The Blue Dog Democrats have taken center stage in the health insurance reform debate. Kerry Eleveld took a look at the impact of that conservative bloc of Democrats on the LGBT agenda:
This month we have seen the muscle of the "Blue Dog" Democrats, who in my opinion all but rendered House Republicans irrelevant in the health care debate by performing what normally would have been the job of the GOP -- working to moderate the bill.After the break, see how the Blue Dogs voted on the only LGBT vote to hit the floor this year: Hate Crimes.
That got me thinking: If the Blue Dogs effectively bottled up the health reform bill in the House, what influence, if any, might they be having on LGBT rights? On the one hand, you have someone like Rep. Patrick Murphy from Pennsylvania, who has stepped up as the lead on repealing "don't ask, don't tell," but on the other hand there's Rep. Heath Shuler, a pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-equality Democrat from North Carolina.
Kerry matched up the Blue Dogs with the House vote on Hate Crimes:
As a point of inquiry, I decided to match up the Blue Dogs on the only LGBT vote taken this year in the House -- the hate-crimes expansion bill, which passed 249-175 and is considered one of the ripest pieces of pro-LGBT legislation (although even some pro-LGBT folks oppose it on philosophical grounds). Of the 52-person coalition, 35 Blue Dogs, or 67%, voted to pass the bill -- meaning that even if a few other Democrats were lost on the vote, the Blue Dogs would have provided more than enough padding to push the legislation through, even without the 18 Republicans who also voted for it.No real surprises. But, hate crimes was the "easy" vote. It had already passed. Where will the Blue Dogs be on the repeal of DADT and DOMA?
Overall, 16 Blue Dogs voted against hate crimes with one abstention and, broken down by region, 12 of those congressional members were Southerners, three were Midwesterners, and one was from the Northeast (Christopher Carney, PA-10).
