Gary Peters
Gary Charles Peters is an American politician, lawyer, and former naval officer serving as the senior United States senator from Michigan, a seat he has held since 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. representative for, which included the eastern half of Detroit, the Grosse Pointes, Hamtramck, Southfield, and Pontiac, from 2009 to 2015.
Before his election to Congress, Peters served in the United States Navy Reserve, spent 22 years as an investment advisor, and worked briefly in academia. He was elected to the Rochester Hills City Council in 1991 and represented the 14th district in the Michigan Senate from 1995 to 2002. He was the Democratic nominee for Michigan Attorney General in 2002, narrowly losing to Republican Mike Cox. He was then appointed commissioner of the Michigan Lottery by Governor Jennifer Granholm, serving from 2003 to 2008, when he resigned to successfully run for Congress.
In 2014, Peters was elected to the United States Senate; the only non-incumbent Democrat to win a Senate election that year. Peters was reelected in 2020, defeating Republican challenger John E. James in a close race.
Peters was chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for the 2022 and 2024 election cycles. He is the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in the 119th Congress. On January 28, 2025, he announced that he will not seek reelection in 2026.
Early life and education
Gary Charles Peters was born on December 1, 1958, in Pontiac, Michigan. His father, Herbert Garrett Peters, was a public school teacher who served in the U.S. Army during World War II. His mother, Madeleine Vignier, who met his father in France during the war, was a nurse's aide and helped unionize her workplace. Peters' family has lived in Michigan since the 1840s. He grew up in Oakland County and graduated from Rochester High School.After high school, Peters attended Alma College, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He later earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Detroit Mercy in 1984. Peters also holds a Juris Doctor and a Master of Arts in political science from Wayne State University and a Master of Arts in philosophy from Michigan State University.
Military career
Peters joined the United States Navy Reserve in 1993 at age 34. He served more than ten years in units at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, including Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 26. During his Navy service, Peters earned the Seabee Combat Warfare Specialist designation and carried out assignments as an assistant supply officer.Peters's reserve duty included time in the Persian Gulf supporting Operation Southern Watch; he served overseas again during increased military activity following the September 11 attacks. Peters attained the rank of lieutenant commander before leaving the Reserve in 2008; his awards include the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal and the Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal. In 2018, he received a diploma from the College of Naval Command and Staff, part of the U.S. Naval War College.
Business and academic career
Peters worked for 22 years as a financial advisor, serving as an assistant vice president at Merrill Lynch from 1980 until 1989, when he joined Paine Webber as a vice president.From 2007 to 2008, Peters served as the third Griffin Endowed Chair in American Government at Central Michigan University. In that part-time position, he taught one class a semester, plus preparing additional student activities including two policy forums, and developing a journal of Michigan politics and policy, for $65,000 a year. Peters announced his candidacy to run for Congress two months after being hired. Some student and faculty members protested Peters's hiring, saying he could not be objective in the classroom while running for office and that the university job was subsidizing his campaign.
Peters also has taught finance at Wayne State and strategic management and business policy courses at Oakland University.
Peters was a senior policy and financial analyst for the Michigan Department of Treasury and served on arbitration panels for the New York Stock Exchange and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Michigan Senate (1995–2002)
Before serving in the Michigan Senate, Peters served on the Rochester Hills City Council from 1991 to 1993.Elections
After a failed attempt in 1990, Peters was elected to the Michigan Senate to represent the Oakland County-based 14th district in November 1994. The district is one of the most diverse state Senate districtscontaining nearly every racial, ethnic, and religious group in Michigan. It includes the cities of Pontiac, Bloomfield Hills, Southfield, and Oak Park in southeastern Oakland County. Peters was reelected in 1998 and served until 2002, stepping down then due to the state's term limits. He was succeeded by Gilda Jacobs.Tenure
Peters was chosen by his Democratic colleagues to chair his party's caucus. He was also a member of the Michigan Law Revision Commission and served on the Michigan Sentencing Commission. Both the Michigan State House of Representatives and the Senate passed a bill sponsored by Peters which banned any new wells under the state waters of the Great Lakes except in case of a state energy emergency. The bill passed into law without the signature of Governor John Engler.Peters served as the vice chairman of the Senate Finance, Education, Judiciary and Economic Development Committees. He was also a member of the Natural Resources and the Mental Health and Human Services Committee.
Statewide elections
In 2002, Peters was a candidate for governor and later for Attorney General.As the Democratic nominee for attorney general, he lost the 2002 election to Republican nominee Mike Cox by about 5,200 votes, a 0.17% margin. Peters decided not to contest the result despite reported irregularities. Several mistakes were reportedly found during analysis, including a precinct in Dearborn that recorded Peters with 96 votes when he actually had 396. The race was Michigan's closest statewide contest since the 1950 gubernatorial race.
In 2003, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm appointed Peters as the Michigan Lottery commissioner.
U.S. House of Representatives (2009–2015)
Elections
2008
On August 7, 2007, Peters ended months of speculation by formally announcing he would run against eight-term Republican congressman Joe Knollenberg in the 9th district, which included almost all of Oakland County. Peters resigned as state lottery commissioner to devote his full energy to the campaign.Knollenberg was considered vulnerable due to an increasing Democratic trend in what was once a classic bastion of suburban conservatism. His opponents in 2002 and 2004 had performed significantly below the Democratic base in the district, but he was nearly defeated in 2006 by Nancy Skinner, a former radio talk-show host who spent virtually no money—the closest a Republican had come to losing the district in almost half a century. This led the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to target Knollenberg for defeat.
In the 2002 state attorney general race, Peters performed at or above the Democratic base in 72% of the 9th district precincts. In his 1998 state Senate campaign, he performed at or above base in 99% of the precincts.
Peters won the November 4 election by 33,524 votes, taking 52% of the vote to Knollenberg's 43%. Barack Obama carried Oakland County by 15 points; roughly two-thirds of Oakland County was in the 9th. Peters was the fourth person and first Democrat to represent the district since its creation in 1933.
2010
In November 2010, Peters defeated challenges by Republican Andrew "Rocky" Raczkowski, Libertarian Adam Goodman, Independent Bob Gray, Independent Matthew Kuofie, and Green Douglas Campbell.2012
Due to the state's population decline, as reflected by the 2010 census, Michigan lost one congressional district. As a result of the subsequent redistricting of House seats, much of Peters's 9th district, including his home in Bloomfield Hills, was merged with the 12th district, represented by fellow Democrat Sander Levin. The new district retained Peters's district number but geographically was more Levin's district.In September 2011, Peters opted to run in the newly redrawn 14th district. The district had previously been the 13th district, represented by freshman Democrat Hansen Clarke. The redrawn district is based in Detroit, but contains a large chunk of Peters's old State Senate district and portions of his old congressional district. Indeed, Peters had represented most of the Oakland County portion of the district at one time or another. Due to Detroit's dwindling population, it was no longer possible to keep the district exclusively within Wayne County.
In the August 2012 Democratic primary, Peters defeated Clarke, who had opted to follow most of his constituents into the reconfigured 14th even though his home had been drawn into the reconfigured 13th, and Southfield Mayor Brenda Lawrence. The 14th was a heavily Democratic, 58% Black district, and Peters was overwhelmingly favored in November. As expected, he bested Republican John Hauler in the general election with 82% of the vote. He was the first white congressman to represent a significant portion of Detroit since 1993.
Tenure
Peters was sworn into his first term in January 2009. During his time in office, he voted for the Recovery Act, also known as the stimulus, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which would have established a national emissions trading plan, but was not passed by the full Congress, the Paycheck Fairness Act, also not passed into law, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and the DREAM Act to provide conditional permanent residency to certain immigrants.Peters worked with the Obama administration to obtain debt forgiveness for Chrysler. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said Peters was the "single most effective person" in fighting the forces that wanted to let Detroit go bankrupt. In Congress, Peters opposed a plan to provide disaster relief aid, the funds for which would have come from the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program.
The Michigan Messenger wrote in 2010 that Peters was "criticizing the leadership of his own party. Peters and three other Democratic legislators... this week formed the Spending Cuts and Deficit Reduction Working Group and proposed a series of bills to cut spending. Peters' bill makes cuts in the federal energy budget." "We have been growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of action and talking about specifics and putting those on the table", Peters said. "We've been frustrated with both Democratic leadership and Republicans."
Peters allied himself with the Occupy Wall Street movement, making an appearance at Occupy Detroit in November 2011. He told reporters: "It's speculation on Wall Street that we're still paying the price for here, particularly in Detroit, that almost brought the auto industry to a collapse because of what we saw on Wall Street. So we put in restrictions, or put in regulations necessary to rein that in, and right now in Washington I'm facing a Republican majority that wants to undo that."
Peters was one of 118 House Democrats who signed a letter to President Obama in 2011 urging him to support the United Nations Population Fund, a multinational organization that provides health services to women, children, and families in more than 150 countries. In 2014, he opposed a Michigan law that prohibits insurers from offering abortion coverage as a standard feature in health plans.
Peters was named senior whip for the Democratic caucus in 2013.