The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
DeMint said to be out at Heritage Foundation
Think tank’s shake-up linked to health care failure.
WASHINGTON — The Heritage Foundation, a powerful conservative think tank that played a significant role in shaping President Donald Trump’s Cabinet and tilting it far to the right, is expected to replace its leader, the former South Carolina senator and tea party leader Jim DeMint.
The anticipated shake-up, which was confirmed by two people with knowledge of the fraught internal dynamics, comes at an inopportune time for the group, with several major pieces of conservative legislation on the agenda in Congress. The budget, a tax overhaul and health care are all issues that the Heritage Foundation has tried to influence, with varying degrees of success.
A spokesman for the foundation did not return a request for comment.
Last month’s failure of the Republican plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act was a difficult test for Heritage and conservative groups like it, which have fought for years to gut the law. The foundation and its political arm, Heritage Action for America, pushed aggressively for a full repeal, which would have left none of the original 2010 law in place. That was further than Trump and Republican congressional leaders wanted to go.
A likely candidate to take over, said one person with knowledge of the situation, is Ed Feulner, a former president of Heritage who has worked closely with the Trump administration.
Heritage, which rose to prominence during the Reagan administration and remains a home for many Reagan-era aides like Edwin Meese, the former attorney general, has come to represent the uncompromising vision for conservatism associated with the tea party movement and its leaders in Congress.
DeMint’s apparent undoing was, in part, a reflection of the dissatisfaction of those inside the organization who believed Heritage was too much of a sideline player in the health care debate.
According to one person familiar with the reasons behind his ouster, DeMint was blamed for not positioning Heritage to make a more effective and convincing case for a full health care repeal. He is highly compensated, earning more than $1 million in 2015 alone, according to tax documents.
Given that a repeal has been a central and defining issue for the group for the past seven years, its inability to be more influential with Congress was a major source of consternation for DeMint’s critics.