It's clear from reports that the White House is looking to court the votes of the 51-member Blue Dog Caucus in the House of Representatives, weighing their votes in heavy favor against the votes of the rest of the Democratic caucus, including the 71-member Progressive Democratic Caucus.
The House Blue Dog Coalition continues to wield outsize political power, thanks to a canny willingness to leverage its votes on key issues, while the Congressional Progressive Caucus must fight to be heard.
Case in point: the Blue Dogs are meeting directly with President Obama this afternoon on the stimulus bill. The Progressives have yet to hear back about their request for a meeting, which was issued almost a month ago.
Elana Schor over at TPM weighed how much press coverage the Blue Dogs Caucus gets in comparison to those of the Progressive Democratic Caucus:
But when I compared the two ideologically disparate Dem factions -- the conservative-leaning Blue Dogs and the Progressive Caucus -- the numbers were staggering. In the past 90 days, the Blue Dogs were mentioned 933 times in national press coverage according to Lexis-Nexis. The progressives were cited just 99 times.
The Blue Dogs Caucus know that they wield this power of influence, largely due to their ability to block President Obama's legislation, as evidenced by Rep. Mike Ross's comments to the Washington Post:
"He said he planned to be the next president and he wanted to work with us," Ross said in recounting his conversation with Obama before the House approved a $700 billion economic rescue package. "He also recognized that we had the numbers to block or clear" legislation coming from the White House if he is elected.
And Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) also echoed these comments in an interview with the Wall Street Journal:
Sitting in his office a stone's throw from where the festivities will take place, I ask about his role in the big transformation coming to Washington. He's one of the leaders of a gang of moderate Democrats called the Blue Dogs. They're meeting their first Democratic president in a while, and Mr. Cooper may have a big effect on the agenda. He smiles gently and says, "If we were to ally with the Republicans, we could swing any vote in the House of Representatives." He hastens to add, "We don't want to do that, we aren't planning on doing that."
These are the kind of people that will be opposed to significant health care reform, energy legislation, and other legislative initiatives if they're not in accordance with "pay-go" rules. They tried to block important legislation such as these below:
Remember when the Blue Dogs threatened to hold up the bill exempting middle-class taxpayers from the AMT unless its cost was offset in the budget? Senate opposition killed that effort.
Remember when the Blue Dogs chose to take a stand on offsetting the cost of veterans' education benefits? Democratic leaders got around that by tweaking the timeline for the bill. Blue Dogs voted against it, but the veterans' program ultimately passed.
And in 2007, the offer of $4 billion in emergency (read: not paid for) disaster aid for farmers helped get Blue Dogs on board with a massive bill to fund the Iraq war. Not surprisingly, many of the Blue Dogs hail from southern and farm states and are constantly facing tough re-election fights, making their ability to bring home the bacon even more crucial.
Chris Bowers, over at Open Left, points out their ability to block legislation:
During the stimulus fight, Blue Dogs extracted a restrictive PAYGO promise from President Obama and a "fiscal responsibility summit" in exchange for votes on the stimulus. And yet, despite this, six Blue Dogs still voted against the stimulus package. Further, four of the other five Democrats who voted against the measure are freshmen who will probably become Blue Dogs soon (they did indicate there are now 51 Blue Dogs, even though their website only lists 47 members, none of whom are freshmen). In return for this awesome loyalty on the stimulus package, Blue Dogs get a meeting at the White House, while Progressives--who extracted no promises or summits, all of whom voted for the stimulus, and who even had many of their programs cut from the bill--stay on the waiting list.
These Blue Dogs almost doomed the passage of the stimulus bill in the House:
But according to Democratic leadership sources, the number [of Democratic votes against the stimulus] was almost much higher – and could have been high enough to hand the Republicans a monumental victory – had it not been for a letter from President Obama’s budget director Peter Orszag.
The letter addressed to House Appropriations Committee Chairman David promised to return to "pay-as-you-go budgeting," and stressed that the stimulus was an "extraordinary response to an extraordinary process" and thus subject to different rules.
"It should not be seen as an opportunity to abandon the fiscal discipline that we owe each and every taxpayer in spending their money – and that is critical to keeping the United States strong in a global, interdependent economy," the letter stated.
"Moving forward, we need to return to the fiscal responsibility and pay-as-you-go budgeting that we had in the 1990’s for all non-emergency measures," Orszag continued. "The President and his economic team look forward to working with the Congress to develop budget enforcement rules that are based on the tools that helped create the surpluses of a decade ago.
Now, let it be clear now, the Blue Dogs are not our friends. They are our enemies, because they will work as hard to ensure that any health care reform is doomed by insisting on their moronic pay-go rules. Jane Hamsher over at FireDogLake points out why pay-go is problematic:
A commitment to "paygo" right now is problematic for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that it could doom any meaningful healthcare legislation. But the fact that Obama was forced to kneel to Blue Dog demands is as clear an example as I can think of about something we've been saying for a long time -- the Blue Dogs now hold the power in the House to either join with Republicans or Democrats and control what legislation gets passed. If eight more Blue Dogs had crossed over and voted against the bill, it would have failed.
And our own KagroX, in the discussion between Nate Silver and Chris Bowers, points out that the Blue Dogs benefit politically by not associating themselves with the Democratic party or with President Obama:
I definitely agree that the voting results among the Progressive Caucus (and to some extent, the New Democrats) is more likely a function of responsiveness to Obama and the leadership than it is an endorsement of the program on principles.
If it were truly ideological, what would explain the disparity between the New Dems and the Blue Dogs on last week's vote given, as Chris notes, the overlap between the two groups?
One answer, of course, is that neither group is particularly cohesive ideologically, which I think is true.
Another is that one ideological difference between Blue Dogs and New Dems is that Blue Dogs more often appear to have a political interest in being seen as distinct from Democrats rather than being a distinct type of Democrat, as is the claim of New Dems.
New Dems and Progressives have a political interest (at least at this stage of the game) in allowing themselves to be closely associated with the Obama administration, and in being seen not to be obstructing it. Blue Dogs, however, are a different story. They will, in large part, benefit politically by distancing themselves, and being seen as only skeptical, cautious and hesitant participants in his plans.
In other words, it wasn't so much that the bailout is a progressive thing as it was that not opposing Obama is politically beneficial to most progressives. It's also an old (and not that good) habit of progressives -- to allow their safe seats and sense of responsibility for sustaining the Democratic leadership (both legislative and executive) to be leveraged into votes that may not necessarily be in line with their principles. Or at least to subsume their ideological principles to their political ones.
You'll recognize it as the "where else are they gonna go" syndrome. Or in this case, the "you're not really going to make your new president and leadership risk XYZ, are you?" syndrome.
And the reason why the Blue Dogs have this much power is because they were recruited by Rahm Emannuel, the current White House Chief (who now invites the Blue Dogs over for weekday cocktail talks), to run in primary races against progressive Democrats in 2006.
We need to keep constant watch on these Blue Dogs, and to help support the efforts of SEIU, Moveon.org, BlogPac, They Work For Us, and Color of Change with the Accountability Project. The Accountability Project is set up to hold these politicians like the Blue Dogs accountable by finding, recruiting, and supporting a primary challenge by a Progressive Democrat against a politician who's forgotten the meaning of representative democracy.
So, with this in mind, please feel free to donate to the Accountability Project, and let them know about any possible progressive leaders in your community to run against a conservative Democrat or a Blue Dog that hasn't represented your best interests.
Also, please feel free to contact the Democratic Progressive Caucus at their official website and ask how you can help them out. They'll definitely need our help when it comes to important legislation such as healthcare.
UPDATE: I was unable to use the web form over at the Congressional Progressive Caucus website, and the e-mail did not work. I'll have to e-mail one of the co-chairs of the Progressive Democratic Caucus and ask for the contact information of their policy adviser, Bill Goold (if he still works for them).
UPDATE #2: Just sent off an e-mail to Rep. Grijalva's chief of staff and his legislative director:
Dear Mr. Miller:
I tried to contact Mr. Bill Goold, who works as the policy advisor for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, but the official e-mail didn't work, and neither did the web form on the website. I'm posting the e-mail which was sent to him below:
I used to work in the House of Representatives as a legislative staffer until late fall of 2008, and but I am still politically involved as a progressive Democrat. I post over on Dailykos, HuffingtonPost, FireDogLake, and a number of progressive blogs, and I'd like to ask you a few questions.
Will there be a coordinated effort by the Progressive Democratic Caucus to reach out to the netroots, and to engage the media to make the best case for their agenda?
The Progressive Democratic Caucus has over 71 members, but the Blue Dogs, which has 51 members, seem to be able to control the legislative agenda by the White House by threatening to block the votes. Why do they wield this strategy, and not the Progressive Democratic Caucus? It seems that now would be the best time for the Progressive Democratic Caucus to show some muscle, engage the netroots, and have their voices heard by the White House. By remaining passive, it seems that the White House is ignoring the Progressive Democratic Caucus.
How can we help change this dynamic? I look forward to hearing from you, and I have posted this e-mail over at my diary on Dailykos here at this link below:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Sincerely,
slinkerwink