# Texas Public Policy Foundation The **Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF)** is the **largest and most operationally consequential [[State Policy Network]] affiliate** in the United States. Founded in 1989 in Austin, TPPF has functioned for most of its history as the **policy brain trust of the modern Texas Republican Party** — supplying the model legislation, talking points, talent, and litigation strategy for the state government that has defined the conservative-state-policy frontier on issues from energy regulation to immigration to school choice. TPPF is also the institution where **[[Kevin Roberts]]** — current president of the [[Heritage Foundation]] and editor of *[[Project 2025]]* — served as CEO from 2019 to 2021. The Roberts → TPPF → Heritage personnel pipeline is a load-bearing fact for understanding how state-level Republican policy infrastructure feeds the national MAGA-era policy operation. ## Founding and Trajectory TPPF was founded in 1989 by Dr. James Leininger, a San Antonio physician and major Republican donor who would become one of the most consequential conservative donors in Texas history. Leininger funded TPPF specifically as the **Texas-domestic policy infrastructure** that the state's emerging Republican majority would need to operationalize a conservative-state-policy agenda. The org was a State Policy Network founding affiliate. TPPF grew significantly through the 2000s and 2010s as Texas's Republican government consolidated and the national conservative infrastructure increasingly used Texas as a **policy laboratory** for ideas designed to be exported nationally. Under [[Brooke Rollins]]'s presidency (2003–2018, with continued involvement through 2021), TPPF became a national reference institution. Under Kevin Roberts (2019–2021), it deepened its national-personnel-pipeline function. Roberts left to assume the [[Heritage Foundation]] presidency in October 2021; Greg Sindelar then took over as CEO. ## Policy Focus TPPF's policy portfolio mirrors the legislative priorities of the Texas Republican supermajority: - **Energy policy** — opposition to ESG/divestment, defense of Texas's oil-and-gas dominance, attacks on grid-decarbonization mandates (especially after the February 2021 grid failure) - **School choice** — universal-ESA advocacy; TPPF was a principal intellectual driver of the 2023–2025 Texas school-choice legislative push - **Immigration and border policy** — Operation Lone Star analytical support, anti-sanctuary-city policy, border-enforcement scholarship - **Civil-justice reform** — tort reform (a long-running Leininger priority) - **Property tax / fiscal policy** — limits on local government spending, property-tax restraint - **Regulatory reform** — administrative-state critique, occupational-licensing reform - **Election integrity** — voter-ID, post-2020 election-administration policy ## Funding TPPF's funding profile is dense and well-documented. Major historical and contemporary donors include: - The Leininger family (founding capital and continued support) - [[Mercer Family Foundation]] - [[Koch Network]] foundations - [[DonorsTrust]] - The Searle Freedom Trust - Energy-sector corporations (Exxon, [[Koch Industries]], various utilities) - Texas-based real-estate and energy fortunes TPPF's annual revenue is in the $25M+ range, making it not just the largest SPN affiliate by budget but larger than many freestanding national conservative think tanks. ## The TPPF → Heritage Pipeline The 2021 elevation of Kevin Roberts from TPPF CEO to [[Heritage Foundation]] president is the most consequential personnel transfer in the recent SPN-to-national-flagship pipeline. Roberts brought TPPF's operational philosophy — close coordination with Republican state-level officeholders, intensive personnel curation, aggressive policy-laboratory mentality — to Heritage, where it shaped the [[Project 2025]] effort. This pipeline is one of the defining institutional facts of the contemporary movement-right: **TPPF is the proof-of-concept for the state-level operation that Project 2025 attempted to replicate at the federal level**. ## KB Significance TPPF matters to the KB for four structural reasons: 1. **The flagship SPN proof.** TPPF is the demonstration that a state-level conservative think tank, given adequate funding and a friendly statehouse, can supply substantially the entire policy program of a one-party state. Other SPN affiliates have copied TPPF's model with varying success. 2. **The Roberts pipeline.** Without TPPF, the Roberts-led [[Heritage Foundation]] is a different institution. Project 2025's operational philosophy is TPPF-shaped. 3. **The Texas policy-laboratory.** Many policies that later went national (anti-sanctuary, voter-ID, ESA-style school choice, anti-ESG investing rules) were developed or refined inside TPPF before being exported through ALEC, the SPN network, and Heritage to other Republican states and the federal government. 4. **The donor-network anchor.** TPPF is the institutional point where Texas-energy money, Mercer/Koch-style national conservative donor money, and SPN/ALEC infrastructure money intersect. ## See Also - [[Kevin Roberts]] — former CEO; current [[Heritage Foundation]] president - [[State Policy Network]] — TPPF's parent network - [[ALEC]] — sister institution for model legislation - [[Heritage Foundation]] — destination of the TPPF → national pipeline - [[Mercer Family Foundation]] — major funder - [[Koch Network]] — major funder - [[School Choice]] — TPPF's signature 2020s-Texas issue - [[Atlas Network]] — TPPF is an Atlas partner - [[Think Tank Ecosystem]] — broader ecosystem hub