Factions in the Democratic Party (United States)
Encyclopedia
The Democratic Party
of the United States
is composed of various factions, with some overlap and enough agreement between them to coexist with each other within the party.
, opposition to economic liberalism
and social conservatism
, opposition to heavy corporate influence in government, support for universal health care
, revitalization of the national infrastructure and steering the Democratic Party in the direction of being a more forceful party. Compared to other factions of the party, they've been most critical of the Republican Party, and most supportive of direct government action as a means to establish social and economic equality.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus
(CPC) is a caucus of progressive Democrats, along with one independent, in the U.S. Congress. It is the single largest Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives. Its members have included Dennis Kucinich
, Alan Grayson
, John Conyers
(Michigan), Jim McDermott
(Washington), John Lewis
(Georgia), the late Senator Paul Wellstone
(Minnesota), Barbara Lee
(California), Sherrod Brown
(Ohio), and Bernie Sanders
(I-VT).
Many progressive Democrats are descendants of the New Left
of Democratic Presidential candidate/Senator George McGovern
of South Dakota; others were involved in the presidential candidacies of Vermont
Governor Howard Dean
and U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich
of Ohio
; and still others are disaffected former members of the Green Party
. This groups consists mostly of college-educated professionals. A recent study by the Pew Research Center
found that a plurality, 41%, resided in mass affluent
households and 49% were college graduates. Progressive Democratic candidates for public office have had popular support as candidates in metropolitan areas outside the South, and among African-Americans nationwide.
. Compared to conservatives and moderates, liberal Democrats generally have advocated fair trade
and other less conservative economic policies, and a less militaristic foreign policy, and have a reputation of being more forceful in pushing for civil liberties.
Prominent liberal Democrats include U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer
(California), Russ Feingold
(Wisconsin), the late Ted Kennedy
(Massachusetts), Tom Harkin
(Iowa), and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
(California).
. Labor unions supply a great deal of the money, grass roots political organization, and voting base of support for the party. In recent years union membership in the United States has been declining substantially. The overall percentage of employed wage and salary workers that are union members fell to 12 percent in 2006, a significant decline from U.S. unions' peak membership of 36 percent in the mid-1950s. This historic decline in union membership has also been accompanied by a growing disparity between public sector and private sector union membership, as currently about 36.5 percent of public sector workers are union members, whereas approximately 7.8 percent of private sector workers belong to unions. Despite declining membership numbers, union members and their families vote in disproportionately greater numbers than the population at large, with as many as one in four votes in the 2004 election coming from union households. Because union members vote in high numbers, as well as the organizational and financial resources unions can bring to bear, they continue to have significant influence on the Party.
The three most significant labor groupings in the Democratic coalition today are the AFL-CIO
, a labor federation
of 53 national unions representing 9 million public and private sector workers; the Change to Win Federation
, which broke away from the AFL-CIO in 2005 and currently includes seven national unions representing approximately 6 million public and private sector workers; and the National Education Association
, a 3.2 million member independent union unaffiliated with either the AFL-CIO or Change to Win, which primarily represents teacher
s and other education
workers. Both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win have identified their top legislative priority for 2007 as passage of the Employee Free Choice Act
, make it easier for employees to join a union and would increase penalties for employer violations of the National Labor Relations Act
. Other important issues for labor unions include support for industrial policy
(including fair trade
) that sustains unionized manufacturing
jobs, raising the minimum wage
, and promoting broad social programs such as social security
and universal health care
.
Prominent politicians associated with the labor wing include Ohio
Senator Sherrod Brown
(also a member of the Progressive Caucus) and Byron Dorgan
, the populist senator from North Dakota
, as well as former Presidential candidate John Edwards
. Most of the members in this faction identify with the progressive faction of the party.
shares many policy goals with Democratic Party, although the movement is arguably smaller and less influential on the party when compared to the Christian right
, which is generally more affiliated with the Republican Party
.
Christian left includes Peace churches
, elements of Protestant mainline churches, elements of Roman Catholicism and some parts of the evangelical
community. Their concerns regarding social justice, welfare, universal health care, education and foreign aid are more in line with the Democratic economic agenda than the laissez-faire
economic approach of the Republicans. Their social views of capital punishment
, defense
and militarism
, civil rights and equality are also left-wing. On moral issues such as abortion
, euthanasia
and homosexuality
, the Christian left are often, although not always, more in line with Democrats. They may either disagree with Biblical literalism
on these issues or may hold opposition but choose to prioritize social justice and other issues over a divisive social agenda.
Prominent Christian left Democrats include Reverend Jesse Jackson
(a Democratic presidential candidate in 1984
and 1988
) and Reverend Al Sharpton
(a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004
).
and tax cut
s.
One of the most influential factions is the Democratic Leadership Council
(DLC), a non-profit organization that advocates centrist
positions for the party. Members often self-identify under the title "New Democrat
." Selected former party leaders of the 1980s founded the DLC in response to the landslide victory of Ronald Reagan
over Walter Mondale
in 1984, believing that the Democratic Party needed to reform its political philosophy if it were to ever retake the White House. The DLC hails President Bill Clinton
as proof of the viability of third way
politicians and a DLC success story. However, despite centrists' claims that their ideas are more in line with the majority of Americans, the Democratic Party was in the minority in both houses of Congress during the years of DLC dominance.
The DLC was dominant in the Democratic party from 1993 until 2005. Prominent politicians associated with the DLC include its former chairman President Bill Clinton
, former chairman Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman (elected over the Democratic nominee for Senate in 2006), former New York Senator and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore
(up to 2000, but not since then) and Virginia Senator Mark Warner
. The DLC was founded and continues to be led by Al From
. Former Representative Harold Ford, Jr.
of Tennessee
is the current chairman. The DLC has no official allegiance with or control over the Democratic National Committee
. However Howard Dean
was the first DNC Chair since 1992 to not be aligned or involved with the DLC.
s are Democratic Party members with conservative political views, or with views relatively conservative with respect to those of the national party. While such members of the Democratic Party can be found throughout the nation, actual elected officials are disproportionately found within the Southern states
, and to a lesser extent within rural regions of the several states generally, more commonly in the West.
The Democratic Party had a conservative element, mostly from the South and Border regions, into the 1980s. Their numbers declined sharply as the Republican Party
built up its Southern base. They were sometimes humorously called "Yellow dog Democrat
s," or "boll weevils
," "Dixiecrats." Nowadays, they are often called a Democrat In Name Only
. In the House, they form the Blue Dog Democrats, a caucus of fiscal and social conservatives and moderates, primarily southerners, willing to broker compromises with the Republican leadership. They have acted as a unified voting bloc in the past, giving its forty plus members some ability to change legislation. The Blue Dogs added nine new members as a result of the 2006 midterm elections.
Prominent conservative Democrats of recent time include Senators Ben Nelson
(Nebraska), Zell Miller
(Georgia) and John Breaux
(Louisiana); as well as Congressmen Ike Skelton
(Missouri), Gene Taylor (Mississippi), Henry Cuellar
(Texas), Collin Peterson
(Minnesota), and Jim Marshall
(Georgia).
Many conservative Southern Democrats defected to the Republican Party, beginning with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
and the general leftward shift of the party. Strom Thurmond
of South Carolina, Billy Tauzin
of Louisiana, Kent Hance
and Ralph Hall
of Texas, and Richard Shelby
of Alabama are examples of this. The influx of conservative Democrats into the Republican Party is often cited as a reason for the GOP's shift further to the right during the late 20th century, as well as the shift of its base from the Northeast and Midwest to the South.
A newly emerging trend is the return of active pro-life Democratic groups and candidates. Some of these candidates have won office or are backed by the party establishment in their state. The largest national pro-life group within the party is the Democrats for Life of America
. Pro-life candidate Bob Casey, Jr.
(Pennsylvania) was elected as a U.S. Senator in the 2006 midterm elections
.
The 2006 Congressional elections also brought to Congress a significant bloc of conservative Democrats who are likely to support protectionist
policies.
and separation of church and state
are more closely aligned to their own than the positions of the Republican Party
, and because the Democrats' economic agenda may be more appealing to them than that of the Libertarian Party
. They oppose gun control, the "War on Drugs
," protectionism
, corporate welfare
, governmental borrowing, and an interventionist
foreign policy. Some civil libertarians also support the party because of their support of haebeus corpus
for unlawful combatants, opposition to torture of suspected terrorists, extraordinary rendtition, warrentless wiretapping
, indefinite detention
without trial or charge, the Patriot Act, the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
and what they see as the erosion of the protections of the Bill of Rights
.
Mike Gravel
was perhaps the most well known member of this faction, before leaving the party midway through the 2008 presidential election cycle to seek the Libertarian Party
presidential nomination.
The Democratic Freedom Caucus (DFC) is an organized group of this faction, although it prefers to use terms such as "freedom Democrats" or "freedom-oriented Democrats". The DFC does not use the term "libertarian" on its website, because while it advocates individual liberty and limited government power, it considers its economic policies to be more progressive than, for example, the Libertarian Party. This is especially so because the DFC is in the tradition which holds that land and natural resources are subject to fundamentally different economic laws than human-made products (such as machinery, buildings, etc.), so its view of economic freedom advocates somewhat different economic policies. Specifically, the DFC advocates in its platform a tax shift away from things like labor, (and the products thereof), and sales and towards spatial-locations and natural resources
.
Another group, The Libertarian Democratic Caucus (LDC) seeks to build libertarian coalitions on issues regardless of political party. The Democratic Freedom Caucus tends to focus on taxation while the LDC targets civil liberty issues such as legalizaing victimless crimes. The LDC is a Democratic organization, but it advocates working with the Libertarian Party and libertarian Republicans, such as the Libertarian Republican Caucus, on issues they have in common. Website: http://libertariandemocraticcaucus.org
and civil rights, the economy, and immigration have attraced many minorities to the party.
s after the end of the civil war and emancipation of black slaves. This trend started to gradually change in the 1930s with Franklin Roosevelt's
New Deal
programs that gave economic relief to all minorities including African Americans and Hispanics. Support for the Civil Rights Movement
in the 1960s by Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy
and Lyndon B. Johnson
helped give the Democrats even larger support among the African American community, although their position also alienated the Southern white population. Today African Americans have as strong support for the Democratic Party as any group has for either party, voting 90% Democratic in the 2000 presidential election, 88% Democratic in the 2004 presidential election and 95% Democratic in the 2008 presidential election.
population in the Southwest and large Puerto Rican, Dominican
, and South America
n populations in the Northeast have been strongholds for the Democratic Party. Hispanic Democrats commonly favor liberal views on immigration. In 1996 presidential election
, Democratic President Bill Clinton
received 72% of the Hispanic vote.
After a period of incremental gains under George W. Bush
, the Republican Party's support among Hispanics seriously eroded after a heated and acrimonious debate within the party during the 109th Congress
over immigration reform. Nationwide protests
helped galvanize Hispanic political participation, and in the 2006 mid-term elections, Democrats increased their share the Hispanic vote from 2004 by 14 points to 69%. The trend continued in 2008
, as Barack Obama
carried the Latino vote with 67%.
population. The Asian American population had been a stronghold of the Republican Party until the United States presidential election
of 1992 Presidential election in which George H. W. Bush
won 55% of the Asian American vote, compared to Bill Clinton
winning 31%, and Ross Perot
winning 15% of the Asian vote. Originally, the vast majority of Asian Americans consisted of anti-communist Vietnamese refugees
, Chinese Americans, Korean Americans, and socially conservative Filipinos
who fled Ferdinand Marcos
in the 1960s through the 1980s. The Democratic party made gains among the Asian American population starting with 1996 and in 2006, won 62% of the Asian American vote. This is due to demographic shifts in the Asian American community, with growing numbers of well educated Chinese
and Asian Indian
immigrants that are typically economic centrist and social progressives. The Asian American community's increasing number of young voters has also helped to erode traditionally reliably Republican voting blocs such as Vietnamese and Filipino Americans, leading to an increase in support for Democrats. Prominent Asian-American Democrats include Daniel Inouye
, Daniel Akaka
, Gary Locke
, Mike Honda
, David Wu
, Doris Matsui
, and Norman Mineta
.
, 89% of Muslim Americans
voted for Barack Obama
. Muslim Americans tend to be financially well off, as many in the community are small businessmen and educated professionals. They also tend to be socially conservative. Prior to 2002, most tended to vote for Republicans for these reasons. However, after 9/11 many experienced hostility and discrimination, and many right-wing
religious and political leaders attacked Islam as both a violent religion and a threat to American values. Furthermore, most Muslim Americans opposed the Iraq War, solidifying their shift to the Democratic Party.
Keith Ellison
was elected as first Muslim Congressman in 2006. He was elected as Democrats' Representative for Minnesota's 5th congressional district
.
and 2006
elections. And of the 43 Jewish Congressmen and Senators currently serving in Congress, 38 are Democrats (40 if independent Senators Joe Lieberman
of Connecticut
and Bernie Sanders of Vermont
, who caucus with Senate Democrats, are counted.)
population, forming sizeable political blocs in Oklahoma
, Arizona
, New Mexico
, Montana
, Alaska
, North Dakota
, and South Dakota
.
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
is composed of various factions, with some overlap and enough agreement between them to coexist with each other within the party.
Progressive Democrats
Progressives tend to advocate a relatively centrist economic and left-wing social agenda. Unifying issues among progressive Democrats include opposition to the War in Iraq2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
, opposition to economic liberalism
Economic liberalism
Economic liberalism is the ideological belief in giving all people economic freedom, and as such granting people with more basis to control their own lives and make their own mistakes. It is an economic philosophy that supports and promotes individual liberty and choice in economic matters and...
and social conservatism
Social conservatism
Social Conservatism is primarily a political, and usually morally influenced, ideology that focuses on the preservation of what are seen as traditional values. Social conservatism is a form of authoritarianism often associated with the position that the federal government should have a greater role...
, opposition to heavy corporate influence in government, support for universal health care
Universal health care
Universal health care is a term referring to organized health care systems built around the principle of universal coverage for all members of society, combining mechanisms for health financing and service provision.-History:...
, revitalization of the national infrastructure and steering the Democratic Party in the direction of being a more forceful party. Compared to other factions of the party, they've been most critical of the Republican Party, and most supportive of direct government action as a means to establish social and economic equality.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus
Congressional Progressive Caucus
The Congressional Progressive Caucus is the largest caucus within the Democratic caucus in the United States Congress with 83 declared members, and works to advance progressive issues and positions....
(CPC) is a caucus of progressive Democrats, along with one independent, in the U.S. Congress. It is the single largest Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives. Its members have included Dennis Kucinich
Dennis Kucinich
Dennis John Kucinich is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1997. He was furthermore a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections....
, Alan Grayson
Alan Grayson
Alan Mark Grayson is a former U.S. Representative for , serving from 2009 until 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party and loves cookies. After losing the election he moved to Austin to start stand-up comedy and a cookie business. The district Grayson represented lies in central Florida...
, John Conyers
John Conyers
John Conyers, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1965 . He is a member of the Democratic Party...
(Michigan), Jim McDermott
Jim McDermott
James Adelbert "Jim" McDermott is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1989. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The 7th District includes most of Seattle and Vashon Island, and portions of Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, Tukwila, SeaTac, and Burien.He serves on the House Ways and Means...
(Washington), John Lewis
John Lewis (politician)
John Robert Lewis is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1987. He was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , playing a key role in the struggle to end segregation...
(Georgia), the late Senator Paul Wellstone
Paul Wellstone
Paul David Wellstone was a two-term U.S. Senator from the state of Minnesota and member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which is affiliated with the national Democratic Party. Before being elected to the Senate in 1990, he was a professor of political science at Carleton College...
(Minnesota), Barbara Lee
Barbara Lee
Barbara Jean Lee is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1998. She is a member of the Democratic Party. She is the first woman to represent that district. Lee was the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and was the Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus...
(California), Sherrod Brown
Sherrod Brown
Sherrod Campbell Brown is the senior United States Senator from Ohio and a member of the Democratic Party. Before his election to the U.S. Senate, he was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Ohio's 13th congressional district from 1993 to 2007...
(Ohio), and Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders
Bernard "Bernie" Sanders is the junior United States Senator from Vermont. He previously represented Vermont's at-large district in the United States House of Representatives...
(I-VT).
Many progressive Democrats are descendants of the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
of Democratic Presidential candidate/Senator George McGovern
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....
of South Dakota; others were involved in the presidential candidacies of Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
Governor Howard Dean
Howard Dean
Howard Brush Dean III is an American politician and physician from Vermont. He served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont and ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. Although his U.S...
and U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Dennis Kucinich
Dennis John Kucinich is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1997. He was furthermore a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections....
of Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
; and still others are disaffected former members of the Green Party
Green Party (United States)
The Green Party of the United States is a nationally recognized political party which officially formed in 1991. It is a voluntary association of state green parties. Prior to national formation, many state affiliates had already formed and were recognized by other state parties...
. This groups consists mostly of college-educated professionals. A recent study by the Pew Research Center
Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is an American think tank organization based in Washington, D.C. that provides information on issues, attitudes and trends shaping the United States and the world. The Center and its projects receive funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 1990, Donald S...
found that a plurality, 41%, resided in mass affluent
Mass affluent
Mass affluent and emerging affluent are marketing terms used to refer to the high end of the mass market. It is most commonly used by the financial services industry to refer to individuals with US$100,000 to US$1,000,000 of liquid financial assets, although the exact definition varies...
households and 49% were college graduates. Progressive Democratic candidates for public office have had popular support as candidates in metropolitan areas outside the South, and among African-Americans nationwide.
Liberal Democrats
Liberal Democrats are to the left of centrist Democrats. The liberal faction was dominant in the party for several decades, although they have been hurt by the rise of centrist forces such as President Bill ClintonBill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
. Compared to conservatives and moderates, liberal Democrats generally have advocated fair trade
Fair trade
Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...
and other less conservative economic policies, and a less militaristic foreign policy, and have a reputation of being more forceful in pushing for civil liberties.
Prominent liberal Democrats include U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer
Barbara Boxer
Barbara Levy Boxer is the junior United States Senator from California . A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives ....
(California), Russ Feingold
Russ Feingold
Russell Dana "Russ" Feingold is an American politician from the U.S. state of Wisconsin. He served as a Democratic party member of the U.S. Senate from 1993 to 2011. From 1983 to 1993, Feingold was a Wisconsin State Senator representing the 27th District.He is a recipient of the John F...
(Wisconsin), the late Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
(Massachusetts), Tom Harkin
Tom Harkin
Thomas Richard "Tom" Harkin is the junior United States Senator from Iowa and a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served in the United States House of Representatives ....
(Iowa), and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011...
(California).
Unions
Since the 1930s, a critical component of the Democratic Party coalition has been organized laborLabor unions in the United States
Labor unions in the United States are legally recognized as representatives of workers in many industries. The most prominent unions are among public sector employees such as teachers and police...
. Labor unions supply a great deal of the money, grass roots political organization, and voting base of support for the party. In recent years union membership in the United States has been declining substantially. The overall percentage of employed wage and salary workers that are union members fell to 12 percent in 2006, a significant decline from U.S. unions' peak membership of 36 percent in the mid-1950s. This historic decline in union membership has also been accompanied by a growing disparity between public sector and private sector union membership, as currently about 36.5 percent of public sector workers are union members, whereas approximately 7.8 percent of private sector workers belong to unions. Despite declining membership numbers, union members and their families vote in disproportionately greater numbers than the population at large, with as many as one in four votes in the 2004 election coming from union households. Because union members vote in high numbers, as well as the organizational and financial resources unions can bring to bear, they continue to have significant influence on the Party.
The three most significant labor groupings in the Democratic coalition today are the AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
, a labor federation
National trade union center
A national trade union center is a federation or confederation of trade unions in a single country. Nearly every country in the world has a national trade union center, and many have more than one. When there is more than one national center, it is often because of ideological differences—in some...
of 53 national unions representing 9 million public and private sector workers; the Change to Win Federation
Change to Win Federation
The Change to Win Federation is a coalition of American labor unions originally formed in 2005 as an alternative to the AFL-CIO. The coalition is associated with strong advocacy of the organizing model...
, which broke away from the AFL-CIO in 2005 and currently includes seven national unions representing approximately 6 million public and private sector workers; and the National Education Association
National Education Association
The National Education Association is the largest professional organization and largest labor union in the United States, representing public school teachers and other support personnel, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college students preparing to become...
, a 3.2 million member independent union unaffiliated with either the AFL-CIO or Change to Win, which primarily represents teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
s and other education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
workers. Both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win have identified their top legislative priority for 2007 as passage of the Employee Free Choice Act
Employee Free Choice Act
The Employee Free Choice Act was a legislative bill that was introduced into both chambers of the U.S. Congress on March 10, 2009. The bill's purpose was to,...
, make it easier for employees to join a union and would increase penalties for employer violations of the National Labor Relations Act
National Labor Relations Act
The National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act , is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions , engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in...
. Other important issues for labor unions include support for industrial policy
Industrial policy
The Industrial Policy plan of a nation, sometimes shortened IP, "denotes a nation's declared, official, total strategic effort to influence sectoral development and, thus, national industry portfolio." These interventionist measures comprise "policies that stimulate specific activities and promote...
(including fair trade
Fair trade
Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...
) that sustains unionized manufacturing
Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...
jobs, raising the minimum wage
Minimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labour. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion about...
, and promoting broad social programs such as social security
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...
and universal health care
Universal health care
Universal health care is a term referring to organized health care systems built around the principle of universal coverage for all members of society, combining mechanisms for health financing and service provision.-History:...
.
Prominent politicians associated with the labor wing include Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
Senator Sherrod Brown
Sherrod Brown
Sherrod Campbell Brown is the senior United States Senator from Ohio and a member of the Democratic Party. Before his election to the U.S. Senate, he was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Ohio's 13th congressional district from 1993 to 2007...
(also a member of the Progressive Caucus) and Byron Dorgan
Byron Dorgan
Byron Leslie Dorgan is a former United States Senator from North Dakota and is now a senior policy advisor for a Washington, DC law firm. He is a member of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party, the North Dakota affiliate of the Democratic Party. In the Senate, he was Chairman of the Democratic...
, the populist senator from North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
, as well as former Presidential candidate John Edwards
John Edwards
Johnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician, who served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in...
. Most of the members in this faction identify with the progressive faction of the party.
Christian left
The Christian leftChristian left
The Christian left is a term originating in the United States, used to describe a spectrum of left-wing Christian political and social movements which largely embraces social justice....
shares many policy goals with Democratic Party, although the movement is arguably smaller and less influential on the party when compared to the Christian right
Christian right
Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...
, which is generally more affiliated with the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
.
Christian left includes Peace churches
Peace churches
Peace churches are Christian churches, groups or communities advocating Christian pacifism. The term historic peace churches refers specifically only to three church groups among pacifist churches: Church of the Brethren, Mennonites including the Amish, and Religious Society of Friends and has...
, elements of Protestant mainline churches, elements of Roman Catholicism and some parts of the evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
community. Their concerns regarding social justice, welfare, universal health care, education and foreign aid are more in line with the Democratic economic agenda than the laissez-faire
Laissez-faire
In economics, laissez-faire describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies....
economic approach of the Republicans. Their social views of capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
, defense
Defense (military)
Defense has several uses in the sphere of military application.Personal defense implies measures taken by individual soldiers in protecting themselves whether by use of protective materials such as armor, or field construction of trenches or a bunker, or by using weapons that prevent the enemy...
and militarism
Militarism
Militarism is defined as: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....
, civil rights and equality are also left-wing. On moral issues such as abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, euthanasia
Euthanasia
Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....
and homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, the Christian left are often, although not always, more in line with Democrats. They may either disagree with Biblical literalism
Biblical literalism
Biblical literalism is the interpretation or translation of the explicit and primary sense of words in the Bible. A literal Biblical interpretation is associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical hermeneutical approach to Scripture, and is used almost exclusively by conservative Christians...
on these issues or may hold opposition but choose to prioritize social justice and other issues over a divisive social agenda.
Prominent Christian left Democrats include Reverend Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...
(a Democratic presidential candidate in 1984
United States presidential election, 1984
The United States presidential election of 1984 was a contest between the incumbent President Ronald Reagan, the Republican candidate, and former Vice President Walter Mondale, the Democratic candidate. Reagan was helped by a strong economic recovery from the deep recession of 1981–1982...
and 1988
United States presidential election, 1988
The United States presidential election of 1988 featured no incumbent president, as President Ronald Reagan was unable to seek re-election after serving the maximum two terms allowed by the Twenty-second Amendment. Reagan's Vice President, George H. W. Bush, won the Republican nomination, while the...
) and Reverend Al Sharpton
Al Sharpton
Alfred Charles "Al" Sharpton, Jr. is an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election...
(a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004
United States presidential election, 2004
The United States presidential election of 2004 was the United States' 55th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. Republican Party candidate and incumbent President George W. Bush defeated Democratic Party candidate John Kerry, the then-junior U.S. Senator...
).
Centrist wing
Though centrist and center-right Democrats differ on a variety of issues, they typically foster a mix of political views and ideas. Compared to other Democratic factions, they are mostly more supportive of the use of military force, including the war in Iraq, and are more willing to reduce government welfare, as indicated by their support for welfare reformWelfare reform
Welfare reform refers to the process of reforming the framework of social security and welfare provisions, but what is considered reform is a matter of opinion. The term was used in the United States to support the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act...
and tax cut
Tax cut
A tax cut is a reduction in taxes. The immediate effects of a tax cut are a decrease in the real income of the government and an increase in the real income of those whose tax rate has been lowered. Due to the perceived benefit in growing real incomes among tax payers politicians have sought to...
s.
One of the most influential factions is the Democratic Leadership Council
Democratic Leadership Council
The Democratic Leadership Council was a non-profit 501 corporation that, upon its formation, argued the United States Democratic Party should shift away from the leftward turn it took in the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s...
(DLC), a non-profit organization that advocates centrist
Centrism
In politics, centrism is the ideal or the practice of promoting policies that lie different from the standard political left and political right. Most commonly, this is visualized as part of the one-dimensional political spectrum of left-right politics, with centrism landing in the middle between...
positions for the party. Members often self-identify under the title "New Democrat
New Democrats
New Democrats, in the politics of the United States, are an ideologically centrist faction within the Democratic Party that emerged after the victory of Republican George H. W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election. They are identified with centrist social/cultural/pluralist positions and...
." Selected former party leaders of the 1980s founded the DLC in response to the landslide victory of Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
over Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
in 1984, believing that the Democratic Party needed to reform its political philosophy if it were to ever retake the White House. The DLC hails President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
as proof of the viability of third way
Third way (centrism)
The Third Way refers to various political positions which try to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies. Third Way approaches are commonly viewed from within the first- and second-way perspectives as...
politicians and a DLC success story. However, despite centrists' claims that their ideas are more in line with the majority of Americans, the Democratic Party was in the minority in both houses of Congress during the years of DLC dominance.
The DLC was dominant in the Democratic party from 1993 until 2005. Prominent politicians associated with the DLC include its former chairman President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, former chairman Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman (elected over the Democratic nominee for Senate in 2006), former New York Senator and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
(up to 2000, but not since then) and Virginia Senator Mark Warner
Mark Warner
Mark Robert Warner is an American politician and businessman, currently serving in the United States Senate as the junior senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Warner was the 69th governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and is the honorary chairman of...
. The DLC was founded and continues to be led by Al From
Al From
Al From is the founder and former CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council. His ideas and political strategies during the past quarter century played a central role in the resurgence of the modern Democratic Party....
. Former Representative Harold Ford, Jr.
Harold Ford, Jr.
Harold Eugene Ford, Jr. is an American politician and was the last chairman of the now-defunct Democratic Leadership Council . He was a Democratic Party member of the United States House of Representatives from , centered in Memphis, from 1997 to 2007...
of Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
is the current chairman. The DLC has no official allegiance with or control over the Democratic National Committee
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
. However Howard Dean
Howard Dean
Howard Brush Dean III is an American politician and physician from Vermont. He served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont and ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. Although his U.S...
was the first DNC Chair since 1992 to not be aligned or involved with the DLC.
Conservative wing
Conservative DemocratConservative Democrat
In American politics, a conservative Democrat is a Democratic Party member with conservative political views, or with views relatively conservative with respect to those of the national party...
s are Democratic Party members with conservative political views, or with views relatively conservative with respect to those of the national party. While such members of the Democratic Party can be found throughout the nation, actual elected officials are disproportionately found within the Southern states
Southern States
Southern States may refer to:*Southern United States*Southern States Cooperative*The independent states of the South in the North-South divide*The independent states of the Southern hemisphere...
, and to a lesser extent within rural regions of the several states generally, more commonly in the West.
The Democratic Party had a conservative element, mostly from the South and Border regions, into the 1980s. Their numbers declined sharply as the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
built up its Southern base. They were sometimes humorously called "Yellow dog Democrat
Yellow dog Democrat
Yellow Dog Democrats was a political term applied to voters in the Southern United States who voted solely for Democratic candidates, with the term commencing in the late 19th century. Due to Republican president Abraham Lincoln's leading the Union against the Confederacy, these voters would...
s," or "boll weevils
Boll weevil (politics)
Boll weevils was an American political term used in the mid- and late-20th century to describe conservative Southern Democrats.During and after the administration of Franklin D...
," "Dixiecrats." Nowadays, they are often called a Democrat In Name Only
Democrat In Name Only
Democrat In Name Only, or DINO in acronym form, is a disparaging term for a member of the United States Democratic Party. A DINO is considered to be more conservative than fellow Democrats...
. In the House, they form the Blue Dog Democrats, a caucus of fiscal and social conservatives and moderates, primarily southerners, willing to broker compromises with the Republican leadership. They have acted as a unified voting bloc in the past, giving its forty plus members some ability to change legislation. The Blue Dogs added nine new members as a result of the 2006 midterm elections.
Prominent conservative Democrats of recent time include Senators Ben Nelson
Ben Nelson
Earl Benjamin "Ben" Nelson is the senior U.S. Senator from Nebraska. He is a member of the Democratic Party and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000....
(Nebraska), Zell Miller
Zell Miller
Zell Bryan Miller is an American politician from the US state of Georgia. A Democrat, Miller served as Lieutenant Governor from 1975 to 1991, 79th Governor of Georgia from 1991 to 1999, and as United States Senator from 2000 to 2005....
(Georgia) and John Breaux
John Breaux
John Berlinger Breaux is a former United States senator from Louisiana who served from 1987 until 2005. He was also a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1972 to 1987. He was considered one of the more conservative national legislators from the Democratic Party...
(Louisiana); as well as Congressmen Ike Skelton
Ike Skelton
Isaac Newton "Ike" Skelton IV is the former U.S. Representative for . During his tenure, he has served as the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He is a member for the Democratic Party...
(Missouri), Gene Taylor (Mississippi), Henry Cuellar
Henry Cuellar
Henry Roberto Cuellar is the U.S Representative for , serving since 2005. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district extends from the Rio Grande to the suburbs of San Antonio, including Guadalupe County and nearby Wilson County.Outside of politics, he has served as a professor at the...
(Texas), Collin Peterson
Collin Peterson
Collin Clark Peterson , is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1991, and the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee. He is a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and is the dean of the Minnesota congressional delegation.The district, Minnesota's largest and most rural...
(Minnesota), and Jim Marshall
Jim Marshall (U.S. politician)
James Creel "Jim" Marshall is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 2003 until 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party...
(Georgia).
Many conservative Southern Democrats defected to the Republican Party, beginning with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
and the general leftward shift of the party. Strom Thurmond
Strom Thurmond
James Strom Thurmond was an American politician who served as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes...
of South Carolina, Billy Tauzin
Billy Tauzin
Wilbert Joseph Tauzin II , usually known as Billy Tauzin, American lobbyist and politician of Cajun descent, was President and CEO of PhRMA, a pharmaceutical company lobby group...
of Louisiana, Kent Hance
Kent Hance
Kent "The Hancellor" Ronald Hance is a lobbyist and lawyer who was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from West Texas, having served from 1979 to 1985...
and Ralph Hall
Ralph Hall
Ralph Moody Hall is a United States Representative from . First elected in 1980, Hall is the chairman of the Science Committee and a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee...
of Texas, and Richard Shelby
Richard Shelby
Richard Craig Shelby is the senior U.S. Senator from Alabama. First elected to the Senate in 1986, he is the ranking member of the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and was its chairman from 2003 to 2007....
of Alabama are examples of this. The influx of conservative Democrats into the Republican Party is often cited as a reason for the GOP's shift further to the right during the late 20th century, as well as the shift of its base from the Northeast and Midwest to the South.
A newly emerging trend is the return of active pro-life Democratic groups and candidates. Some of these candidates have won office or are backed by the party establishment in their state. The largest national pro-life group within the party is the Democrats for Life of America
Democrats for Life of America
Democrats for Life of America is an advocacy group in the United States attempting to reshape the political left, primarily the Democratic Party, into taking a pro-life position. Usually this involves political opposition to abortion, but the DFLA also opposes capital punishment and euthanasia...
. Pro-life candidate Bob Casey, Jr.
Bob Casey, Jr.
Robert Patrick "Bob" Casey, Jr. is the senior U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served as Pennsylvania Treasurer, and Pennsylvania Auditor General. He is the son of former Governor Bob Casey, Sr..He is the first Democrat elected to a full term in...
(Pennsylvania) was elected as a U.S. Senator in the 2006 midterm elections
United States general elections, 2006
The 2006 United States midterm elections were held on Tuesday, November 7, 2006. All United States House of Representatives seats and one third of the United States Senate seats were contested in this election, as well as 36 state governorships, many state legislatures, four territorial...
.
The 2006 Congressional elections also brought to Congress a significant bloc of conservative Democrats who are likely to support protectionist
Protectionism
Protectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between states through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and a variety of other government regulations designed to allow "fair competition" between imports and goods and services produced domestically.This...
policies.
Libertarian Democrats
Civil libertarians, and people against large national debt, also often support the Democratic Party because its positions on such issues as civil rightsCivil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
and separation of church and state
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
are more closely aligned to their own than the positions of the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, and because the Democrats' economic agenda may be more appealing to them than that of the Libertarian Party
Libertarian Party (United States)
The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...
. They oppose gun control, the "War on Drugs
Prohibition (drugs)
The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent drug use. Prohibition of drugs has existed at various levels of government or other authority from the Middle Ages to the present....
," protectionism
Protectionism
Protectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between states through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and a variety of other government regulations designed to allow "fair competition" between imports and goods and services produced domestically.This...
, corporate welfare
Corporate welfare
Corporate welfare is a pejorative term describing a government's bestowal of money grants, tax breaks, or other special favorable treatment on corporations or selected corporations. The term compares corporate subsidies and welfare payments to the poor, and implies that corporations are much less...
, governmental borrowing, and an interventionist
Interventionism (politics)
Interventionism is a term for a policy of non-defensive activity undertaken by a nation-state, or other geo-political jurisdiction of a lesser or greater nature, to manipulate an economy or society...
foreign policy. Some civil libertarians also support the party because of their support of haebeus corpus
Habeas corpus in the United States
Habeas corpus , Latin for "you [shall] have the body," is the name of a legal action or writ by means of which detainees can seek relief from unlawful imprisonment...
for unlawful combatants, opposition to torture of suspected terrorists, extraordinary rendtition, warrentless wiretapping
NSA warrantless surveillance controversy
The NSA warrantless surveillance controversy concerns surveillance of persons within the United States during the collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency as part of the war on terror...
, indefinite detention
Indefinite detention
Indefinite detention is the incarceration of an arrested person by a national government or law enforcement agency without a trial. It is a controversial practice on the part of any government or agency that is in violation of many national and international laws, including human rights laws...
without trial or charge, the Patriot Act, the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is located on of land and water at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba which the United States leased for use as a coaling station following the Cuban-American Treaty of 1903. The base is located on the shore of Guantánamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba. It is the oldest overseas...
and what they see as the erosion of the protections of the Bill of Rights
United States Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property. They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and...
.
Mike Gravel
Mike Gravel
Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel is a former Democratic United States Senator from Alaska, who served two terms from 1969 to 1981, and a former candidate in the 2008 presidential election....
was perhaps the most well known member of this faction, before leaving the party midway through the 2008 presidential election cycle to seek the Libertarian Party
Libertarian Party (United States)
The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...
presidential nomination.
The Democratic Freedom Caucus (DFC) is an organized group of this faction, although it prefers to use terms such as "freedom Democrats" or "freedom-oriented Democrats". The DFC does not use the term "libertarian" on its website, because while it advocates individual liberty and limited government power, it considers its economic policies to be more progressive than, for example, the Libertarian Party. This is especially so because the DFC is in the tradition which holds that land and natural resources are subject to fundamentally different economic laws than human-made products (such as machinery, buildings, etc.), so its view of economic freedom advocates somewhat different economic policies. Specifically, the DFC advocates in its platform a tax shift away from things like labor, (and the products thereof), and sales and towards spatial-locations and natural resources
Land value tax
A land value tax is a levy on the unimproved value of land. It is an ad valorem tax on land that disregards the value of buildings, personal property and other improvements...
.
Another group, The Libertarian Democratic Caucus (LDC) seeks to build libertarian coalitions on issues regardless of political party. The Democratic Freedom Caucus tends to focus on taxation while the LDC targets civil liberty issues such as legalizaing victimless crimes. The LDC is a Democratic organization, but it advocates working with the Libertarian Party and libertarian Republicans, such as the Libertarian Republican Caucus, on issues they have in common. Website: http://libertariandemocraticcaucus.org
Ethnic Minorities
A large portion of the Democratic voting base are ethnic minorities. The Democrats' positions on affirmative actionAffirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
and civil rights, the economy, and immigration have attraced many minorities to the party.
African Americans
Originally, the Republican Party was favored by African AmericanAfrican American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s after the end of the civil war and emancipation of black slaves. This trend started to gradually change in the 1930s with Franklin Roosevelt's
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
programs that gave economic relief to all minorities including African Americans and Hispanics. Support for the Civil Rights Movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
in the 1960s by Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
helped give the Democrats even larger support among the African American community, although their position also alienated the Southern white population. Today African Americans have as strong support for the Democratic Party as any group has for either party, voting 90% Democratic in the 2000 presidential election, 88% Democratic in the 2004 presidential election and 95% Democratic in the 2008 presidential election.
Hispanics
The Hispanic population, particularly the large Mexican AmericanMexican American
Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican descent. As of July 2009, Mexican Americans make up 10.3% of the United States' population with over 31,689,000 Americans listed as of Mexican ancestry. Mexican Americans comprise 66% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States...
population in the Southwest and large Puerto Rican, Dominican
Dominican American
A Dominican American is any American who has origins in the Dominican Republic.Immigration records of Dominicans in the United States date from the late 19th century, and New York City has had a Dominican community since the 1930s...
, and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
n populations in the Northeast have been strongholds for the Democratic Party. Hispanic Democrats commonly favor liberal views on immigration. In 1996 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1996
The United States presidential election of 1996 was a contest between the Democratic national ticket of President Bill Clinton of Arkansas and Vice President Al Gore of Tennessee and the Republican national ticket of former Senator Bob Dole of Kansas for President and former Housing Secretary Jack...
, Democratic President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
received 72% of the Hispanic vote.
After a period of incremental gains under George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, the Republican Party's support among Hispanics seriously eroded after a heated and acrimonious debate within the party during the 109th Congress
109th United States Congress
The One Hundred Ninth United States Congress was the legislative branch of the United States, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives, from January 3, 2005 to January 3, 2007, during the fifth and sixth years of George W. Bush's presidency. House members...
over immigration reform. Nationwide protests
2006 United States immigration reform protests
In 2006, millions of people participated in protests over a proposed change to U.S. immigration policy. The protests began in response to proposed legislation known as H.R. 4437, which would raise penalties for Illegal immigration and classify illegal immigrants and anyone who helped them enter or...
helped galvanize Hispanic political participation, and in the 2006 mid-term elections, Democrats increased their share the Hispanic vote from 2004 by 14 points to 69%. The trend continued in 2008
United States presidential election, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received 365...
, as Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
carried the Latino vote with 67%.
Asian Americans
The Democratic Party also has strong support in the small but growing Asian AmericanAsian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
population. The Asian American population had been a stronghold of the Republican Party until the United States presidential election
United States presidential election
Elections for President and Vice President of the United States are indirect elections in which voters cast ballots for a slate of electors of the U.S. Electoral College, who in turn directly elect the President and Vice President...
of 1992 Presidential election in which George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
won 55% of the Asian American vote, compared to Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
winning 31%, and Ross Perot
Ross Perot
Henry Ross Perot is a U.S. businessman best known for running for President of the United States in 1992 and 1996. Perot founded Electronic Data Systems in 1962, sold the company to General Motors in 1984, and founded Perot Systems in 1988...
winning 15% of the Asian vote. Originally, the vast majority of Asian Americans consisted of anti-communist Vietnamese refugees
Vietnamese American
A Vietnamese American is an American of Vietnamese descent. They make up about half of all overseas Vietnamese and are the fourth-largest Asian American group....
, Chinese Americans, Korean Americans, and socially conservative Filipinos
Filipino American
Filipino Americans are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipino Americans, often shortened to "Fil-Ams", or "Pinoy",Filipinos in what is now the United States were first documented in the 16th century, with small settlements beginning in the 18th century...
who fled Ferdinand Marcos
Ferdinand Marcos
Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos, Sr. was a Filipino leader and an authoritarian President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was a lawyer, member of the Philippine House of Representatives and a member of the Philippine Senate...
in the 1960s through the 1980s. The Democratic party made gains among the Asian American population starting with 1996 and in 2006, won 62% of the Asian American vote. This is due to demographic shifts in the Asian American community, with growing numbers of well educated Chinese
Chinese American
Chinese Americans represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans...
and Asian Indian
Indian American
Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestral roots lie in India. The U.S. Census Bureau popularized the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Indigenous peoples of the Americas who are commonly referred to as American Indians.-The term: Indian:...
immigrants that are typically economic centrist and social progressives. The Asian American community's increasing number of young voters has also helped to erode traditionally reliably Republican voting blocs such as Vietnamese and Filipino Americans, leading to an increase in support for Democrats. Prominent Asian-American Democrats include Daniel Inouye
Daniel Inouye
Daniel Ken "Dan" Inouye is the senior United States Senator from Hawaii, a member of the Democratic Party, and the President pro tempore of the United States Senate making him the highest-ranking Asian American politician in American history. Inouye is the chairman of the United States Senate...
, Daniel Akaka
Daniel Akaka
Daniel Kahikina Akaka is the junior U.S. Senator from Hawaii and a member of the Democratic Party. He is the first U.S. Senator of Native Hawaiian ancestry and is currently the only member of the Senate who has Chinese ancestry....
, Gary Locke
Gary Locke
Gary Locke may refer to:*Gary Locke , Chinese American politician; U.S. Secretary of Commerce and former Governor of Washington*Gary Locke *Gary Locke...
, Mike Honda
Mike Honda
Michael Makoto "Mike" Honda is an American Democratic Party politician. He currently serves as the U.S. Representative for , encompassing western San Jose and Silicon Valley...
, David Wu
David Wu
David Wu is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 1999 to 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party.The district includes most of Portland west of the Willamette River, as well as all of Yamhill, Columbia, Clatsop, and Washington Counties...
, Doris Matsui
Doris Matsui
Doris Okada Matsui is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2005. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district consists of the city of Sacramento and the surrounding area...
, and Norman Mineta
Norman Mineta
Norman Yoshio Mineta, is a United States politician of the Democratic Party. Mineta most recently served in President George W. Bush's Cabinet as the United States Secretary of Transportation, the only Democratic Cabinet Secretary in the Bush administration...
.
Muslims
Muslims make up about 0.6% of Americans and in the 2008 electionUnited States presidential election, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received 365...
, 89% of Muslim Americans
Islam in the United States
From the 1880s to 1914, several thousand Muslims immigrated to the United States from the Ottoman Empire, and from parts of South Asia; they did not form distinctive settlements, and probably most assimilated into the wider society....
voted for Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
. Muslim Americans tend to be financially well off, as many in the community are small businessmen and educated professionals. They also tend to be socially conservative. Prior to 2002, most tended to vote for Republicans for these reasons. However, after 9/11 many experienced hostility and discrimination, and many right-wing
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
religious and political leaders attacked Islam as both a violent religion and a threat to American values. Furthermore, most Muslim Americans opposed the Iraq War, solidifying their shift to the Democratic Party.
Keith Ellison
Keith Ellison (politician)
Keith Maurice Ellison is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. The district centers on Minneapolis. He was re-elected in 2010. Ellison is a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.He is the first Muslim to be elected to the...
was elected as first Muslim Congressman in 2006. He was elected as Democrats' Representative for Minnesota's 5th congressional district
Minnesota's 5th congressional district
Minnesota's 5th congressional district is a geographically small urban and suburban congressional district in Minnesota. It covers eastern Hennepin County, including the entire city of Minneapolis, along with parts of Anoka and Ramsey counties. It was created in 1883 and was named the "Bloody...
.
Jews
Jewish communities tend to be a stronghold for the Democratic Party, with more than 70% of Jewish voters having cast their ballots for the Democrats in the 2004United States presidential election, 2004
The United States presidential election of 2004 was the United States' 55th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. Republican Party candidate and incumbent President George W. Bush defeated Democratic Party candidate John Kerry, the then-junior U.S. Senator...
and 2006
United States general elections, 2006
The 2006 United States midterm elections were held on Tuesday, November 7, 2006. All United States House of Representatives seats and one third of the United States Senate seats were contested in this election, as well as 36 state governorships, many state legislatures, four territorial...
elections. And of the 43 Jewish Congressmen and Senators currently serving in Congress, 38 are Democrats (40 if independent Senators Joe Lieberman
Joe Lieberman
Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman is the senior United States Senator from Connecticut. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election. Currently an independent, he remains closely affiliated with the party.Born in Stamford, Connecticut,...
of Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
and Bernie Sanders of Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
, who caucus with Senate Democrats, are counted.)
Native Americans
The Democratic Party also has strong support among the Native AmericanNative Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
population, forming sizeable political blocs in Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
, Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
, and South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
.
Overlap
There is some overlap between the factions. Liberals, progressives and organized labor are all closely linked, for example. Also, the lines between social and economic progressivism, centrism and conservatism can be unclear, so it can be hard to define the difference between moderates and conservatives. Also they are regional factors, many factions are more likely to vote for the Democratic Party in blue states than in red states.See also
- Democratic organizationsDemocratic organizationsThis is an incomplete list of official and unofficial organizations associated with the United States Democratic Party.* 21st Century Democrats* America Votes* Blue Dog Democrats* Center for American Progress* College Democrats* Democracy for America...
- Democratic Party (United States)Democratic Party (United States)The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
- Factions in the Republican Party (United States)Factions in the Republican Party (United States)The Republican Party of the United States in the 21st century is composed of various groups or factions. Although their interests at times conflict, they share enough in common to remain in the same party....
- Unofficial organizations for DemocratsUnofficial organizations for DemocratsUnofficial organizations for Democrats are those bodies, not officially affiliated with the United States Democratic Party, but primarily intended for the participation of people who are at least self-described Democrats....
External links
- 21st Century Democrats
- AFL-CIO
- Blue Dog Coalition
- Change to Win Federation
- National Education Association
- Democracy For America
- Democratic Freedom Caucus
- Democratic Leadership Council
- Democrats For Life of America
- Populist Caucus
- Progressive Democrats of America
- (http://libertariandemocraticcaucus.org) Libertarian Democratic Caucus