Collin Peterson

In 1984, he ran for Minnesota's 7th congressional district in Northwestern Minnesota, held by Republican Arlan Stangeland. Peterson lost 57%–43%.[3] In 1986, he ran in a rematch and narrowly lost by just 121 votes.[4] In 1988, he ran again but lost in the DFL primary to State Senator Marv Hanson 55%–45%.[5] Hanson went on to lose to Stangeland 55%–45%.

In 1990, he ran for a fourth time and won the primary. In the general election, he finally defeated seven-term incumbent Stangeland by 54%–46%.[6] Stangeland's stock had dropped sharply after he admitted making a number of personal calls on his House credit card.[7][8]

In 1992, he narrowly won re-election by a 50%–49% margin against former State Representative Bernie Omann.[9] In a 1994 rematch, Peterson won again by a 51%–49% margin, despite the Republican Revolution.[10] In 1996, he won re-election with 68% of the vote, and won every county in the district.[11] In 1998, he won re-election with 72% of the vote.[12]

In the 2000s, Peterson never faced a serious re-election challenge and only once did he win re-election with less than two-thirds of the vote. In 2000, he was mentioned as a possible candidate for the U.S. Senate against Republican Rod Grams, but he chose to run for re-election, winning with 69% of the vote.[13] In 2002, he won with 65% of the vote. In 2004, he won with 66% of the vote. In 2006, he won with 70% of the vote. In 2008, he won with 72% of the vote.

In 2010, Peterson survived another Republican wave election. This time, he defeated Lee Byberg 55%–38%, his worst election performance since 1994.[14] In 2012, Peterson won re-election with 60.38% to Republican Lee Byberg's 34.85% and Independent Adam Steele's 4.67%.

In 2013, Republicans began pressuring Peterson, in hopes of convincing him to retire. His seat was one of only a handful represented by a Democrat which had been carried by Mitt Romney in the 2012 election. Republican opposition tactics have included airing television advertisements, hiring a press staffer to give opposition research to reporters, hiring a tracker to follow him around his district and record him, and sending mobile billboards with critical statements on them to drive around his hometown. Peterson responded by saying, "They don't have anybody else to go after. It's kind of ridiculous, but whatever."[15][16] After Republicans spread rumors that Peterson was planning to buy a house in Florida and retire there, he said: "I went from neutral on running again to 90 percent just because of this stupid stuff they're doing. You can't let these people be in charge of anything, in my opinion."[17] On March 17, 2014, Peterson officially announced that he was running for re-election, saying, "I still have a lot of work to do".[18] Despite being heavily targeted by national Republican groups, Peterson defeated Republican State Senator Torrey Westrom in the general election by 54% to 46%.

In October 2014, Peterson said that he may keep running until 2020 because the Republicans "made me mad" with their efforts to defeat him or persuade him to retire.[19] In January 2015, he stated that he was "running at this point" for re-election in 2016, saying that the efforts by Republicans to unseat him had "energized me" and "got me fired up".[20] He was challenged by Republican retired Air Force Major Dave Hughes and beat him in close races in 2016 and 2018.

Peterson held onto his seat despite a growing Republican trend in the region. From 2000 to 2016, the Republican presidential candidate carried it by double digits three out of five times. This culminated in 2016, when Donald Trump carried the district with 62 percent of the vote, his best showing in the state. Peterson thus sat in one of the most Republican districts in the country to be represented by a Democrat.

In the November 2020 general election, Peterson was defeated for reelection by Republican former state senator and former lieutenant governor Michelle Fischbach, as he was unable to overcome the district's partisanship.[21] For the second election in a row, the district gave Trump his best showing in the state, this time with 63 percent of the vote. Peterson lost by the largest margin of any Democratic incumbent in the house that year, and was the only non-freshman Democrat to lose.

116th Congress

• Committee on Agriculture (Chairman)
• Committee on Veterans' Affairs

Past membership

• Committee on Agriculture (beginning with the 102nd Congress to present day; see: H.Res. 43[22])
  • Chairman & former Ranking Member.[23] As ranking member of the full committee, Peterson may sit as an ex officio member of all subcommittees.
• Oversight and Government Reform
  • This was one of the first committees Peterson served on (102nd[24] 103rd[25] 104th[26] & 105th[27] Congresses).
• Committee on Veterans' Affairs
  • Began membership in the 106th[28] and 107th Congress,[29] and resumed membership in the 116th Congress.

• Military Veterans Caucus, Co-chairman
• Congressional Arts Caucus[30]

Peterson is generally conservative on social issues; he strongly opposes legal abortion and has been one of the few Democrats to vote against embryonic stem cell research.[13][44] He has voted to ban physician-assisted suicide and also to approve the proposed Flag Desecration Amendment to the United States Constitution.[45] He also voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and supports the death penalty.[13][37]

In January 2019, in reference to President Trump's proposed wall across the southern border, Peterson said, "I'd give him the whole thing ... and put strings on it so you make sure he puts the wall where it needs to be. Why are we fighting over this? We're going to build that wall anyway, at some time." Peterson furthered that there could be stipulations requiring some funding go toward Border Patrol and security measures at ports of entry being improved.[46]

On April 4, 2019, Peterson was the only Democrat to vote against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, citing his disappointment with the law being "made partisan with the inclusion of language that would strip individuals’ right to due process with respect to their 2nd Amendment rights."[47]

His district contains some of the most conservative counties in the state and also the state's most rural district; many DFLers outside the Twin Cities are hunters and trappers who oppose gun control.[36][39] Peterson is a conservationist, but opposes "excessive environmental regulation" because he argues they harm farmers.[36] He is an avid hunter and supports animal trapping, but in 2000 he joined with the Humane Society of the United States to pass legislation that stopped the interstate shipping of birds for cockfighting.[13][48] He has supported legislation that would end protection for wolves in the Endangered Species Act.[49]

In 2004, he joined with Minnesota attorney general Mike Hatch in suing the state of North Dakota over what they argued were discriminatory laws that forbade non–North Dakota residents from hunting during the first week of the waterfowl hunting season.[50] Their case was rejected by the United States District Court for the District of North Dakota, a decision which was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.[51]

He has an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and is a "staunch" supporter of gun rights.[52] The NRA endorsed him in 2010.[53]

Although he's been called a strong fiscal conservative,[39] he is somewhat closer to the liberal wing of his party on economic issues: he has voted against most free trade agreements, the North American Free Trade Agreement,[36] the Freedom to Farm Act, and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. He also voted against both versions of the Patriot Act and he has been sharply critical of the No Child Left Behind Act, which he contends is unfair to rural students.[38][36][54] He supports the FairTax, a national sales tax, estate-tax repeal, tort reform, and the Bush tax cuts. He voted against the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act.[38]

Peterson joined the House Republicans in voting against the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993.[38]

Along with John Conyers, in April 2006 Peterson brought an action against George W. Bush and others alleging violations of the Constitution in the passing of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.[55] The case (Conyers v. Bush) was ultimately dismissed.[56]

On January 28, 2009, Peterson was amongst the seven Democrats who voted in the House together with the unanimous Republican opposition against President Obama's stimulus package (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009).[57][58]

In 1998, as part of an effort to change what were considered unequal fishing regulations between the U.S. and Canada, Peterson gained attention by proposing a constitutional amendment that would allow the residents of Minnesota's Northwest Angle to vote on whether they wanted to secede from the United States and join the Canadian province of Manitoba.[59] Peterson said that the amendment, which was part of a mock secession movement, was successful in bringing the issue to the attention of the White House: "In just the day after I introduced (the amendment), people from the vice president's office have been asking questions, people in the White House (too). I've got meetings scheduled with the U.S. trade representative... we've educated people on both sides of the border, and I think we've brought it closer to the point where we'll get this thing resolved."[60]

In 2003, he was one of just 16 Democrats to vote for President Bush's Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act.[38]

On March 21, 2010, Peterson voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare).[61][62] In January 2016, he voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act (he was the sole Democrat in the House to vote for the repeal).[63] In 2017, he voted against Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.[64]

From 2003 through 2005, $14.7 billion in crop subsidies went to the congressional districts of members on the House Committee on Agriculture, an analysis by the non-partisan Environmental Working Group found. That was 42.4% of the total subsidies. Peterson is reported to have brought $874 million to his district.[65] In Peterson's district, which includes sugar beets, wheat and poultry, 58% of the $2.8 billion paid out in crop subsidies from 1995 to 2005 went to 10% of recipients, according to the Environmental Working Group, which tracks farm spending. The chairman says he has no problem with that. "Ten percent of the farmers produce 90% of the food," he says.

In January 2005, he was selected by the House Democratic Caucus to succeed former Texas congressman Charlie Stenholm as the ranking member on the Committee on Agriculture. He became the committee's chairman after the Democrats won control of the House two years later.

Peterson was a cosponsor of the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act of 2005[66][67] which would provide job protection for three million illegal immigrant agricultural workers and their families, and extend the visas of legal immigrant agricultural workers.

In addition to this, Peterson is the current chair of the House committee on Agriculture as of 2019.

Peterson was one of the few Democrats to vote in favor of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.[68]

In May 2007, Peterson was the lone Democrat to vote against the Federal Price Gouging Prevention Act.[69]

In April 2009, Peterson voted against the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.[70]

On May 6, 2009, Peterson voiced his opposition to climate change legislation proposed by the Obama Administration saying, "I will not support any kind of climate change bill – even if you fix this – because I don't trust anybody anymore. I've had it." Peterson predicted that an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to assess indirect effects of ethanol production on greenhouse gas emissions, combined with the climate change legislation, could "kill off corn ethanol."[71]

On July 27, 2009, a controversy erupted after Peterson was quoted in a Politico.com article saying, "25 percent of my people believe the Pentagon and Rumsfeld were responsible for taking the twin towers down. That's why I don't do town meetings." The state Republican Party denounced the remark as "outrageous and offensive". Peterson apologized for the comment, which he described as "off-hand".[72]

Peterson is a pro-life Democrat. In 2010, he was endorsed by the National Right to Life Committee.

In 2011, he co-sponsored HR 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.[73] The bill contained an exception for "forcible rape," which opponents criticized as potentially excluding drug-facilitated rape, date rape, and other forms of rape.[74] The bill also allowed an exception for minors who are victims of incest.[73]

Peterson was one of five house Democrats who voted for the US to continue selling arms to Saudi Arabia and to support the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.[75][76] Asked why he voted against the resolution and what he knew about the Yemeni civil war, Peterson said, "I don’t know a damn thing about it".[76] Peterson also said that the resolution on US involvement in the Yemeni civil war would have jeopardized a farm bill that was under consideration at the same time; according to New York magazine's Eric Levitz, "by all accounts, voting against the Yemen resolution would not have doomed the farm bill."[76]

On October 31, 2019, he was one of two Democrats to vote against Article I of the impeachment inquiries against President Donald Trump, and one of the three Democrats to vote against Article II.[77][78] He again was one of two Democrats, alongside Jeff Van Drew, to vote against impeachment on December 18, 2019.[79]

On June 26, 2020, Peterson was the only Democrat to break with his party on the passing of H.R. 51, a bill that would allow for Washington, D.C. to be admitted as the country's 51st state.[80]

In 2020, Peterson was one of only six democratic congress members to vote against the federal decriminalization of marijuana (H.R. 3884).[81][82]