• Utah: Governor Spencer Cox signed the “Utah Constitutional Sovereignty Act” to allow the state legislature to essentially overrule a federal law in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. 
• Texas: For years, Governor Greg Abbott has executed his own border policies, including Operation Lone star, in contravention of the federal government’s long-recognized constitutional authority to make and implement immigration policy for the United States.
• Missouri: In 2021, Governor Mike Parson signed the “Second Amendment Preservation Act” into law, asserting that certain longstanding, valid federal laws relating to firearms “shall not be recognized by this state” and “shall be specifically rejected by this state.” H.B. 85, § 1.430. This sought to invalidate federal laws in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, as federal courts have ruled.

• Florida: Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law in 2022 creating a state militia called the Florida State Guard solely under the governor’s command. DeSantis has already abused this force by sending it to assist Texas with its illegal border operations.
• States Send National Guard Troops To Texas: In 2024 alone, 12 states sent National Guard troops to assist TX with its illegal border operations: AR, GA, IA, ID, IN, MO, MT, NH, NE, TE, SD and UT.

• Florida: One of the architects of Schedule F, which failed at the federal level, has advocated for the expansion of at-will civil service employment in Florida state government.
• Texas and Georgia: The movement to make civil servant at-will employees long predates the current movement involving Schedule F. Civil servants in Texas and Georgia are almost entirely all at-will, with civil service “reforms” in those states being effectuated in 1985 and 1996, respectively.

• Texas: In 2021, Governor Abbott in Texas threatened to defund the state legislature as retaliation for not passing a restrictive election bill. In 2024, Governor Abbott’s education commissioner took over Houston’s nearly 200,000-student public school district.
• Florida: In 2023, Governor DeSantis suspended a county prosecutor for political purposes and punished Disney for opposing the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law. Indeed, the kinds of anti-democratic policies at the heart of Project 2025 are already being tested and normalized at the state level.

• Vouchers: In 2023, 12 states expanded voucher programs and seven created new ones. Enrollment in charter schools rose from about “2.1 million students in fall 2011 to nearly 3.7 million in fall 2021.”
• Book Bans: In the last three years, 42 states have experienced book bans and 16 states have passed “divisive concepts” legislation limiting what can be learned and taught.
• School Closures: During the last school year, almost 70 school districts declared school closures, with the closures particularly affecting low-income students and students of color. These state-level policies serve as a preview of what’s to come if a far-right president implements Project 2025.

• Banning or Limiting Medication Abortion Access: This work is already underway across the country with 14 states almost completely banning medication abortion, including Indiana, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Mississippi. Louisiana has even passed a law making medication abortion drugs “controlled, dangerous substances.” 
• Ban Abortion Locally: Far-right actors have concocted legal strategies to ban abortion in towns and cities even in states where abortion is protected, including in New Mexico and Illinois. 
• Prohibit Travel to Receive Reproductive Care: Far-right actors have sought to prohibit those living in places that do not allow abortion from traveling to a state where they are allowed to obtain one.
• Comstock: The far-right plan is to ban abortion nationwide even without the help of a far-right president. Part and parcel of this plan has been an effort at the local level to try and force the Supreme Court to rule on the applicability of Comstock, by passing local abortion bans based on the 19th century law.

• Restrict DEI Initiatives: In the 2024 legislative session alone, state legislators in over 30 states have introduced more than 100 bills to regulate or restrict DEI initiatives. To date, TN, TX and UT have passed anti-DEI bills, with such bills having also advanced in at least one chamber in several other states.
• Attack LGBTQ+ rights: As of May 2024, almost 40% of trans youth between the ages of 13-17 live in one of the 25 states that have banned gender-affirming care, about 40% live in one of 27 states with sports participation bans, and another 40% live in one of 31 states that have proposed or enacted a gender-affirming pronoun ban.

For years, the far right has targeted immigrants as a scare tactic to push voters to accept the need for a strong-man authoritarian leader who can “fix” the “problem.” They have pointed to the supposed “threat” of immigration to distract the public and the media from their unpopular policy positions and from actual threats like climate change, gun violence, and domestic terrorism. And they have invoked a so-called “migrant invasion” to lay the groundwork to challenge the 2024 presidential election and eventually to expand the powers of the executive through the Alien Enemies Act or the Insurrection Act. This same anti-immigrant campaign for authoritarian ends is playing out in the states now. 

• States led by Texas claim asylum seekers’ arrival at the southern border constitutes an “invasion”that would give them authority to engage in war, enter into interstate compacts, and, presumably, suspend habeas corpus. 
• Texas: As noted above, Texas is challenging federal supremacy in immigration and foreign affairs by claiming unilateral authority to deport people, installing razor wire on the U.S. side of the Texas-Mexico border, and placing buoys with potentially lethal circular saw blades between them in the Rio Grande against the federal government’s direct orders. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is targeting migrant-serving nonprofits in the state in a baseless witch hunt meant to chill civil society and punish his enemies.
• Louisiana: This year, Governor Jeff Landry, issued an Executive Order entitled “Identifying, Quantifying, and Mitigating the Adverse Effects of Illegal Immigration.” The order requires that state law enforcement maintain a public list of arrested immigrants, encouraging vigilante justice and threatening some of our communities that have been historically made most vulnerable without due process of law.