CQ TODAY PRINT EDITION
April 4, 2008 – 8:12 p.m.
‘Blue Dogs’ Become Fundraising Powerhouse
By Alan K. Ota, CQ Staff
Once a splinter group with Southern, populist roots, the Blue Dog Coalition has become a pinstriped national alliance with ties to K Street and a penchant for bucking Speaker Nancy Pelosi on business priorities.
It has also become a campaign cash machine.
Several members of the group, including John Tanner , D-Tenn., and Dennis Cardoza , D-Calif., have emerged as major players in helping to raise $1.8 million for the Blue Dog Political Action Committee, the leader so far in the 2008 election cycle among House leadership PACs.
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Also, Blue Dog rainmakers Tanner, Mike Thompson of California and Allen Boyd of Florida have each raised more than $100,000 for their personal leadership PACs, which back members of the moderate-to-A-conservative Democratic faction.
Business interests, which are among the donors, clearly are happy to steer campaign dollars to business-friendly Democrats.
“We need businesspeople to be successful,” Cardoza said. “If businesses aren’t successful, workers won’t have jobs. There’s a nexus. We need to find middle ground to make workers and businesses successful.”
The Blue Dogs are players in nearly every big issue before the House.
Take the pending proposal backed by Pelosi, D-Calif., to allow bankruptcy judges to write down the principal of some home mortgages to avert foreclosures. Several Blue Dogs, including Dennis Moore , D-Kan., the group’s policy chairman, spoke against the proposal.
They pointed to an Oct. 16 letter to Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. , D-Mich., that was signed by 15 Blue Dogs who vowed to oppose changes to the 2005 bankruptcy overhaul (PL 109-8). That bloc — if it holds together — could scuttle the bankruptcy proposal.
Senior Blue Dogs have also emerged as prime targets of efforts by the GOP to move priorities such as the Colombia free-trade agreement and the Senate-passed liability exemption for telecommunications companies in a rewrite (
Pragmatic or Flip-Flopping?
Less visible, but also vital for K Street, has been the willingness of Blue Dogs to make a few exceptions to their signature accomplishment: the House pay-as-you-go rule that requires revenue-producing offsets for tax cuts and spending increases.
For example, many Blue Dogs agreed to the economic stimulus law (PL 110-185) without insisting on offsets, calling the decision a justifiable response to an economic emergency.
In response to questions about their fiscal resolve, a group of 14 Blue Dogs fired off a letter to top budget writers April 4 that promised “firm opposition’’ to any budget conference report (
Republicans charge that Blue Dogs are flip-flopping on their principles.
“Some of the Blue Dogs look like purple dogs, or red dogs. They can vote with their constituents or vote with Pelosi. At the end of the day, it’s not what you say; it’s what you do. . . . Deeds, not words,” said Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio.
“That’s just election-year partisan rhetoric,” replied Mike Ross , D-Ark., a Blue Dog leader. “The fact is, we’re replacing Republicans not with liberal Democrats but Blue Dog Democrats.”
Minority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri and other Republicans charge that Democratic leaders have given the Blue Dogs political cover by blocking wedge issues like the Colombia trade deal.
Limited Membership
The 13-year-old caucus grew from remnants of the old Southern Boll Weevils, who helped enact President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts in the 1980s.
In recent years, the group’s footprint has grown on K Street, with alumni including former Texas Democratic Reps. Max Sandlin (1997-2005) and Charles W. Stenholm (1979-2005) now working as contract lobbyists.
The Blue Dogs’ success in taking independent stands — and surviving — has earned the envy of colleagues.
Tanner says several Democrats, including Nancy Boyda , D-Kan., were denied entry last year under a self-imposed rule that limited membership to 47, or 20 percent of the total Democratic Caucus.
“We’re like a big committee, the Committee on Business and the Economy,’’ says Tanner. He was referring to the group’s penchant for dealing with big-ticket fiscal and business-related issues.
The Blue Dogs hold their informal hearings and weekly breakfast chats with lobbyists and other constituents at the Tortilla Coast Restaurant every Wednesday.
For example, the Food Marketing Institute made its case April 2 for a proposal (
In return for keeping an open ear and helping out on bills important to business, Blue Dogs have been rewarded with donations. The Blue Dog PAC has collected twice as much in the current cycle as the New Democratic Coalition PAC that is often aligned with Silicon Valley.
Blue Dogs don’t collect checks at the breakfasts. Tanner said the PAC raises most of its money through off-Hill events such as an annual golf tournament that drew more than 100 participants to the posh Lansdowne Resort near Leesburg, Va., in October. Entry fees were $5,000 for “top dogs,” $2,500 for “big dogs” and $1,000 for “blue puppies.” Lobbyists also attended a March 12 reception at the 201 Lounge, a swank Washington martini bar.
But some Blue Dogs are uncomfortable with the growing scope of fundraising.
“I was not for it. I was concerned that it would change the nature of the group,” said Agriculture Chairman Collin C. Peterson , D-Minn.
Comments
The irony of the 2006 midterms is that the Republicans lost many of their moderate officials and became even more homogenous and dogmatic. The Democrats, on the other hand, are just as muddled and corporatized as they've been since the late '70s. What this means is: don't expect any great outburst of populism or a "New New Deal" as the economy heads south. Hey, the Blue Dogs need to look after the downtrodden on Wall Street, don't they?
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