New Democrats

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After the landslide defeats by the Republican Party led by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, a group of prominent Democrats began to believe their party was out of touch and in need of a radical shift in economic policy and ideas of governance.[6][7] The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was founded in 1985 by Al From and a group of like-minded politicians and strategists.[8] They advocated a political Third Way as an antidote to the electoral successes of Reaganism.[6][7]

The landslide 1984 presidential election defeat spurred centrist Democrats to action and the DLC was formed. The DLC, an unofficial party organization, played a critical role in moving the Democratic Party's policies to the center of the American political spectrum. Prominent Democratic politicians such as Senators Al Gore and Joe Biden (both future Vice Presidents, and Biden a future President) participated in DLC affairs prior to their candidacies for the 1988 Democratic Party nomination.[9] However, the DLC did not want the Democratic Party to be "simply posturing in the middle". The DLC instead framed its ideas as "progressive" and as a "Third Way" to address the problems of its era. Examples of the DLC's policy initiatives can be found in The New American Choice Resolutions.[9][10]

Although the New Democrat label was briefly used by a progressive reformist group including Gary Hart and Eugene McCarthy in 1989,[11] the term became more widely associated with the New Orleans Declaration and policies of the DLC which in 1990 renamed its bi-monthly magazine from The Mainstream Democrat to The New Democrat.[12] When then-Governor Bill Clinton stepped down as DLC chairman to run for the presidency in the 1992 United States presidential election, he presented himself as a New Democrat.[13]

The first wave New Democrats from the 1980s to 1990s were very similar to Southern Democrats and the Blue Dog Democrats. Al From, the founder of the DLC and its leader until 2009, had been a staffer for Louisiana Representative Gillis Long. Among the presidents of the DLC were Tennessee Senator Al Gore and Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. The first wave New Democrats sought the votes of White working-class Reagan Democrats.[14]

In the 1990s, the New Democrat movement shifted away from the South and the West and moved to the Northeast. At the 1992 United States presidential election, Clinton was elected as the 42nd President of the United States, ending twelve years of Republican dominance.[14] However, the 1994 United States elections gave Republicans control of the House and Senate, effectively wiping out Democratic representation in the South and West.[14]

Bill Clinton is the Democratic politician most identified with the New Democrats due to his promise of welfare reform in the 1992 United States presidential campaign and its subsequent enactment, his 1992 promise of a middle-class tax cut and his 1993 expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor.[7] New Democrat and Third Way successes under Clinton and the writings of Anthony Giddens are often regarded to have inspired Tony Blair in the United Kingdom and his policies within the Labour Party as New Labour.[15]

Clinton presented himself as a centrist candidate to draw White middle-class voters who had left the Democratic Party for the Republican Party. In 1990, Clinton became the DLC chair. Under his leadership, the DLC founded two-dozen chapters and created a base of support.[9] Running as a New Democrat, Clinton won the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections.[16]

Legislation signed into law with bipartisan support under President Clinton includes:

• The North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.
• The Don't Ask, Don't Tell ban on openly gay people serving in the Armed Forces (repealed in 2010).
• The Defense of Marriage Act that prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages (ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013).
• The Religious Freedom Restoration Act federal religious discrimination statute.
• The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, sometimes referred to as the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill.[17]

During the Clinton administration, New Democrats were responsible for passing the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. It raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers,[18] while cutting taxes on 15 million low-income families and making tax cuts available to 90% of small businesses.[19] Additionally, it mandated that the budget be balanced over a number of years through the implementation of spending restraints. The top marginal tax rate was raised from 31% to 40% under the Clinton administration. Clinton's promise of welfare reform was passed in the form of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996.

In March 2009, Barack Obama, said in a meeting with the New Democrat Coalition that he was a "New Democrat" and a "pro-growth Democrat", that he "supports free and fair trade" and that he was "very concerned about a return to protectionism".[20]

Throughout the Obama administration, a "free and fair trade" attitude was espoused, including in a 2015 trade report entitled The Economic Benefits of U.S. Trade that noted that free trade "help[s] developing countries lift people out of poverty" and "expand[s] markets for U.S. exports".[21]

1. Bill Clinton[27]
2. Barack Obama[28]
3. Joe Biden[29]

1. Al Gore[9] (former)
2. Joe Biden[30] (former)

1. Dianne Feinstein[31]
2. Tom Carper[31]
3. Bill Nelson[31] (former)
4. Debbie Stabenow[31]
5. Maria Cantwell[31]
6. Amy Klobuchar[31]
7. Jon Tester[32]
8. Hillary Clinton[31] (former)

1. Jared Polis[34]
2. John Carney[33]