Washington • Years ago, newspapers were essentially writing obituaries about the Blue Dog Coalition, a once formidable voting bloc of centrist Democrats that had been reduced, as one headline put it, to “whipped pups.”
With 27 members, the group remains a shadow of its former self, but since Democrats have a slim 18-seat majority margin, it matters.
So far, the Blue Dogs, including Rep. Ben McAdams of Utah, have been able to halt an effort to raise the pay for members of Congress and persuaded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to pass a Senate bill to fund aid for the humanitarian crisis at the U.