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Blue Dog Membership List Released

by: Matt Glazer

Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 10:30 AM CDT

Dante Atkins said something the other day on Twitter that sums up Texas perfectly.

I'll take a Blue Dog over a Republican any day in a conservative district. You can't purify what you don't own!

Rural Democrats in Texas are a tough breed. They are always going to have a tough challenger. They are always targeted. They live and vote under a microscope. They are good, proud Democrats, but they are usually under siege by both sides of the electorate-- Democratic Primary voters and Republicans.

That's one reason I expected to see a few Texans on the list of the Blue Dog Caucus released by Huffington Post 2 days ago.

In the list of 51 members, there is only 1 Democrat.

The only Texan on the list is Henry Cuellar (TX-28), who is a Democrat who represents a very Democratic district.

In 2008 Cuellar won re-election by an impressive 40 points against Jim Fish. In 2006 Cuellar didn't even have a challenger. Cuellar will never be on the NRCC target list and that is probably even more true now that Pete Sessions is running the show.

The other surprise was not seeing Chet Edwards on the list. Edwards is having a great session already and his influence has only been bolstered by being on the Obama short list for Vice President. ~~Perhaps that is the reason Edwards has left the Blue Dog caucus.~~ In either case, the list is interesting for a number of reasons.

The full membership and it's leaders are below the fold.

Update: From a friend and former staffer to some Blue Dogs.

Chet has never been a blue dog, but there have been some significant blue dogs from Texas. One current congressman, ralph hall was a blue dog before he switched parties. Lampson was a blue dog on both of his runs in congress.
Also Charlie Stenholm and Max Sandlin were both Texans and Blue Dogs early on in the Blue Dog history - in fact, i believe stenholm was a founding blue dog.

To Congressman Edwards, sorry for giving you the label. The national online folks tend to tag Edwards with the Blue Dog label and I was wrong and passing the title.

Blue Dog Leadership Team

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Blue Dog Co-Chair for Administration
Rep. Baron Hill, Blue Dog Co-Chair for Policy
Rep. Charlie Melancon, Blue Dog Co-Chair for Communications
Rep. Heath Shuler, Blue Dog Whip

Blue Dog Members

Altmire, Jason (PA-04)
Arcuri, Mike (NY-24)
Baca, Joe (CA-43)
Barrow, John (GA-12)
Berry, Marion (AR-01)
Bishop, Sanford (GA-02)
Boren, Dan (OK-02)
Boswell, Leonard (IA-03)
Boyd, Allen (FL-02)
Bright, Bobby (AL-02)
Cardoza, Dennis (CA-18)
Carney, Christopher (PA-10)
Chandler, Ben (KY-06)
Childers, Travis (MS-01)
Cooper, Jim (TN-05)
Costa, Jim (CA-20)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
Davis, Lincoln (TN-04)
Donnelly, Joe (IN-02)
Ellsworth, Brad (IN-08)
Giffords, Gabrielle (AZ-08)
Gordon, Bart (TN-06)
Griffith, Parker (AL-05)
Harman, Jane (CA-36)
Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie (SD)
Hill, Baron (IN-09)
Holden, Tim (PA-17)
Frank Kratovil, Jr. (MD-01)
McIntyre, Mike (NC-07)
Marshall, Jim (GA-03)
Matheson, Jim (UT-02)
Melancon, Charles (LA-03)
Michaud, Mike (ME-02)
Minnick, Walt (ID-01)
Mitchell, Harry (AZ-05)
Moore, Dennis (KS-03)
Murphy, Patrick (PA-08)
Nye, Glenn (VA-02)
Peterson, Collin (MN-07)
Pomeroy, Earl (ND)
Ross, Mike (AR-04)
Salazar, John (CO-03)
Sanchez, Loretta (CA-47)
Schiff, Adam (CA-29)
Scott, David (GA-13)
Shuler, Heath (NC-11)
Space, Zack (OH-18)
Tanner, John (TN-08)
Taylor, Gene (MS-04)
Thompson, Mike (CA-01)
Wilson, Charles (OH-06)

Tags: NRCC, Pete Olson, Barack Obama, Chet Edwards, Blue Dog, Henry Cuellar, (All Tags)

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Blue Dog Membership List Released | 5 comments

Chet (0.00 / 0)

Has Chet ever been a Blue Dog? I could have sworn looking over a membership list a few years back and not seeing his name on it then, either.

by: B-Dub @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 16:41:55 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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Look Behind the Label: Blue Dog -New Democrat - Progressive Caucus - Whatever (0.00 / 0)

Informed citizens should understand that membership in any of the House caucuses is of limited value in farily evaluating a Member of Congress. One reason is that politicians have mixed motives for joining a caucus. A true-blue populist Democrat from a rural district who has a voting record that consistently comes down on the side of the public interest may seek conservative camouflage by joining the Blue Dogs. Likewise, any study of voting records will show that quite a few Establishment Democrats who routinely vote with the special interests and carry amendments in committee for corporate interests and Wall Street,now that GOP is in the minority, seek to divert the attention of progressives back home by flaunting their nominal membership in a caucus whose name resonates with Democratic primary voters. That's called protecting your left flank and conning the libs. It's a game that has been played quite successfully since time immemorial. BOTTOM LINE: there is no substitute for a disciplined effort to study the voting records. Use the Internet to check the current voting records issued by Public Citizen, AFL-CIO, League of Conservation Voters (Sierra Club and other environmental groups), ACLU, and the Chamber of Commerce, American Conservative Union, and Club for Growth. These and others are also listed for each House Member and U.S. Senator in The Almanac of American Politics, published by National Journal every two years. In case you are curious, Page 1611 of the latest edition shows Henry Cuellar of Laredo voting with for the position supported by these organizations in the percentages indicated in their voting records: ADA 35%; ACLU 48%; Labor 57%; League of Conservation Voters 8%; U.S. Chamber of Commerce 100%; American Conservative Union 68%; Club for Growtn 48%; Family Research Council 71%.
Establishment Democrats view this as just fine and dandy. "Moderates" who see it will do what they always do, make excuses for, try to rationalize it and sluff it off as the best that can be done. Folks with some populist bones in their body will view it as totally unrepresentative of a district that is shown (on Page 1612 of the 2008 edition of the Almanac of American Politics) as having 29.9% of its population living below the poverty line and a 77.5% Hispanic population.

Dave Shapiro
Austin

by: Dave Shapiro @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 20:24:27 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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turner (0.00 / 0)

Former 2nd District Congressman Jim Turner was a member as well.

After the hatchet job of redistricting that eliminated many of our conservative Dems from the Congressional running, there just aren't that many conservative Texas Dems in Congress anymore. Lampson in 08 is the most recent example.

similarly in the 1990s we saw the Texas repubs pick off our marginal seats leaving only a handful of conservative Dems in the Texas House and none that I'm aware of in the Senate. Hopefully we can reverse that trend and get greater diversity in all three bodies.

Cuellar's district is definitely Democratic. It is also rural and conservative. And, in fact, he is a conservative guy so it kind of works out all the way around.

Whereas certain folks were let in right away or almost automatically, Cuellar was held off for admission for his first 2 terms to make sure he was really a conservative. It had become quite the fashion statement to join the caucus but not share the philosophy.

I'm confident that if the repubs had a segment of their party that was rooted in their values like the Blue Dogs, they wouldn't have been able to pull so many fast ones.

A great group, for sure. I'm sure the next congressman from the 10th will look to join.

Please refer to KT's signature.

by: colin @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 20:48:38 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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Cuellar's district is "also rural and conservative" (0.00 / 0)

That is definitely true.

Bush won the old TX-28 with 52% in 2004.

Last year, Obama won with 56%, way way less than what Cuellar received.

by: David Mauro @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 01:34:16 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

More on the Blue Dogs (0.00 / 0)

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs...

The New Republic's Health Care Blog has this interesting article that sheds some light on the Blue Dogs.

Please allow me to make two additional points: (1) Consider that Cuellar ran better than Obama in that district because his opponent wasn't of the caliber of John McCain. If memory serves, he was an unknown, underfunded Repubican who did not have any Establishment support. All the business interests were backing Cueller. That's because there is no more reliable vote in Congress for the special interests that comprise the Establishment than Henry Cuellar. Same thing could be said of his tenure in the Legislature; (2)Both party labels and the popularly used ideological tags (i.e., conservative and liberal) often divert attention from how people vote. Establishment Republicans, like Establishment Democrats, by and large vote with the special interests against the public interest. Granted, the Blue Dogs often come from more rural and bucolic districts and thus posture loudly on such conservative virtues as thrift, and they vote with the GOP conservatives on the hot button wedge issues, gays, guns and abortion. But by their voting records ye shall know them. And they vote with the corporate interests much of the time.

Dave Shapiro
Austin

by: Dave Shapiro @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 15:40:26 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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Blue Dog Membership List Released | 5 comments

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