Collin Peterson
Collin Clark Peterson is an American accountant, politician, and lobbyist who served as the U.S. representative for from 1991 to 2021. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, he was chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture from 2019 to 2021 having previously held the office from 2007 to 2011; he had been ranking member from 2011 to 2019 and 2005 to 2007. Peterson was the most senior U.S. representative from Minnesota and the dean of Minnesota's congressional delegation. In 2020, Peterson was defeated by Michelle Fischbach, ending his 30-year tenure in the United States House of Representatives. In 2022, Peterson registered as a federal lobbyist after opening an eponymous consulting firm.
Early life, education, and early political career
Collin Peterson was born in Fargo, North Dakota, grew up on a farm in Baker, Minnesota, and received his B.A. at Minnesota State University Moorhead.Peterson was a member of the Minnesota Senate for the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party from 1977 to 1986, representing a district in northwestern Minnesota. In 1976, he defeated Republican nominee Frank DeGroat 55%-45%. In 1982, he won re-election against state representative Cal Larson by just 200 votes, or 0.8% difference.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
1980s
In 1984, he ran for Minnesota's 7th congressional district in Northwestern Minnesota, held by Republican Arlan Stangeland. Peterson lost 57%–43%. In 1986, he ran in a rematch and narrowly lost by just 121 votes. In 1988, he ran again but lost in the DFL primary to state senator Marv Hanson 55%–45%. Hanson went on to lose to Stangeland 55%–45%.1990s
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%. Stangeland's stock had dropped sharply after he admitted to making a number of personal calls on his House credit card.In 1992, Peterson narrowly won re-election by a 50%–49% margin against former state representative Bernie Omann. In a 1994 rematch, Peterson won again by a 51%–49% margin, despite the Republican Revolution. In 1996, he won re-election with 68% of the vote, and won every county in the district. In 1998, he won re-election with 72% of the vote.
2000s
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. 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.2010s
In 2010, Peterson survived another Republican wave election. This time, he defeated Lee Byberg 55%–38%, his worst election performance since 1994. 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 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." 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." On March 17, 2014, Peterson officially announced that he was running for re-election, saying, "I still have a lot of work to do". 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. 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". 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. His situation would be similar to Rep. Gene Taylor who represented Mississippi 4th congressional district in a very red district with a cook partisan of R+20 until being beated by Steven Palazzo in the 2010 US House election.
In the November 2020 general election, Peterson was defeated for reelection by Republican former state senator and former lieutenant governor Michelle Fischbach. In that same election, Trump again carried the 7th with his best margin in the state, this time with 64 percent and a 29-point margin. Peterson lost to Fischbach by a 14-point margin, the largest margin of defeat for any House incumbent that year. Despite his loss, he was the top-performing Democratic representative compared to presidential nominee Joe Biden, outperforming him by 16 points in the district. Peterson was the only non-freshman member of the House of Representatives to lose re-election in 2020, and Minnesota's 7th district was one of only two congressional districts that Republicans flipped in 2020 that they did not hold prior to 2018, the other being Iowa's 2nd congressional district.
Committee assignments
;116th Congress- Committee on Agriculture
- *As chairman of the whole committee, he served as an ex officio member on all subcommittees
- Committee on Veterans' Affairs
- Committee on Agriculture
- * Chairman & former Ranking Member. 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.
- Committee on Veterans' Affairs
- * Began membership in the 106th and 107th Congress, and resumed membership in the 116th Congress.
Caucus membership
- Military Veterans Caucus, Co-chairman
- '''Congressional Arts Caucus'''
Political positions
During the first session of the 115th United States Congress, Peterson was ranked the most bipartisan member of the House of Representatives by the Bipartisan Index, a metric created by the Lugar Center and Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy to assess congressional bipartisanship.
Social issues
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. He has voted to ban physician-assisted suicide and also to approve the proposed Flag Desecration Amendment to the United States Constitution. He also voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and supports the death penalty.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.
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."
Hunting and conservationism
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. Peterson is a conservationist, but opposes "excessive environmental regulation" because he argues they harm farmers. 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. He has supported legislation that would end protection for wolves in the Endangered Species Act.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. 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.