- Sat. Jul 4, 2009
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COVER STORY
Dog Days
The conservative Blue Dogs have seen their political clout rise in the House Democratic Caucus. But when the tough legislative decisions are made, do the Blue Dogs have more bark than bite?
By many measures, the Blue Dog Coalition--a 49-member group of fiscally conservative, business-friendly House Democrats from generally Republican-leaning districts--is on a roll. The November 2006 elections ushered in numerous like-minded moderate freshmen, 13 of whom joined the Blue Dogs, helping to put the Democrats in control of the House for the first time in a dozen years and install Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as speaker. Two Blue Dog-endorsed Democrats recently captured GOP-held seats in special elections in Mississippi and Louisiana. And the group is setting itself up for even more wins this November.
Money has been flowing their way, too. Contributions to the Blue Dog political action committee have nearly tripled during this election cycle compared with the previous one. Since January 2007, the coalition's PAC has collected more money than nearly every other member-run leadership PAC in the House.
"We expect to grow and have an even larger group in the 111th Congress," said Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., one of three Blue Dog co-chairs.
In a June 3 interview with National Journal, Ross and other Blue Dog leaders sounded upbeat about their prospects, and with good reason. Pelosi recognizes that without the Blue Dogs, she would still be the minority leader. She and other House Democratic leaders are well aware that if just 19 Blue Dogs oppose them on party-line votes, the majority can't pass legislation. So the leaders usually consider the group's moderate views. Otherwise, the more-liberal leanings of the rest of the 235-member House Democratic Caucus could force the Blue Dogs to cast votes that might cost them their seats--and ultimately topple their party from power.
"Our leadership has been very inclusive and has been willing to listen to our concerns," said Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., the Blue Dog whip.
But a telling and potentially worrisome exception to the Blue Dogs' newfound clout was on display less than an hour after the interview with NJ, when coalition members emerged from a closed-door meeting with House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis. Obey had told them that Democratic leaders were preparing to buck the Blue Dogs by bringing to the floor, as part of the Iraq war supplemental spending bill, a major expansion of education benefits for military veterans whose cost would not be offset by tax increases or spending cuts.
The Blue Dogs have made "pay-as-you-go" budgeting their central plank in this Congress. Creating a mandatory program like the education aid for veterans without a corresponding budget offset would add considerably to the federal debt and clearly violate their chief tenet: imposing more fiscal discipline on runaway government spending.
"It puts a lot of people in an awkward position," Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, a leading Blue Dog, said after the meeting with Obey. Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla., a coalition co-chair, agreed. "We all want it," he said of the veterans benefits, which Democrats have dubbed "the GI Bill for the 21st century." "We also think it's the right thing to do to pay for it."
A more defiant Ross said he didn't expect the leaders to stick with their plan to finance the program with more debt. "I think the leadership knows how to count votes," he said.
During a few other high-profile debates over the past two years, including on a measure providing relief from the alternative minimum tax and on economic stimulus legislation, Blue Dogs also demanded that the cost be offset, only to be overruled by Democratic leaders. The current disagreement over the veterans benefit is certainly giving the coalition more headaches. It also suggests that the Blue Dogs face a bigger problem in the next Congress. Even with their current political successes, more policy run-ins like this could come back to haunt them.
"Next year is going to be a fascinating year for the Blue Dogs," said former Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas, a founding member of the coalition who is now a senior policy adviser for the Washington law and lobbying firm Olsson Frank Weeda.
With Democrats potentially controlling both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in 2009, House leaders must not ignore the Blue Dogs' concerns if they want to keep the majority, Stenholm warned. "If they do, the midterm elections [in 2010] will take a large number of them out, and that's a fact," he said. "That's how we lost the majority [in 1994], and that's how we'll lose it again."
Pack Mentality
Back in 1993 and '94, Stenholm and other moderate-to-conservative Democratic lawmakers discussed forming a group to pursue centrist policies. They worried that the House and Senate Democratic majorities, along with President Clinton's White House, were steering policies too far to the left.
The 1994 election results confirmed those fears: Republicans captured 54 Democratic-held House seats, leaving Democrats in the minority for the first time in 40 years. Stenholm was among the conservative Democrats left standing. Those that remained in the House and didn't switch parties (as five Democrats did) formed the 23-member Blue Dog Coalition in early 1995. The iconic paintings of a blue dog by Louisiana artist George Rodrigue inspired the name.
During the first few years of Republican control, the Blue Dogs played a central role in budget and welfare reform negotiations between congressional Republicans and the Clinton White House. The Blue Dogs also provided votes that the GOP needed to pass key parts of the Contract With America, including a commitment to a balanced budget. Their influence diminished, however, after the 2000 election of George W. Bush as president and the rise of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who put in place a Republican juggernaut that rarely needed help from Democrats.
Then in the 2006 elections, Democrats won 30 Republican-held House seats. Many of the candidates had campaigned on moderate platforms and had distanced themselves from liberal leaders in Washington. Pelosi recognized the importance of the moderates to the new Democratic majority. As the new Congress began, she made the Blue Dogs' pet cause--restoration of the "paygo" budgeting rules that Republicans had suspended in 2002--the House's first order of business.
Since then, enforcing paygo has been the Blue Dogs' main focus. They review all legislation moving through the House to make sure that any proposed mandatory spending or tax cuts are offset by either tax increases or spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. Their demand for offsets for new programs has put them at odds with the more-liberal members of the Democratic Caucus and with Republicans.
"We see our role as ensuring that not only the Democrats but also the Republicans adhere to this House rule in ensuring that bills are paid for," Ross said. Herseth Sandlin added that the group acts as "fiscal police."
Blue Dogs tell their constituents that they work in Washington to get the government to live within its means, the way that families and businesses must. Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, said that the message works in the Middle America districts they represent. "So many of us come from districts that are so-called swing districts, we understand that you just can't keep accumulating this unbelievable debt," he said.
Boswell said that lawmakers have to explain the budget-deficit issue to voters, but once they do, it resonates. "They'll stop and think about it when you give a full explanation," he said. "You've got to set priorities, and it's tough. But a $9.4 trillion debt and this way-over $250 billion [annual] interest payment--just think what that could do for veterans or education or conservation or whatever."
Although they're on the same page on paygo, coalition members are more ideologically and geographically diverse these days than at the group's outset, when conservative white Southern and Western Democrats formed the core. The Blue Dogs now comprise 22 Southerners, 10 Westerners, 11 Midwesterners, and six Northeasterners. Nearly all of the Blue Dogs represent heavily rural districts, however. Twenty of the 25 Democratic members of the House Agriculture Committee are Blue Dogs, including Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and five of his six subcommittee chairmen.
The 16 most conservative Democrats in the House, based on NJ's 2007 vote ratings, are Blue Dogs. But several Blue Dogs, including Reps. Jane Harman and Loretta Sanchez, both D-Calif., had scores to the left of the center of the House Democratic Caucus. "In terms of social issues, [we're] all over the map--guns, abortion, all those issues," Boyd said. "That's not our common thread. Our common thread is on the fiscal policies."
The group's members are nonetheless tight-knit. They rotate leaders every Congress, so that every member gets a shot. The co-chair for administration--the de facto head of the group--inherits a heavy blue sculpture of a hound dog that has been passed down through the years. He currently lies droopily under a desk in Boyd's office, where aides have nicknamed him Rufus. The Blue Dogs meet every Tuesday evening in the Longworth Building for a members-only policy discussion, and then again on Wednesday mornings at the Tortilla Coast restaurant for discussions with lobbyists and outside experts on various matters.
The group's PAC--led by veteran Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn., a founding member of the Blue Dogs--holds golf tournaments and other events that raise money for every coalition member as well as nonincumbent candidates who go through a screening process. "We're not looking for people who are looking for political cover back home," Ross said. "We're looking for people who really are Blue Dogs, who share our values."
Blue Dog members' staffs also coordinate with each other on most issues that come before the House, even if the group itself doesn't take a formal position. Indeed, the Blue Dogs take official positions only if two-thirds of their members agree, a standard that means that most nonbudgetary matters do not get the full group's backing. But because many of the members take similar moderate-to-conservative positions on foreign-policy and social issues, such as intelligence surveillance and immigration, they often form smaller, ad hoc blocs to negotiate on various matters.
Harman, Boswell, and Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala., have been among the leading Blue Dogs on intelligence surveillance. They played a central role in intraparty negotiations to come up with a compromise between liberal members, who want to limit government authority, and conservatives, who favor fewer restrictions on intelligence-gathering. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., one of the Blue Dog freshmen, has led Democrats who take conservative stances on immigration reform that are more in line with Republican views than with the Democratic Caucus's.
Barking Up Trees
House Democratic leaders often pay heed to the Blue Dogs when plotting floor strategy, because the coalition's support is critical on controversial matters. And Democratic leaders are particularly careful about protecting the party's vulnerable moderate freshmen who won GOP-held seats--including those who joined the Blue Dogs--from having to cast tough votes that could be used against them on the campaign trail. It's a balancing act for the leaders, though, because they also have to take into account the more liberal views of the rest of their caucus.
Many of the group's members see Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., as an honorary Blue Dog, and he has shown the most devotion to pushing the caucus to stick with the paygo rules. The House leaders, however, must also deal with resistance in the Senate, where Democrats have shown less interest in abiding by paygo and where Republicans who staunchly oppose tax increases--even to offset the cost of other measures--hold the power to block legislation. Given those realities, the leaders have sometimes had to jettison paygo to pass bills.
Blue Dogs contend that their fiscal policing has been largely successful during this Congress, allowing only two bills that violate paygo to become law as of the beginning of June. One was the $150 billion economic stimulus package of tax rebates that Congress approved and Bush signed in February.
As leaders rushed to put together the stimulus package in January, some Blue Dogs initially grumbled, with Boyd arguing that the nation's economic problems were hardly an emergency that justified waiving paygo. "Many of us are concerned about there being sort of a knee-jerk reaction," he said at the time, according to CongressDaily. "Do you think this is a sudden, unexpected event? I don't. We've been seeing it coming now for seven years, ever since George W. Bush got elected president." Ultimately, most Blue Dogs agreed that offsetting the stimulus rebates with tax increases or spending cuts would have defeated the goal of pumping extra money into the economy.
The other, more troubling loss for the group was on legislation preventing the alternative minimum tax--aimed at millionaires when first enacted in the 1960s--from hitting millions of additional middle-class taxpayers. Last fall, Congress considered a measure to block the AMT from expanding, but the price tag was $50 billion in lost tax revenue, which the Blue Dogs wanted offset by other tax increases or spending cuts.
The Blue Dogs twice persuaded House Democratic leaders to pass an offset AMT bill, but Senate Republicans voted against it both times, preventing it from getting the 60 votes necessary for passage in that chamber. In December, House leaders acquiesced and allowed a floor vote on a version that wasn't offset and instead increased the deficit. The House passed the measure 352-64 with overwhelming support from both parties, although 26 Blue Dogs stuck to their guns and voted no. In a sign of solidarity with the Blue Dogs, the four top House leaders, including Pelosi, voted no as well.
This spring, Hoyer and House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., included the Blue Dogs in top-level negotiations to ensure their support for the annual congressional budget resolution. Blue Dogs persuaded the House and Senate to agree to several of their demands in the budget resolution, including a commitment from Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., to push harder in his chamber for offsets when an AMT relief bill comes up again later this year.
The Blue Dogs also persuaded Conrad to drop a plan for a second, $35 billion economic stimulus package that would not have been offset. And Spratt agreed to a request from Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., a Blue Dog member, for a hearing examining the budget meltdown that is forecast for the coming decades because of rising Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs.
"It's a pretty big group now, over 40 members, so that's a significant voting bloc in the House," Spratt said, crediting the Blue Dogs with ensuring that paygo is honored in the budget. "They were the ones who were behind the idea, and they stood with it. Every time an issue comes up, it's clear the Blue Dogs will have to be dealt with."
But as House Democratic leaders prepared the war supplemental spending package in May, including the $50 billion boost in veterans college aid, the Blue Dogs felt shut out. Pelosi, Obey, and other leaders crafted the legislation behind closed doors and without their input. Obey presented it to the Democratic Caucus on May 6 as a fait accompli, and leaders planned votes on the bill for later that week. But once the Blue Dogs objected, Pelosi put on the brakes until some offsets could be found to pay for the benefit.
"Unlike most of last year, where the Blue Dogs were always represented at the table in terms of the strategy of moving major bills forward, unfortunately the way this emergency supplemental developed, I think that leadership got a few steps ahead of itself and weren't focused on the different elements of our caucus and what our concerns might be with the strategy," Herseth Sandlin said. "They unfortunately didn't touch all the bases before they presented that to the caucus."
The Blue Dogs contended that failing to offset the cost of the college aid would be a major violation of paygo, even more so than the economic stimulus measure or the AMT fix. Both of those were onetime violations, while the veterans proposal would create a permanent program that would increase the deficit more and more as the program grew, year after year. "The new mandatory spending program is going to go on forever," Boyd said.
The Blue Dogs said they proposed several spending cuts to offset the veterans program, but various committee chairmen objected to tapping programs under their jurisdictions as "pay-fors." So Democrats agreed to a tax increase on income over $1 million--a tax on the rich. That choice of offset ensured GOP opposition, because most Republicans have signed pledges not to raise taxes. And it garnered a veto threat from Bush.
The move was also politically risky for the Blue Dogs, who represent GOP-leaning voters who tend not to support tax increases. Several Blue Dogs, in fact, ended up voting against the measure because it relied on a tax hike. Most, however, supported it, because their districts do not include many millionaires and they could make a populist pitch for the tax, which they named "the patriot premium."
"I don't have many people who earn over a million in my district," Ross said. "But those that do, and those I know, would be glad to help send a veteran who served in Iraq or Afghanistan to college."
On May 15, the House passed the portion of the war funding bill that included the college aid and its corresponding offset, the tax hike. But when the Senate passed its version on May 22, Democrats did not even bother to offer an offset. Rather than prolong what they viewed as a losing fight, House leaders signaled in early June that they would give in. Hoyer noted that the war itself is adding considerably to the deficit, because it is deemed an emergency under budget rules.
"If we are not paying for the war, then the wounded warriors are part of the war consequences and they ought to be treated the same way," Hoyer told reporters on June 4, the day after Obey's meeting with the Blue Dogs. "To hold our veterans hostage to a Senate that won't pay for things ... I think is not good policy."
Senate Democratic leaders, for their part, were prepared to brush off the matter. "Do the Blue Dogs want an offset for the war? The answer's no, right?" Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said. "Let me just say, I love 'em, but I find it a little hard to follow their logic."
At press time, the Blue Dogs continued threatening to hold up the war-funding bill if leaders didn't accommodate their concerns. But House leaders were confidently pushing yet another paygo violation, an $11 billion unemployment benefits extension. Boyd said that Pelosi promised the Blue Dogs a vote this summer on legislation making paygo a statutory requirement, binding the House, the Senate, and the White House.
The recent battle exposed potential problems down the road for the Blue Dogs. Especially if Democrats control both chambers of Congress and the White House next year, the more-liberal factions of the party may be willing to overrule the coalition on fiscal discipline in order to fulfill desires to increase spending on a variety of domestic programs that have grown slowly under Bush.
Robert Bixby, head of the Concord Coalition, a budget watchdog group, said that waiving paygo on the veterans benefit sets a precedent for other programs, such as an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which Bush and Republicans opposed last year because Democrats insisted on a paygo offset--a tobacco-tax increase. "For really important things, we've established that paygo doesn't need to apply," Bixby said. "We didn't apply it for veterans. Is children's health less important than education for veterans?"
Similarly, if Democrats in 2009 override Blue Dog concerns in other areas--by passing immigration reform that includes legal status for illegal immigrants, for example, or by pushing increased regulations or government involvement--the party could satisfy its liberal base but alienate swing voters.
Huckleberry Hounded
The Blue Dogs are constantly in the sights of Republicans who want to take their seats. And Bixby warned that political opponents are ready to pounce--especially in Blue Dog districts--if Democrats fail to live up to their pledge on fiscal responsibility. "If we're going into next year with a $500 billion deficit and Congress came in with this pay-as-you-go promise, and it's quite clear they're not sticking with it, it will give Republicans a good talking point to ridicule," he said.
Throughout this Congress, in fact, Republicans in both chambers have derided the Blue Dogs and their commitment to paygo. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee and thus a key negotiator on tax matters, took the mockery to a new level on May 21. He propped up a picture of the befuddled cartoon character Huckleberry Hound on the Senate floor and criticized the Blue Dogs for always offering tax increases, rather than spending cuts, to fulfill the paygo requirements.
"Here we have Huckleberry Hound barking 'fiscal responsibility,' " Grassley said. "American taxpayers should beware. Huckleberry Hound's bite happens to be higher taxes. With respect to spending cuts, all we get is a whimper. No spending cuts.... Like their liberal brethren, Blue Dog Democrats only look to the American taxpayers to fund new spending."
Grassley's stunt incensed the Blue Dogs, who contend that 70 percent of the offsets that Democrats have included in bills during this Congress have been spending cuts. "Nine times out of 10, if not 10 times out of 10, the Blue Dogs are putting forward proposed spending cuts," Herseth Sandlin said.
Republicans have also charged repeatedly that the Blue Dogs cave on their principles, such as the AMT fix and the veterans benefit. The National Republican Congressional Committee, which coordinates House GOP election campaigns, is painting many vulnerable Blue Dogs as liberals in conservative clothing.
"Blue Dog Democrats are acting more like lapdogs when it comes to living up to their campaign promises," NRCC spokesman Ken Spain said. "They've attempted to say one thing at home and do another in Washington." He pointed to the Blue Dogs' failures on paygo and their unwillingness to force House votes on conservative immigration and intelligence proposals as fodder Republicans will use against them in the fall.
The Blue Dogs counter that they've shown more commitment to fiscal discipline than have Republicans, who abandoned paygo altogether in 2002. They also argue that because House leaders have largely included them in legislative planning, they don't need to vote against the Democratic line to show their independence.
Indeed, independence is a watchword among the Blue Dogs. Both of the Blue Dog special-election winners this year, Reps. Don Cazayoux, D-La., and Travis Childers, D-Miss., distanced themselves from Democratic leaders in Washington in their winning campaigns. A significant number of Blue Dogs have avoided endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, even after he became their party's presumptive nominee. Tanner said that Blue Dogs vote their districts before they vote their party. "We practice more of a representative type of democracy," he said.
Their independence is the reason the Blue Dogs find themselves permanently caught in the crossfire from the Left and Right in Congress. Boswell survived a primary challenge from a more liberal candidate on June 3 after left-leaning groups targeted him for defeat. Several other Blue Dogs are preparing for tough challenges from Republicans in November.
The Blue Dogs recognize that their paygo commitment, while helping to shore up their fiscal credentials, also comes with political risks. "There's going to be some tough, tough choices and tough votes," Boyd said. "The paygo stuff is making us take those tough votes, and that's what we expected it to do."
From the Archives
- Saturday, June 27, 2009: For Governors In Congress, No More King Of The Hill
- Saturday, June 13, 2009: Health Care Reform Faces Its 'Super Bowl Moment'
- Saturday, June 13, 2009: Leaders and Their Groups
- Saturday, June 13, 2009: On Health Care, High-Stakes Coalition-Building
- Saturday, June 6, 2009: Bingaman: Greenhouse Gas Problem Is How, Not If
- Saturday, June 6, 2009: Will Key Chairmen Power Up For Energy Bill?
- Saturday, May 30, 2009: Sotomayor Squeeze Play Puts GOP On Defense