstock Act, a “zombie” law that could be revived to end access to medication abortion. Trump claimed in August that he would not use the act this way, although he has waffled on whether he would back a national abortion ban.
Jennifer M. Allen, CEO of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, is one of the co-chairs of the subcommittee to combat Project 2025. It might be hard to believe that abortion could become outlawed in Washington state, Allen said, but it “absolutely could” under Trump.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re going to fight tooth and nail to protect our people,” she told McClatchy, “and I think we should all be on alert that they are coming for our basic rights.”
Allen also thinks the federal government could attempt to prevent interstate travel for people seeking an abortion or gender-affirming care. “Hostile states” will likely try to do the same at the state level, Allen said, citing a 2023 law in Idaho.
Unfortunately, Washington state is grappling with a budget crisis, Allen said. If it loses federal funding, that won’t be easily replaced with state dollars.
She added: “I think it’s also really, really important that folks take seriously the threat to people in Washington that we’re facing. It is dark, and it is stark.”
Mass deportations
Project 2025 also lays the groundwork for mass deportations. Ferguson noted the effect that such an effort would have on the state’s families and economy.
King County Council member Jorge L. Barón, another subcommittee co-chair, said the state should get ready for that reality.
Mass deportations would require significant response from child-welfare officials at the local and state level, said Barón, who served as executive director for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project from 2008 to 2023. Kids might be left behind in child-care centers and schools when their parents are caught in workplace raids, he said.
Washington estimates about 250,000 people who are undocumented, Barón said. Other residents enjoy temporary protected status or are Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients.
Barón said local businesses could lose workers, particularly in fields such as construction and agriculture — the latter of which is a big driver of Washington’s economy.
“So it could have very significant impacts on the economic front,” he said, “but also, of course, the real human toll for families who might rely on the work of somebody who doesn’t have permanent status, or who might lose their status because of these rollbacks to the existing programs that are in place at the federal level.”
Trump, who has vowed to harness military assets to carry out mass deportations, claimed in a July social media post that he knows “nothing about Project 2025.”
Ferguson said it would be “wonderful” if his administration doesn’t have to lock horns with the next Trump White House.
“If they choose not to implement any part of Project 2025, nobody will be happier than me,” he said. “But look, the connections of the folks who put that document together with Donald Trump are well known. That’s just a fact, and it makes sense for us as a state to just make sure we’re prepared.”
Subcommittee criticism
The governor-elect has fielded some criticism for creating the Project 2025-focused subcommittee. Some have argued that Ferguson should pay more attention to the state’s problems.
Asked to respond, Ferguson said that this is one of a dozen subcommittees. He hopes that his detractors pay as much attention to the others. A housing subcommittee, for instance, is chaired by Lt. Gov. Denny Heck.
The way Ferguson sees it, what happens at the national level — be it the withholding of federal funds or impairment of reproductive health care — affects the lives of Washington residents.
He also said he’s challenged presidencies regardless of party, including the Trump administration’s Muslim travel ban and President Joe Biden’s administration over access to mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortion.
“I’ve made clear that as governor, we’re going to move Washington state forward on a whole range of important issues facing our state,” Ferguson said. “But Project 2025, if implemented, will impact Washingtonians. It’s not just something that happens back in Washington, D.C., that doesn’t touch on our lives.”
This story was originally published December 2, 2024 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Gov.-elect Ferguson creates subcommittee to combat new administration’s Project 2025: ‘It is dark’."
