Blue Dogs and Disloyalty
Via Firedoglake, a visit to the past: Chris Bowers’ Congressional Loyalty Scorecard of 2005:
here are the current levels of party loyalty among different groups in the House:
* All Democrats: 82.5%
* All Republicans: 96.1%
* DLC: 79.0%
* Democrats, non-DLC: 83.3%
* Blue Dog Democrats: 54.3%
* Non-Blue Dog Democrats: 88.3%Bingo. Caucus disunity has a name-o. Outside of the Blue Dogs, Democratic Party loyalty on the important, party differentiating votes in the House is comparable to Republicans: 88.3% to 96.1%. Further, Blue Dog Party loyalty, 54.3%, is massively lower than that found either in the DLC, 79.0%, or among non-Blue Dog Democrats, 88.3%. Overall, the thirty-five members of the Blue Dog coalition account for 44.9% of all Democratic Party defections over these ten votes / issues, even though they only make up 17.2% of the caucus.
So when I read that President Bush has invited leaders of the conservative Blue Dog and New Democrat coalitions to the White House Friday to discuss areas of “mutual cooperation” in the words of one Democratic Congressional aide, I start to grind my teeth.
It is no secret that one of my personal favorites during the election, Patrick Murphy, disappointed me and a lot of other Southeastern PA progressives when he decided to caucus with the Blue Dogs. In a personal email, Murphy told me “I agree with their two main and only criteria – fiscal responsibility and strong national security… I look forward to being a proud progressive democrat and to champion our issues within the Blue Dog Caucus. I hope and believe that you’ll continue to have no doubt where I stand on the issues that mean the most to our fellow progressives.” I desperately want to take him at his word: Pat’s a young guy and seems really straightforward.
However, it is impossible for me to put lipstick on the pig called the Blue Dog Coalition: they helped bass the Bankruptcy Bill in 2005, members like Jane Harman (D-AIPAC) have not only defended the President’s illegal warrantless wiretap program but have tried to retroactively legalize the spying, they are wrong on Social Security privatization, and they are wrong on the Interstate Child Abortion Notification Act. The idea that these Democrats are trying to find “areas of ‘mutual cooperation’” with the most radical and incompetent boob to occupy the Oval Office since the establishment of our nation is very troubling to me.
So I call bullshit on the Blue Dogs, again.
