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.
The Blue Dog Coalition told the Times that their new fundraising groups would be willing to spend money to back their candidates in Democratic primaries. That’s something Center Forward’s super PAC has already done for Blue Dog members, for example when it spent more than $1 million backing the group’s former PAC treasurer, Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon, in a 2022 House primary.
The Blue Dog Coalition did not respond to a request for comment on its plans, or how the new groups would differ from Center Forward. Center Forward did not respond to a request for comment on the Blue Dogs’ plans to add another fundraising arm.
Center Forward says it brings together policymakers, business leaders, and politicians “from all sides of the political spectrum” to find bipartisan “common ground.” By raising money from undisclosed sources—some that is traceable to corporate lobbying groups like PhRMA—Center Forward has transmuted corporate and lobbying-group money into rich benefits for Blue Dogs’ political careers.
The words “Blue Dogs” don’t appear on Center Forward’s main webpages about its mission, but the group’s current four-member board consists of Blue Dogs and their top aides: its chair, former Rep. Cramer, later founded lobbying firm 535 Group. A second board member is Cramer’s former chief of staff Jeff Murray, also a lobbyist with the firm. A third is another Blue Dog co-founder, former Rep. John Tanner of Tennessee, co-founder of lobbying firm Bridgeway Advocacy and former lobbyist with Prime Policy Group; a fourth is his former chief of staff of two decades, Vicki Walling, also a former lobbyist for Prime. Center Forward’s CEO, Cori Kramer, was formerly chief of staff to two Blue Dogs, Mike Ross of Arkansas and Brad Ellsworth of Indiana. Two former longtime Center Forward board members, Cindy Brown and Elizabeth Greer, are corporate lobbyists with Forbes Tate Partners, where they have kept numerous pharma industry clients. Brown highlights her fundraising for moderate Democrats, and Greer touts her work with the Blue Dogs on the Hill as a former chief of staff to one of its leaders.
