The once-pervasive and powerful Blue Dog Coalition is struggling to stay relevant.
The group of moderate House Democrats took another beating during this month’s midterm elections, with only 11 of its 19 members surviving. And while two more races involving Blue Dogs are still too close to call, the coalition is a shadow of what it was in its heyday, when its ranks swelled to an all-time high of 54 in 2009 and 2010.
Yet the group slugs on, continuing to preach a message of political moderation and willingness to work with Republicans despite an ever-polarizing Capitol Hill.
“The message of Blue Dogs, of fiscal conservatism and finding middle ground — that speaks right to the heart of what Americans want,” said Rep. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who joined the Blue Dogs after arriving in Congress in 2013.
Sinema, who easily won re-election this year, said her constituents have encouraged her to reach across the increasingly wide party divide.
“The message I shared with my community was that I’ll work with anyone regardless of party to get things done,” she said. “I just want to find moderate solutions in the middle. That’s a Blue Dog message, and it resonated well with the voters in my districts and my state.”
Blue Dogs say they provide a natural bridge between House Democrats and Republicans to help ease legislative and political gridlock.
And when Republican leaders need Democratic votes to help pass legislation — or are eager to collect a few Democratic votes to ensure measures have a “bipartisan” tag — the coalition is an option.
“With the election results, Speaker [John] Boehner is going to have a bunch of extremely far-right members that will never do what is, frankly, best for the country,” said Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon, a co-chairman of the coalition. “He’s had trouble with them in the last Congress, and we can provide some help with 13, maybe 15 votes at the end of the day that he wouldn’t have otherwise.”
“We’re naturally an option for [Republican leaders] should they need to work with somebody — provided they actually truly want to work with the president.”
The Blue Dogs also are picking up two incoming freshmen — Gwen Graham of Florida and Brad Ashford of Nebraska — in Republican-leaning districts, a sign that suggests centrist politics, while out of fashion, isn’t completely dead.
“Those areas of our country are frustrated, and there are many other areas that, I think, the American electorate are going to get an eye-opening look at what the Republicans are really all about” when the new Congress convenes in January, said Schrader.
Schader said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland routinely allow the Blue Dogs to stray from the party on key votes, knowing that the political future of coalition members rests with maintaining their centrist approach.
“There’s no recrimination,” he said.
A senior House Democratic aide added that “Democrats can’t win back the House without winning in more conservative districts, and Blue Dogs will play an essential role in making that happen.”
Pelosi and her Democratic leaders weren’t always so flexible. During the momentous 2010 House vote for President Obama’s healthcare law, Pelosi, needing every vote she could muster to ensure passage, leaned heavily on the Blue Dogs for support. The result is credited with, or blamed for, the sweeping loses coalition members suffered in the midterm elections months later.
“Every time they have the opportunity to buck their leadership and really get something done, the Blue Dogs act more like Rep. Pelosi’s house cats,” said a senior House GOP aide.
But Schrader said he and his fellow Blue Dogs pride themselves on voting their consciences and that his votes reflect their districts.
“My [constituents] are just tired of the fighting [in Congress]. They don’t know who to blame — is it the president, is it [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell, is it Boehner, the Tea Party?” he said. “They just say ‘We need you to work together.’ And our stock in trade is doing just that.”
He added that the Blue Dogs were born as a response to the 1994 midterm elections, when a Republican wave captured the House from the Democrats for the first time in decades.
“So I think you’re going to see the same thing with us going forward from this point,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for us, and I think America is crying out for [Congress] to work together.”
