PhRMA Gave $530K to Conservative Groups Tied to Leonard Leo and Project 2025 in 2022

In 2022, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, representing the country’s largest pharmaceutical companies spent millions in contributions and grants as part of its multi-pronged attack against the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare drug negotiation provisions.

An Accountable.US review has found that among groups benefiting from PhRMA money in 2022, organizations intimately involved with the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project, also known as Project 2025, received $530,000 from the pharmaceutical group. Making matters worse these organizations have fought against expanded voter access, while often parroting the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is an initiative launched by the Heritage Foundation in April 2022 to create a government-in-waiting for the next Republican presidency led by Paul Dans, a former Trump official who served as chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management before joining the Heritage Foundation. The first major initiative of Project 2025 was the creation of the Project 2025 Advisory Board consisting of over 80 member organizations “focused on recruiting personnel and preparing comprehensive policy recommendations to ensure the next conservative presidential administration is prepared for success on day one.” In 2022, Project 2025 Advisory Board members received $965,000 in funds from the Heritage Foundation, accounting for 58% of Heritage’s total grantmaking that year.

In April 2023, Project 2025 released the latest edition of the “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” which serves as a “comprehensive policy guide for the next conservative U.S. president” with policy recommendations from “more than 35 primary authors and hundreds of contributors’ impacting “all aspects of the federal government.” The Mandate for Leadership explicitly calls for the repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare drug negotiation program while also attacking the Biden administration’s Health and Human Services Department as pushing policies focused on “LGBTQ+ equity” and “harmful identity politics that replaces biological sex with subjective notions of ‘gender identity.’”

Project 2025 is also tied to conservative judicial mastermind Leonard Leo through the Teneo Network, a secretive association of conservative politicians, business leaders, activists, and professionals that is advising the effort. Leonard Leo became chair of the Teneo Network in 2021 and has vowed to use the organization to “crush liberal dominance” in many areas of American society.

Project 2025 groups Advisory Board members that received money from PhRMA in 2022 include: 

• The Heritage Foundation, which received $125,000 from PhRMA and is the architect of Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation maintains a so-called Election Fraud Database based on unfounded claims that voter fraud is widespread, with a Brookings Institution analysis of the data finding Texas voter fraud was a mere 0.000096%, as Heritage personnel push allegations of third parties “harvesting” mail-in ballots to influence election results.

• American Commitment, a conservative nonprofit dedicated to “free markets, economic growth, constitutionally-limited government, property rights, and individual freedom,” received $75,000 from PhRMA. In January 2019, American Commitment joined conservative groups in attacking H.R. 1, the For the People Act—which had been described as the “most significant voting rights and democracy reform in more than half a century”—as “fundamentally undermin[ing] the American electoral system.”

• The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization of conservative state legislators dedicated to “the principles of limited government, free markets, and federalism,” received $110,000 from PhRMA. PhRMA also donated $75,000 to committees tied to Florida House Rep. Daniel Perez, an insurance attorney who served as the 2023 ALEC National Chair and is the current Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. In early 2020, ALEC CEO Lisa Nelson was involved in discussions on how conservative state legislators and attorneys could “‘question the validity of an election,’” including drafting letters for legislators to send to secretaries of state.

• The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative think tank, received $25,000 from PhRMA. CEI President and CEO Kent Lassman coauthored a chapter of the Mandate for Leadership related to trade while seven other CEI employees were cited as contributors. In November 2021, CEI Senior Fellow Mario Loyola, who also contributed to the Mandate for Leadership, parroted bogus claims that January 6 should not have been labeled an insurrection given it “had no chance” with progressives’ control of all institutions, likening progressive protesters in Wisconsin and Texas to insurrectionists and claiming the media would have called the election stolen if “Trump loyalists” had won.

• FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group, received $70,000 from PhRMA. Stephen Moore, FreedomWorks’ Senior Economist, coauthored a chapter of Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership discussing policy recommendations within the U.S. Treasury Department while two other FreedomWorks employees were listed as contributors to the report. Following the 2020 presidential election, FreedomWorks amplified baseless voter fraud claims and later selected conservative election lawyer Cleta Mitchell to lead its “National Election Protection Initiative” seeking to restrict state voter access while also rallying opposition to federal legislation expanding voter access. Cleta Mitchell closely advised Donald Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and has since continued to advocate for restricting voter access, including an April 2023 discussion with conservative donors where she pressed the need to “limit voting on college campuses, same-day voter registration and automatic mailing of ballots to registered voters” as reforms were needed “‘for any candidate other than a leftist to have a chance to WIN in 2024.’”

• The Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a conservative think tank dedicated to “advancing free-market policy solutions,” received $125,000 from PhRMA. In a June 2020 op-ed, Pacific Research Institute fellow Kerry Jackson spouted right-wing claims that mail-in ballots would lead to “worse results” and “ballot harvesting” to influence election results, claiming the U.S. government shouldn’t make it “too easy” for voters to cast ballots.