Centrist House Democrats make up only a fraction of the party’s majority, but they’re positioned to punch above their weight politically with the chamber narrowly divided.
The Blue Dog Democrats, 18 in number, are positioned to have outsize sway not only in the House, where Democrats have 221 seats, Republicans have 211, and three are vacant. Across the Capitol, the Senate is split 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris set to break ties. And with President Biden in the White House, Democrats hold all the power in the federal elected branches for the first time in more than a decade.
But the close margins mean all factions of the party have to be considered. Legislation too far to the left is unlikely to become law.
“The House majority runs through the Blue Dogs,” said Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, co-chairwoman of the coalition, in audio obtained by the Washington Examiner. “We will be the protectors against the excesses that tends to happen when a single party, whether that’s Republican or Democrat, controls all branches of government.”
To be sure, the Blue Dog Coalition’s ranks have shrunk in recent years. A stalwart member, 30-year incumbent Rep. Collin Peterson, lost his western Minnesota seat in 2020 to now-GOP Rep. Michelle Fischbach. Several members of the fiscally conservative coalition unexpectedly lost, too.
Yet even with diminished ranks, its leaders believe they will be the gatekeepers to extremities in Congress and the key to working with not only the Biden administration but with Republicans and more liberal Democrats.
“We lost some really great members in the last election, and I believe that if there’s any hope of keeping the majority, we have to have a seat at the table,” said Murphy, who came to Congress in 2016 by beating a 24-year Republican incumbent in a central Florida seat.
The Democratic firewall to excess spending
The Blue Dogs were first established in 1995 after House Democrats lost their majority for the first time in 40 years. The idea was that the Democratic Party needed a voting bloc that represented the middle of the partisan spectrum. The name came from the canine paintings of Cajun artist George Rodrique, who often painted a blue dog with yellow eyes. Lawmakers at the time also suggested that they felt “choked blue” by the extremes of both parties.
Since its founding, the coalition sought to guard taxpayer dollars and focus its concerns on national defense. Historically, the group garnered favor with majority white, rural districts in the country, but rural strategist Chris Lee said that’s changed over the years.
“It wasn’t as diverse as it is now,” Lee told the Washington Examiner. “If you look 25 years later, it’s much less rural, much more diverse, and its members tend to represent more suburban-type districts rather than rural ones.”
The coalition has also not always been towed by party line, sometimes breaking with the leadership of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat long used as a liberal foil by Republicans. Of the 15 Democrats who didn’t vote for Pelosi as speaker in 2019, more than half were Blue Dogs.
Last year, 21 Blue Dogs sent a letter to Pelosi calling for more bipartisanship on COVID-19 relief negotiations, weeks into a congressional standoff.
In a recent letter sent to Biden, Blue Dog leaders called for prioritizing COVID-19 assistance, as well as job creation. Additionally, the coalition seeks to shore up Obamacare and, on the foreign policy front, reestablish alliances that frayed during the Trump administration.
But despite a chance for deal-making with Biden, who was considered a longtime pragmatist throughout his 36-year Senate career, Rep. Ed Case, coalition co-chairman, said there’s an increased responsibility to tread carefully with Democrats being in full control.
“We know that many, many folks across the country did not vote for Democrats, did not vote for Biden,” Case said. “We have a responsibility to represent the country overall. We have very different districts, each of us, and that is true of each of our districts.”
Socialist who?
In 2010, the Blue Dogs dominated 54 seats, giving them strong leverage under then-President Barack Obama. But after Republicans won back the House that year by picking up 63 seats, the Blue Dog Coalition’s membership ranks dwindled to 25.
For the remaining members, left-wing party leaders became part of the problem. And, more recently, so have a group of far-left House Democrats, including the “Squad,” led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who won her Bronx- and Queens-based seat in 2018 by beating a member of the House Democratic leadership in a primary.
“Back in 2010 when Democrats lost the majority, basically on every Republican ad, you’d see Pelosi,” said Miles Coleman, the associate editor of political newsletter Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
“The Squad has kind of taken over that role,” Coleman told the Washington Examiner about the group, which also includes Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
Lee said media attention on the far Left pushes out room for centrist lawmakers to have a voice in the party’s initiatives and gives room for Republicans to paint Democrats as being a liberal monolith.
“They have the biggest microphones, whereas the members who are part of the new Democratic coalition, the Blue Dog Coalition, they’re the ones that really make up the majority,” Lee said. “Unfortunately, a lot of those moderates don’t have the same microphones on the news as AOC and Rashida Tlaib and some of those progressive members have.”
