The big news in conservative circles today is that Jim DeMint will be leaving the Senate to run the Heritage Foundation, built from scratch by its innovative founder, Ed Feulner, into a colossus that redefined the way public-policy ideas could be integrated into the ongoing political process on Capitol Hill. Before Heritage was created in 1974, Capitol Hill was a vast wasteland intellectually and ideologically, especially on the Republican side; most policy was generated by the bureaucrats in the executive branch and then refined into legislative form by permanent staff on the Hill. Heritage began examining specific pieces of legislation and offering criticisms of them and proposals for their refinement, as well as producing short and coherent documents on a range of issues to educate congressmen and their staffs about the effects their votes could and would produce. This is now standard practice across the ideological camps in D.C., but it was entirely new and enormously influential.
Heritage is commonly called a “think tank,” but it’s something far more complex than that—it is one of the largest grass-roots organizations in the world, with an astonishing 700,000-plus donors and supporters and a budget of $75 million. And like most of the right, it has found itself see-sawing between trying to offer constructive policy advice advancing innovative legislation and standing in potent opposition to liberal innovations.
The temptation for DeMint will be to stress the institution’s role in opposition, which is his stock in trade as a senator, and to downgrade its policy role, which has had its major “up”s (welfare reform) and its blind-spot “down”s (advocating a health-care mandate in 1994). But if ideas do not play the central role, Heritage will hollow itself out, and that would be a great shame. Ed Feulner stands as one of the great public-policy innovators of the 20th century; it would be thrilling if the same could be said of Jim DeMint when he passes on the mantle to his successor.
I hope Gov. Haley appoints Tim Scott to replace Jim DeMint.
Not a good sign. Retirements like this are often an indication that the politician doesn't expect his party to win back the chamber next time around.
This is a huge loss for the senate because the GOP needs leaders right now and JB isn't doing it in the house. We have way too many RINO's in the Senate and Congress right now and these guys and gals want to give Obama and Harry Reid too much concessions.
what a commentary! on how far the hard right wing in this country has to go to cement its feet still further into historical oblivion. Senator DeMint is not exactly an intellectual inspiration, unless you favor the limbic system as cerebrally dominant, and to call the Heritage Foundation a think tank is like calling Fox News fair and balanced.