Post-election, there has been a lot of talk of Blue Dogs, New Democrats and Progressives caucuses within the house Democratic Caucus. Much, if not all, of this talk has centered around the often overblown ideological debate within the Democratic Party, as well as around which sections of the Democratic Party deserves more credit for the Democratic victory two weeks ago. Now, I am not an expert on the House, and so any input on this from the comments would be appreciated. However, over the past two years, I have done a decent amount of work looking into the House ideological caucuses, and as such I think I am able to dispel some myths that have begun to swirl around them, and provide useful information that many not be generally available..

In this, the first part of the series, I argue that the ideological caucuses within the House Democratic Caucus are far less unified than people assume, and do not come anywhere close to serving as parties within parties. Read the extended entry for the entire piece.

Pare One: Voting Patterns of Democratic Ideological Caucuses In the House

Midway through the first session of the 109th Congress, I developed a voting scorecard that I termed The Congressional Loyalty Scorecard. This scorecard looked only at those votes on the actual passage of legislation where the majority of Democrats in the House (102 or more Democrats) voted differently from the majority of Republicans in the House (117 or more Republicans). Members were scored based on the number of times they crossed party lines during these key votes. For example, if there were ten key votes, and Democratic Representative X voted with the majority of Democrats nine times, then Democratic Representative X received a 90% loyalty score.

The purpose of this scorecard was threefold:

• First, develop a concrete, easy to understand list of legislation that separated the Republican Party from the Democratic Party. I wanted to know exactly what made the two parties different in terms of legislation, and I wanted it to be easy to explain difference. I still think it is useful to have that list.
• Second, I wanted to know just how much more unified the Republican caucus was than the Democratic caucus in the House. I had seen numerous anecdotal votes suggesting far greater Republican loyalty, and heard many stories about intense Republican House voting unity, but I wanted to put an actual figure next to each caucus to determine just how unified they were on the wide range of key votes.
• Third, I wanted to Determine where the most dissent and Republican facilitation was taking place within the Democratic Caucus. I figured knowing who these members are, and knowing the districts they represent, should quickly make it clear where we need to employ some carrots and sticks. Just so you know, three of the names that quickly popped up in this study were Henry Cuellar, Ed Case and Albert Wynn. Because of this study, I knew in mid-2005 that they were both top ten primary options.

While I had gone into the study with the intent of looking at individual members of the Democratic caucus, once I had completed the first batch of the study I still didn't have a clear sense of the pattern of defections in the Democratic Caucus. So, I turned to the three ideological caucuses, and compiled the collective scores of each caucus.

At first, this was absolutely a revelation. For all of 2005, the overall loyalty of the Progressive Caucus was 97.6%, the New Democratic loyalty average was 81.1%, and the average Blue Dog loyalty was 62.5%. With all House Democrats coming in at 84.6% loyal, this seemed to pin down exactly where the facilitation of the Republican House caucus was coming from: the Blue Dogs. I even wrote a big article trumpeting my results, It's Not the DLC and I Can Prove It.

However, a closer look within each caucus revealed a serious problem with my thesis that Blue Dogs were the major source of Republican facilitation within the Democratic caucus. While the caucus as a whole had a low loyalty score for 2005, looking at the eighteen votes that formed the basis of the scorecards for the first session of the 109th Congress (all of 2005), check out the huge loyalty variance within the Blue Dog Caucus:

• 100% loyal: Schiff (CA)
• 89% loyal: Israel (NY), Lo. Sanchez (CA), Tauscher (CA), Thompson (CA)
• 83% loyal: Michaud (ME), Moore (KS)
• 78% loyal: Baca (NM)
• 76% loyal: Harman (CA)
• 72% loyal: Pomeroy (ND)
• 67% loyal: Boyd (FL), Case (HI)
• 65% loyal: Herseth (SD), Salazar (CO)
• 64% loyal: Cooper (TN), Tanner (TN)
• 61% loyal: Boswell (IA), Cardoza (CA), Ross (AR), Scott (GA)
• 58% loyal: Bishop (GA)
• 56% loyal: Berry (AR), Chandler (KY)
• 53% loyal: Costa (CA), Ford (TN)
• 50% loyal: Holdon (PA), Matheson (UT), Melancon (LA)
• 44% loyal: Barrow (GA)
• 39% loyal: Boren (OK), Peterson (MN)
• 38% loyal: McIntyre (NC)
• 35% loyal: Davis (TN)
• 33% loyal: Taylor (MS)
• 28% loyal: Cramer (AL)

As you can see, this is not a unified voting block. In fact, in 2005, the variance among voting patterns of Blue Dog members was greater than the average variance of voting patterns among the House Democratic Caucus as a whole. Some Blue Dogs opposed nearly the entire agenda of the former Republican majority. Some actually voted with Republicans more often than they voted with Democrats. There was clearly no one conducting internal caucus whip counts (or, if someone was serving as whip, that person is terrible at it).

The lack of internal cohesion within House ideological caucuses can also be found in the twelve House members who, in 2005, were both Blue Dogs and New Democrats. Remember that there were wide gaps in the average loyalty scores of these two caucuses, with Blue Dogs coming in at 62.5% and New Democrats scoring 81.1%. However, in 2005, 12 of the 35 Blue Dogs were also a part of the 40-member of the New Democratic Caucus: Case (HI), Chandler (KY), Ford (TN), Harman (CA), Herseth (SD), Israel (NY), McIntyre (NC), Moore (KS), Lo. Sanchez (CA), Schiff (CA), Scott (GA) and Tauscher (CA). Further, one member Udall of NM, was both a Progressive and a New Democrat in 2005.

In 2005, the 23 Blue Dogs who were just Blue Dogs had an average loyalty score of 57.5%. The 12 members who were both Blue Dogs and New Democrats had an average loyalty score of 72.1%. The 27 New Democrats who were just New Democrats (in other words, without Udall), had an average loyalty score of 85.3%. And for a delicious bit of irony, since the average score in 2005 for the Democratic caucus as a whole was 84.6%, New Democrats who are just New Democrats (and who no doubt call themselves New Democrats so as to not appear too "liberal" or "progressive") are actually slightly more progressive than the caucus as a whole. So much for that "left cliff" Tauscher warns her oh-so-unified caucus against--I think some of her members jumped off it without her approval. Oh, and why is Tasucher in the Blue Dog caucus if she is supposedly leading the New Democratic caucus anyway? Choose a side, already.

Now, before any claims are made about how this reveals at least four ideological tiers within the overall Democratic caucus, keep in mind that there is still a large amount of internal variation even within these smaller tiers. Blue Dogs who are only Blue Dogs still vote very differently from one another. Democrats who are both Blue Dogs and New Democrats also vote very differently from one another. New Democrats who are only New Democrats vote very differently from one another as well. Finally, even though there is far less voting variation among Progressives, as an average loyalty score of 97.6% would indicate, keep in mind that when there are dissenters on votes where a majority of both Democrats and Republicans agree, many of these dissenters typically come from the Progressive caucus. Thus, while perhaps not as significant as the variance found within other ideological caucuses in the House, there is even still internal variation among Progressives. This type of scorecard is just unable to measure that variance.

My point is this: many commentators want to see these caucuses as parties within parties, but that just is not accurate conceptualization of how they function. That is neither their purpose nor the best way to understand how they are different from one another. These caucuses are by no means solid voting blocks. They do not conduct whip counts. They do not give out committee assignments. Even the amount of money the caucuses raise to help elect new members of their caucus is a pittance. The Dailykos / MyDD / Swing State Project Act Blue page raised more for our candidates than the Blue Dogs, New Democrats, and Progressives raised combined for their targeted candidates. Quite frankly, while I still wish to work to understand it, I think their power within the overall caucus is being way overblown right now.

In the next part of this series, I will take a brief look at the history of the three ideological caucuses, and at their incoming membership.