The Blue
Dog Coalition - celebrating 10 years of leadership in 2005
- has built a reputation as a serious player in the policy
arena, promoting positions which bridge the gap between ideological
extremes. Many of the group's policy proposals have been praised
as fair, responsible, and positive additions to a Congressional
environment too often marked as partisan and antagonistic.
The 35
conservative and moderate Democrats in the group hail from
every region of the country, although the group acknowledges
some southern ancestry which accounts for the group's nickname.
Taken from the South's longtime description of a party loyalist
as one who would vote for a yellow dog if it were on the ballot
as a Democrat, the "Blue Dog" moniker was taken
by members of The Coalition because their moderate-to-conservative-views
had been "choked blue" by their party in the years
leading up to the 1994 election.
The Coalition
was formed in the 104th Congress as a policy-oriented group
to give moderate and conservative Democrats in the House of
Representatives a common sense, bridge-building voice within
the institution.
Most agree that, since then, the Blue Dogs have successfully
injected a moderate viewpoint into the Democratic Caucus,
where group members now find greater receptiveness to their
opinions. In fact, the continuing political success of "Blue
Pups" in the 1998, 2000, and 2002, 2004 elections points
to the public's approval of the centrist, fiscally responsible
message represented by The Coalition. Since 1996, eighteen
Blue Dogs won their seats by defeating a Republican incumbent.
The Coalition
has been particularly active on fiscal issues, relentlessly
pursuing a balanced budget and then protecting that achievement
from politically popular "raids" on the budget.
Past Coalition budgets have won the endorsement of the nonpartisan
Concord Coalition and multiple newspaper and magazine editorials.
As one column pointed out, the Blue Dogs have proven that
"common sense, conservative economics and compassion
aren't necessarily mutually exclusive."
Blue Dog Coalition proposals have served as middle-ground
markers which laid the foundation for the bipartisanship necessary
to bring about fundamental reforms, and helped set into law
policies reflecting the "common sense, conservative compassion"
so often attached to the group's efforts.
In the
109th Congress, the Coalition intends to continue to make
a difference in Congress by forging middle-ground, bipartisan
answers to the current challenges facing the Country. A top
priority will be to refocus Congress on balancing the budget
and ridding taxpayers of the burden the debt places on them.
The group also expects to be involved in a variety of issues,
where the stale extreme left vs. right approach requires a
breath of fresh air.