January 1, 1981: The Heritage Foundation releases Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration, a 20-volume, 3,000-page publication. It contained more than 2,000 individual suggestions to move the federal government in a conservative direction, focusing on management and administration.
The Heritage Foundation was founded on February 16, 1973, by Edwin Feulner, who had been an aide to conservative Republican Congressmen Mel Laird of Wisconsin and Phil Crane of Illinois; Paul Weyrich, a political journalist from Milwaukee; and Joseph Coors, brewery billionaire and major donor to conservative causes.
The Foundation took a leading role in rebuilding the conservative movement following the setback of the landslide loss of Senator Barry Goldwater in the 1964 Presidential election. Its founding was followed by another setback: The shaming of the Republican Party in Richard Nixon's 1974 resignation as President due to Watergate.
But this opened up an opportunity for them, because many of Nixon's shifts to the political middle -- opening the door to Red China, accepting environmentalism, and supporting a health care reform plan that turned out to be to the left of what would eventually be called Hillarycare, never mind the one that became Obamacare -- meant that they never fully trusted him, and could build a Nixonless version of American conservatism.
In 1979, at a trustees' meeting of the Foundation, Jack Eckerd, the former head of the General Services Administration in the Ford Administration, suggested that the foundation draw up a conservative plan of action for the next incoming presidential administration in January 1981. Robert Krieble, a chemical company executive, proposed that Heritage produce a manual to help policymakers "cut the size of government and manage it more effectively."
The first edition was overseen and edited by Charles Heatherly, a former field director of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. In late January 1980, Heatherly produced a 5-page outline titled Mandate for Leadership, which was kept as the title for the final document. Heatherly explained that the purpose of the project was to present concrete proposals to "revitalize our economy, strengthen our national security and halt the centralization of power in the federal government."
The final approved report "presented an explicit plan for reshaping public discourse on civil rights issues." To that end, it recommended the Justice Department "halt its affirmative action policies to remedy past discrimination against women and other minorities."
Specific suggestions related to spending included raising the defense budget by $20 billion in Fiscal Year 1981, and increasing it by an average of $35 billion over the next 5 years, and the development of new weapons systems, including the B-1 bomber.
Representative Jack Kemp of New York, a former All-Pro quarterback who, rare among conservative Republicans, went out of his way to make overtures to black Americans, came up with the idea of "Urban Enterprise Zones," to encourage businesses to move into the nation's inner cities. This ended up including cutting sales tax in half within the Zones.
Ed Meese, who had been Ronald Reagan's chief of staff as Governor of California, became chief of staff of Reagan's 1980 campaign for President, and, after the election, the head of his transition team. He was given a copy of the Mandate, and was enthusiastic about it, giving it to Reagan. (Meese was Counselor to the President in the 1st term, and U.S. Attorney General in the 2nd term.)
At the 1st meeting of his Cabinet, Reagan passed out copies of Mandate, and many of the study's authors were recruited into the White House administration. In particular, the Reagan administration hired key Mandate contributors: William Bennett as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and later as Secretary of Education; and James G. Watt as Secretary of the Interior, a move that eventually blew up in Reagan's face.
Robert Krieble lived until 1997, getting to see the entirety of Reagan's Administration, the term of George H.W. Bush, and the Republican takeover of Congress in the 1994 election. Joseph Coors lived until 2003. Jack Eckerd lived until 2004, getting to see all of those things, and most of the 1st term of George W. Bush. Paul Weyrich lived until 2008, and Jack Kemp until 2009, both getting to see all of those things, but also the fall of the conservative movement in the Crash and election of 2008.
But the true effect of the Heritage Foundation came later. After Reagan's Vice President, George H.W. Bush, appointed David Souter to the Supreme Court in 1990, the Foundation flexed its legal-profession muscle, and, through its work with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has basically decided every Court appointment by a Republican President since: Clarence Thomas in 1991, John Roberts and Samuel Alito in 2005, Neil Gorsuch in 2017, Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, and Amy Coney Barrett in 2020.
That's the Supreme Court that decided that money is speech, corporations are "people" and entitled to the rights thereof, parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are unconstitutional, and there is no right to an abortion in the Constitution of the United States -- all lies. (UPDATE: And, in 2024, another lie: The President of the United States has conditional immunity for criminal acts he has committed while in office.)
On February 28, 2018, Donald Trump tweeted this:
As of January 1, 2022, Edwin Feulner, Ed Meese and Charles Heatherly are still alive, having gotten to see all of this, including the Trump Administration, and the damaged it's done, including the Capitol Insurrection. (UPDATE: Feulner died in 2025.)
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January 1, 1981 was a Thursday. The major college bowl games were played:
* Number 1 Georgia beat Number 7 Notre Dame, 17-10 at the Superdome in New Orleans, and clinched the National Championship. Running back Herschel Walker was just a freshman, but was already the most popular player in the country. He would win the Heisman Trophy 2 seasons later.
* Number 2 Florida State lost to Number 4 Oklahoma, 18-17 at the Orange Bowl in Miami.
* Number 5 Michigan beat Number 16 Washington, 23-6 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
* And Number 6 Baylor lost to Number 9 Alabama, 30-2 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.
The NFL was between rounds of its Playoffs. Baseball was out of season. The NHL had no games scheduled: They wouldn't begin playing their annual Winter Classic on New Year's Day until 2008. There were 3 games played in the NBA:
* The Houston Rockets beat the Utah Jazz, 117-103 at The Summit in Houston. (It's now the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, televangelist Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")
* The Boston Celtics beat the San Diego Clippers, 88-85 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena).
* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Denver Nuggets, 122-119 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.
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