USA TODAY: Voters say they want lawmakers to find common ground and compromise to solve the nation’s fiscal problems, but the number of moderate lawmakers who aim to do just that is dwindling in the U.S. House.
No place is this more apparent than the Blue Dog Coalition, a faction of centrist, fiscally conservative House Democrats whose ranks have been decimated by the 2010 Tea Party wave, a crop of recent retirements and the decennial process of redrawing congressional districts that has resulted in fewer races where moderate Democrats can compete…
Fewer moderate Democrats in the House has resulted in a more liberal Democratic caucus overall, a factor that has fueled polarization in Congress as centrists in both parties continue to decline. Republicans had already experienced a rapid decline in GOP moderates in the 2006 and 2008 elections, and two-thirds of House Republicans now identify as members of the Republican Study Committee, the conservative faction. There is no longer a moderate GOP group comparable to the Blue Dog Coalition… (more)
