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The Blue Dog Coalition, a caucus of centrist House Democrats who have repeatedly blocked their party’s major legislation, will form a new super PAC to accept donations of unlimited size, as well as a new nonprofit group that will not be required to disclose its funders. The coalition’s plans were first reported by the New York Times in an article last week about their appearance at a centrist event, dubbed WelcomeFest.
The Times said that the Blue Dogs have never previously had an independent entity that could take unlimited donations, but the Blue Dogs have long been linked to a group called Center Forward that has a “dark money” advocacy group and a super PAC that has spent millions of dollars to help elect its members. Center Forward was founded in 2010 as the think tank Blue Dog Research Forum, run by a Blue Dog Coalition co-founder, former Rep. Bud Cramer of Alabama, who still chairs Center Forward’s board. The centrist group changed its name in 2012. The Blue Dog PAC has donated at least half a million dollars to Center Forward’s super PAC over the years, according to Federal Election Commission records.
The economically-conservative Blue Dogs, whose numbers have dwindled to 10 members out of 213 House Democrats, have been feeling feisty of late. At WelcomeFest, held in D.C. on June 4 and co-sponsored by the Blue Dog PAC, three Blue Dogs appeared, including co-chair Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, with Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, who was one of its prior co-chairs, and Adam Gray of California. WelcomeFest speakers argued that centrists should have even more control over the Democratic Party’s messaging and budgets, and made the case to sideline progressive groups like Indivisible.
