Fellow Conservative,

This week 81 Republicans voted to fund the Left-Wing Foreign Aid Bureaucracy. And yes, it’s many of the usual suspects at it again.

81 Republicans Vote for Woke and Weaponized Spending

Washington loves to hide radical politics behind bland-sounding, three-letter agencies. Unfortunately, 81 Republicans decided the establishment was more important than their constituents.

This week, Heritage Action issued a Key Vote in support of Congressman Eli Crane’s (R-Arizona) amendment to defund the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in the latest appropriations minibus (H.R. 7006) — and for good reason. But the amendment failed after 81 Republicans voted with Democrats to kill it.

Read more about the bill:

>> Congress Should End Financing for the Left-Wing Foreign Aid Bureaucracy

What exactly is the National Endowment for Democracy?

It’s bad. Like, really bad.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was created under President Reagan as a bipartisan nonprofit to promote democracy overseas, funded entirely by Congress. In recent years, it has claimed to combat Russian and Chinese disinformation. In reality, NED has become a vehicle for left-wing propaganda, using taxpayer dollars to attack conservatives, demonize President Trump, and advance progressive ideology.

Its affiliates and board members have even publicly compared President Trump to Hitler and labeled Republicans as “fascists”. This is not “democracy promotion” — it is radical leftist activism on the taxpayers’ dime.

Last year, early after taking office, President Trump tried to completely defund NED, but after a lengthy court battle and ruling from a district court judge, the funds were restored.

Despite all of this, 81 Republicans voted to continue funding NED. These House Republicans sided with the Left’s foreign-policy establishment and its taxpayer-funded political machine.

Scorecard Update

Is your member of Congress among the 81? Check out the roll call on the Heritage Action Scorecard!

Now… Many of you have been asking: “When will the Heritage Action Scorecard be updated with scores for the 119th Congress?”

With instances like this, it’s more important than ever to know who is on the American People’s side and who isn’t. But don’t worry — the wait is almost over.

In the coming weeks we will be launching a flurry of Key Votes on co-sponsorships for important bills that will help the Republicans fulfill their mandate. These will be included on the scorecard and are great opportunities for the grassroots to get involved, show their support for bills advancing the conservative agenda, and hold Congress accountable.

More Earmarks? Really?

From studies using transgender hormone drugs on mice to DEI musicals in Ireland, the Trump administration has made it a priority to stop wasteful and woke spending. However, Congress appears poised to use earmarks — something that Republicans once banned — to fund the very activities the American people sent them Washington to end.

The Senate-introduced Labor-HHS bill is abhorrent. Now some of the worst pieces of the bill could be on the table in bicameral negotiations on a final appropriations package.

The Democrats have figured out that they can advance their radical agenda through the appropriations process and, as a result, this bill is full of woke spending and wasteful pork. Now the House is forced to take it up. This is likely the last chance to strip the bad out of the bill before it’s considered in the House.

Here’s just some of what could be forced into the final text:

• $275,000 for an organization that promotes race-based hiring in healthcare
• $1.9 Million for a university that funds alphabet soup “2SLGBTQIA+ scholarships”
• $4 Million for a late term abortion center
• $900,000 for a New Hampshire health system that performs abortions
• $500,000 for an organization that trains chaos agents

But that’s not all! The Senate’s bill also includes millions for hospitals that perform sex-rejecting surgeries on minors:

• Senator Alex Padilla (D-California) requested a $2 million earmark for Rady’s Children’s Hospital in San Diego for “pediatric mental health services.” This hospital has conducted sex-rejecting procedures on at least 136 patients.
• Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) requested a $460,000 earmark for Elliot Health System. Elliot Health performs “gender affirming top surgery.”
• Senator Tina Smith (D-Minnesota) requested a $3 million earmark for Hennepin Health for new equipment. Hennepin Health runs a so-called pediatric gender and sexual “health” clinic.
• Senators Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) requested a $200,000 earmark for Rhode Island Hospital, which performs “transmasculine surgeries.”

Worse, some Senate Republicans also have requested earmarks for wasteful and woke spending. Such as Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) — the head of the Senate Appropriations Committee — requesting $1.6 million for a healthcare system that provides sex-rejecting hormones for children in Maine.

When the Democrats lifted the ban on earmarks, the Senate GOP approved a work-around by permitting “congressionally directed spending.” These earmarks easily remind us why a decade ago, Republicans ditched earmarks entirely.

We will keep you posted about how this plays out. Meanwhile, you can read more about the Senate’s Labor-HHS earmarks here:

>> How Earmarks in the FY26 Labor-HHS Bill Fund the Left’s Agenda

Minneapolis is on Fire (Again)

If you have been following the news recently, you might assume that the protests in Minneapolis are in response to overwhelming evidence that the state’s enormous Somali population has been stealing billions in federal tax dollars. If that is the case, you’d be wrong.

Instead, they are protesting (more like rioting, really) ICE operations in the city.

Sanctuary Cities… For Fraud

Minneapolis is a well-known sanctuary city, and these operations are cracking down on its illegal alien population. To most, these protests against ICE seem counterproductive, especially in the midst of a high-profile welfare fraud scandal involving illegal aliens. However, it’s all part of the Left’s plan.

The Left actually wants illegals in blue states. This is why they have sanctuary cities/states to begin with. For them, it’s all about power, and ideology is merely a means to an end.

The Left’s sanctuary policies and lax immigration enforcement are not about compassion. They are about population. Blue states understand that the higher the population — whether legal or illegal — the more congressional seats the state has, and the more federal dollars that they will receive. That’s why these staged protests are happening.

The Left’s goal is to stop the Trump administration from disrupting their corrupt stranglehold on the American people. Republicans must wake up to that.

>> Read more from Heritage Action Executive Vice President, Tiffany Justice

Save the SAVE Act!

Voting is a precious privilege of U.S. citizenship, and every noncitizen who votes cancels the vote of an American citizen.

While federal and state law limits voting to U.S. citizens, enforcement has been seriously undermined by loopholes in the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). There is no federal requirement for states to obtain proof of citizenship, and, worse, the NVRA has been interpreted to prevent states from requiring proof of citizenship when registering voters.

Biden-era open border policies flooded vulnerable states with millions of illegal immigrants — none of whom have the legal right to vote—putting the integrity of our elections at risk. Without a federal law explicitly requiring states to verify citizenship, fraudsters will continue to register non-citizens in an effort to manipulate elections. The SAVE Act closes this gap.

The House has already passed the SAVE Act. However, despite a majority of Republican U.S. Senators cosponsoring the bill — it’s stuck in the Senate Rules Committee and subject to the whims of the Chairman — Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky).

>> Tell the Senate: PASS THE SAVE ACT!

Glad to be in this fight with you.

- The Heritage Action Team

Join the fight to advance the conservative agenda.