Relative maps and tautological classes

The moduli space of stable relative maps to the projective line combines features of stable maps and admissible covers. We prove all standard Gromov-Witten classes on these moduli spaces of stable relative maps have tautological push-forwards to the moduli space of curves. In particular, the fundamental classes of all moduli spaces of admissible covers push-forward to tautological classes. Consequences for the tautological rings of the moduli spaces of curves include methods for generating new relations, uniform derivations of the socle and vanishing statements of the Gorenstein conjectures for the complete, compact type, and rational tail cases, tautological boundary terms for Ionel's, Looijenga's, and Getzler's vanishings, and applications to Gromov-Witten theory.