Reform Democrats in the

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are members of the Democratic Party who are opposed to the Democratic

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s of their respective cities, counties, or states or to analogous machine politics at a national level. Reform Democrats are generally associated with the

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traditions that arose out of the progressive movement of the early 20th century, and are usually, but not always, on the

left wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in so ...

of the Democratic Party.The lines between anti-machine Reform Democrats and pro-machine Regular Democrats are not always clear: often, once reformers achieve office they take advantage of

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to establish a machine in their own right. An example of this is the rise of the "Reform machine" of

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in the wake of his triumph over the more traditional machine of

Meade Esposito Amadeo Henry "Meade" Esposito (1907 – September 3, 1993) was an American politician who was a Brooklyn Democratic leader and political boss. Esposito served as chairman of the Kings County Democratic Committee from 1969 to 1984. As a leader, ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

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, in the 1980s. Reform Democrats were contrasted with machine-affiliated "''regular''" Democrats.John Kifner
Reform Democrat to Face Sargent in Massachusetts
''New York Times'' (Sept. 11, 1974). Noted Reform Democrats included Massachusetts's

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, and New York's John J. B. Shea and Arnold Fein. Although the term has somewhat fallen out of use since the 1970s, it still has some currency in Greater New York, such as the Hudson County Reform Democratic Organization in

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. One of the best-known Reform Democrat clubs is the Village Independent Democrats, based in Greenwich Village, which toppled Carmine de Sapio and the might of

Tammany Hall Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...

Notes

Factions in the Democratic Party (United States) {{US-poli-stub