Golden Works to Grow Ranks of “Blue Dog” Congressional Coalition: “I Want to Empower My Local Communities”

Rep. Jared Golden (D) of Maine’s Second Congressional District took over as a co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition earlier this year, and the group is now looking to stage a comeback.

Founded in 1994, the Blue Dog Coalition bills itself as an organization of “fiscally-responsible” and “pragmatic” Democrats who are “leading the way to find commonsense solutions” while “appealing to the mainstream values of the American public” and “transcending party lines to get things done for the American people.”

Generally, members of the Blue Dog coalition are Democrats who have been elected to represent traditionally conservative districts.

The coalition currently has nine members, including Rep. Golden.

Membership of the Blue Dog coalition has fluctuated substantially over the years, peaking at 64 in 2008 and hitting an all-time low this year.

Golden, alongside the other co-chairs of the coalition, hope to attract more members in the near future. According to an article published earlier this week in the Washington Post, “the more nuanced way the co-chairs have been talking about their vision for the party and their roles in representing that constituency has begun to resonate with a handful of first- and second-term lawmakers.”

“There are people that are coming to us, and I would warrant a guess that we’re going to be bigger before the next election,” Golden said to the Post.

“The Democratic Party, I think, increasingly is just about federalizing most of that stuff and dictating terms to localities about what they must do in order to receive, and almost deserve, access to this money,” Golden said. “My perspective is, I want to empower my local communities to make these decisions. They’re smart enough to do it themselves. They’re capable to do it themselves.”

Making Congress work again means focusing less on party labels and more on solutions that affect the regular people in our districts.

I'm proud to be part of a group that's commonsense, finding opportunities for compromise, & delivering concrete results.https://t.co/5c9FQpNjbR

— Congressman Jared Golden (@RepGolden) August 9, 2023

Not unexpected for someone so closely associated with the Blue Dog coalition, Golden has crossed party lines on several occasions this past legislative session.

Most recently, Golden made headlines as the only House Democrat to vote in favor of a measure reinstating airline pilots who lost their jobs due to COVID-era vaccine mandates.

[RELATED: Golden the Only House Democrat Who Voted to Reinstate Airline Pilots Fired Due to Vaccine Mandate]

In May of this year, in the wake of Title 42 expiring, Golden advocated for Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents to be granted the authority to deny individuals entry at the southern border for an additional two years.

“The situation at our border is already a dangerous crisis, and ending Title 42 without resources and a workable strategy in place will only make it worse,” Golden said at the time.

[RELATED: Golden Pushes to Reinstate Title 42 Migrant Expulsion Authority, Minus Covid-19 Tie]

Golden has drawn contrasts not only with the more progressive members of the national Democrat Party, but also with Maine’s Democrat governor, Janet Mills.

On matters relating to tribal sovereignty, Golden has sought to use his national standing to introduce federal legislation to achieve full tribal sovereignty, which Gov. Mills has effectively blocked at the state level.

Golden was first elected to represent Maine’s second district in 2018, unseating incumbent former Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R) by 1.2%. Gold retained his seat in 2020, beating his Republican challenger Dale Crafts by a larger margin of 6%.

In 2022, Golden and former Rep. Poliquin faced off once again. This time, Golden won over Poliquin by an even larger margin of 6.2%.

In all three elections, Maine used controversial Ranked Choice Voting.