Dear Fellow Marylanders,

Maryland is home to over 150,000 federal civilian workers and I am proud to represent them every day in the United States Senate. These are dedicated individuals who are not at their jobs for fame or fortune but because they believe in public service. They are committed to the successful functioning of this great nation and helping their fellow citizens. You may be a federal worker or retiree – or you know one, or many.

Public servants keep our borders secure and our food and water safe, care for our veterans and the elderly, and process our tax refunds and Social Security checks. They teach our children, search for cures to crippling diseases, explore the universe to learn more about our home planet, support our servicemen and women, and promote our interests and ideals abroad.

So, I write you today to share my concerns about a detailed plan, developed by the think tank the Heritage Foundation, called Project 2025 that poses a grave threat to our non-partisan, federal workforce and our nation. This is a plan that—if enacted—would take America back to some of the darkest chapters in our history.

Project 2025 sets out a nationwide abortion ban, eliminating civil rights for millions of Americans, gutting the checks and balances enshrined in our Constitution by the Founding Fathers, putting unlimited power in the president’s hands.

This kind of extremism is deeply disturbing and dangerous, for our federal workforce and our national security. And as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a former football coach, said last month about Project 2025, “when somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re going to use it.”

Today, and at crucial moments in our nation’s history, civil servants have played important roles. This includes global drug prevention efforts, hurricane response training, emergency food assistance, counterterrorism—across every region of the globe, in every state of our nation. American public servants put principle over politics every single day.

But Project 2025 envisions federal employees who will be politically loyal to an individual — rather than loyal to the Constitution and the letter of the law. This is the kind of thing authoritarian governments do. Remarkably, this was written by a group, including six former cabinet secretaries of the former president and 140 others, who worked in the Trump administration. It is a blueprint for a government that is radical and divisive.

As the President of the American Federation of Government Employees said, “Project 2025 will take away freedoms and rights from every American, will hurt the middle class and working families, and is a threat to our democracy.”

That’s right. They want to gut federal workers pay and benefits. They want to eliminate a million federal jobs. They want to make it easier to discriminate against people of color, woman and LGTBQ people.

From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to Veterans Affairs to the Environmental Protection Agency, the authors and supporters of Project 2025 want to make big changes. They want to dismantle public education. They want to eliminate the entire Department of Homeland Security.

Project 2025 will weaken our country and politicize our civilian workforce. It will put all of us in danger. And it has no place being the policy of the United States.

As a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and now its Chair, I have been working to strengthen the workforce at the State Department, USAID, and our international affairs agencies.

It is also why I applauded the Biden-Harris administration and the Office of Personnel Management for issuing the rule in opposition to the Trump administration’s plan to remove employment protections for federal workers (Schedule F). I also cosponsored legislation with Senator Tim Kaine to codify that same effort.

Our federal employees are tremendous force of good for our community and the world. We don’t acknowledge them enough. We don’t do enough to help them, support them and give them the resources they need. That is why we must say no to targeting of American public servants for doing their job, no to loyalty tests and no to weakening our fundamental democratic institutions. No to Project 2025.

Thank you for your time,

Ben Cardin