‘Blue Dog’ Democrats Formed

In the historic 1994 mid-term elections, House Republicans staged an unprecedented takeover of the congressional body, turning a large Democratic majority in a serious minority. For some Democrats, though, the election-day thumping wasn’t surprising. Forty-seven House Democrats, fiscally moderate if not downright conservative and mostly from conservative-leaning districts, had long grown wary of what they saw as their party’s drift to the left and its unyielding demand to toe an orthodox party line. Feeling they’d been “choked blue” by their party’s leaders, they named themselves the “Blue Dog Coalition” and set about finding a middle ground between the warring edges of both parties. Encompassing a variety of viewpoints, the Blue Dogs are, to this day, engaged in the search for common fiscal ground between the political parties.