In the 110th Congress, there were 236 Democrats in the U.S. House, 49 in the Senate, and two "Independents" who caucused with Democrats. Of those 287 congresscritters, 74 were members of the New Democratic Coalition, which is affiliated with the DLC. Overall, 25.8% of the Democratic members of the 110th Congress were openly affiliated with the DLC. An additional 31 members of Congress are affiliated with the Blue Dogs, but not with the New Democratic Coalition. If the Blue Dogs are included, the overall DLC-Blue Dog membership in of Democratic congresscritters increases to 36.6%, and 38.1% in the House.
Now, compare this to Obama's cabinet selections. Of the eighteen cabinet members (not counting Joe Biden, who I have seen listed as a cabinet member at times), sixteen are Democrats. Of those sixteen, eight are affiliated with the DLC, or 50%. Obama's Democratic cabinet selections have twice the DLC representation of the Democratic membership of Congress. This list does not include Rahm Emanuel, who will be the first White House Chief of Staff during the Obama administration. Nor does it include national security advisor Jim Jones, who supported McCain during the election.
No Blue Dogs seem to have been selected for the cabinet, but even so the DLC-Blue Dog membership in Obama's cabinet is higher than the DLC-Blue Dog membership of the Democratic caucus in the House or Senate. Adding in the two Republican members, and Obama's cabinet has a Republican-DLC majority. The 55.6% DLC-Republican representation in Obama's cabinet closely mirrors the overall DLC-Republican representation in the Senate (55% in the incoming Senate, plus freshman new NDC members) and House (53.6%, plus freshman NDC members).
The Congressional Progressive Caucus has 69 members in the incoming congress, plus former member Nancy Pelosi (the Speaker resigns from ideological caucuses), plus new membership among freshman. Additionally, three members (Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders and Tom Udall) have been elected to the Senate in 2006-2008. Overall, including Nancy Pelosi, 25.4% of the Democratic membership of the House and the Senate in 2007-2008 were Congressional Progressive Caucus members. One member of this group, Hilda Solis, will be in Obama's cabinet. Another member, Xavier Bacerra, was asked to serve as trade representative, but declined.
Obama's cabinet selections, when compared to the Democratic caucuses in the House and the Senate, has a significantly higher representation of DLC members and a significantly lower representation of Progressive Caucus members. If association with the New Democratic and Progressive caucuses can be used as a proxy for ideological inclinations, which voting records have previously suggested it can be, then Obama's cabinet is to the right of the Democratic membership in Congress.
Hopefully, this serves as a more systematic means of analyzing the ideological inclinations of Obama's cabinet than I have previously presented.
Update: Given the vagarities in the articles linked in this post, I would like create a definitive list of the DLC, Blue Dog, Republican, and pro-McCain members of Obama's cabinet. Wikipedia lists 22 cabinet-rank positions in the Obama administration, 21 of which have a current nominee. Seven of those twenty-one--Clinton, Daschle, Emanuel, Napolitano, Richardson, Salazar and Vilsack--have confirmed DLC ties. Two, Gates and LaHood, are either Republican or Republican-leaning. Larry Summers and Jim Jones do not appaear to have been nominated or appointed to cabinet-level positions.
More information as I find it. Help on determining the exact number of cabinet-rank positions in the Obama administration, as well as confirmable ties to the DLC among the current appointments for those positions, is much appreciated in the comments. |
