Collin Peterson

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Collin Peterson

Collin Clark Peterson (born June 29, 1944 in Fargo , North Dakota ) is an American politician of the Democratic Party . He has been a member of the US House of Representatives since 1991 , where he represents the 7th  Congressional constituency of the state of Minnesota . He is considered one of the most conservative Democrats in the United States Congress .

Family, education and work

Collin Peterson is the son of Lauren Peterson and Della Askegaard, who married in 1943 and raised Collin and his seven sisters on a farm near Baker, Minnesota, in the central west of the state. The father was involved in local politics on a voluntary basis; President Dwight D. Eisenhower's removal of the farm subsidies introduced by President Truman drove the family away from Republicans and turned to Democrats. Collin Peterson studied bookkeeping and business administration at Moorhead State University from 1962 , where he received his bachelor's degree in 1966. From 1963 to 1969 he was a staff sergeant in the North Dakota National Guard and from 1968 to 1990 he was a freelance Certified Public Accountant in Detroit Lakes , Minnesota.

Peterson is divorced and has three sons. The Lutheran lives in Detroit Lakes. For a time he maintained a relationship with the Republican politician Katherine Harris , who declared George W. Bush the winner in her role as Secretary of State of Florida after the 2000 presidential election under strong criticism from the Democrats .

Peterson occasionally appears as a singer and guitarist in country rock , including with Republican politicians. He has a pilot license.

Political career

For the Democratic Farmer Labor Party (the local branch of the Democrats) he sat in the Senate of Minnesota from 1977 to 1983 . He was elected against Republican Frank H. DeGroat in the north-western 10th constituency of the Senate in 1976 and re-elected in 1982.

In the 1984 election , Peterson ran for the first time for the Democrats in Minnesota's 7th Congressional electoral district for the United States House of Representatives . He was defeated by the long-term client Arlan Stangeland from the Republicans with 43 percent and also failed in the 1986 election with a difference of 121 votes to Stangeland. In the 1988 election, Peterson was defeated in the Democratic primary to farmer Marv Hanson, who in turn was defeated in the main election. However, Peterson managed to win the primary election in 1990 and prevailed against Stangeland in November 1990. Peterson has been a member of the US House of Representatives since January 3, 1991. Peterson represents the 7th and largest congressional electoral district of Minnesota, which includes the rural west and tends towards the Republicans at the state level. He was always re-elected, but in 1992 and 1994 by a margin of one or two percentage points, respectively, then mostly by a much larger margin.

The nationwide election campaign organizations of the Republicans have repeatedly declared their headquarters an important election campaign target and most recently invested almost 5 million dollars in the 2014 election , in which Peterson won by nine percentage points. Peterson's Republican challengers have not received any funding from the federal party since then. Most recently, Peterson won the 2016 election with 52.5 percent of the vote and five percentage points behind, while Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump won the district by 30 percentage points at the same time. In the presidential election , Peterson did not support either of the two major party candidates and had campaigned for Bernie Sanders in the primary . Peterson is currently a member of the 115th Congress , which ends January 3, 2019, and is clearly leading the polls for the 2018 election .

Peterson has been Chairman of the House of Representatives Agriculture Committee since January 2019 , which he had been from 2007 to 2011. Even in the meantime, when the Republicans provided the majority and thus the committee chair, he was the highest-ranking member of the Democrats as a ranking member . He maintains a good working relationship with the group leader Nancy Pelosi, who is further to the left . He was previously a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Veterans' Affairs Committee .

Prior to the 2000 election , Peterson was interested in running for the United States Senate against Republican mandateer Rod Grams , but resigned and was under discussion as Minister of Natural Resources in Governor Jesse Ventura's administration . After the 2016 presidential election , an emissary from President-elect Donald Trump offered Peterson an ambassadorial post .

Positions

Peterson is a founding member of the Blue Dog Coalition , an alliance of moderately conservative Democrats in Congress. He is considered the most conservative Democratic MP in the House of Representatives, whose constituency has a strongly conservative electoral structure; his long-term predecessor was a Republican. Peterson opposes abortion, stem cell research, euthanasia and stricter gun laws, is an advocate of the death penalty and the Flag Desecration Amendment . Only in economic policy does Peterson tend towards the liberal wing of his party, but advocates protectionism against free trade agreements such as NAFTA . As a passionate hunter, Peterson is committed to protecting species and the environment.

In 1998, Peterson proposed an amendment to the constitution to allow residents of the sparsely populated Northwest Angle Minnesotas to vote on whether they want to belong to the Canadian province of Manitoba - which would be a secession as that part of the state would leave the United States. So far, no further steps have been taken, also due to the minor importance of the matter (the population of the region is less than 200 people).

As a representative of an agricultural constituency, Peterson is primarily committed to issues relating to the agricultural sector. These include investment programs, subsidies and the promotion of biodiesel and ethanol . He was one of only eleven Democratic MPs who voted with Republicans against President Barack Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act . Peterson also opposed Obamacare health care reform , agreeing with President Obama in Congress a total of 46 percent of the votes, while in Donald Trump's presidency through fall 2018 he voted with the Republican president 69 percent of the time.

Web links

Commons : Collin Peterson  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peterson's father dies at 98. In: The Fence Post , July 18, 2018.
  2. ^ Simone Pathé: That Minnesota Blue Dog Still Does Hunt. In: Roll Call , October 9, 2018. For grants, see Virgil W. Dean: Farm Policy and Truman's 1948 Campaign. In: The Historian. Vol. 55, 1993, pp. 501-516 (JSTOR) ; Edward L. Schapsmeier, Frederick H. Schapsmeier: Eisenhower and Agricultural Reform: Ike's Farm Policy Legacy Appraised. In: American Journal of Economics and Sociology. Volume 51, 1992, pp. 147-159 (JSTOR) .
  3. ↑ Collin Peterson's Biography. In: Vote Smart.
  4. ↑ Collin Peterson's Biography. In: Vote Smart.
  5. ↑ 7th District so big, candidates use planes like cars. In: Minnesota Public Radio , October 14, 2002.
  6. ↑ 7th District so big, candidates use planes like cars. In: Minnesota Public Radio , Oct. 14, 2002; Collin Peterson. In: Minnesota Public Radio , 2004.
  7. ↑ Peterson, Collin. In: Our Campaigns.
  8. ↑ 7th District so big, candidates use planes like cars. In: Minnesota Public Radio , October 14, 2002.
  9. ↑ Collin Peterson. In: Minnesota Public Radio , 2004.
  10. ^ Simone Pathé: That Minnesota Blue Dog Still Does Hunt. In: Roll Call , October 9, 2018.
  11. ^ Simone Pathé: That Minnesota Blue Dog Still Does Hunt. In: Roll Call , October 9, 2018.
  12. ↑ Collin Peterson. In: Minnesota Public Radio , 2004.
  13. ^ Simone Pathé: That Minnesota Blue Dog Still Does Hunt. In: Roll Call , October 9, 2018.
  14. ↑ See the graphic on the voting behavior at Govtrack.
  15. ↑ 7th District so big, candidates use planes like cars. In: Minnesota Public Radio , October 14, 2002.
  16. ↑ Collin Peterson. In: Minnesota Public Radio , 2004.
  17. ↑ Eric Slater: A Community Angles to Leave US In: The Los Angeles Times , October 10, 1998.
  18. ↑ Kevin Díaz: Rep. Peterson: Stimulus is flawed. In: Star Tribune , January 30, 2009.
  19. ^ Simone Pathé: That Minnesota Blue Dog Still Does Hunt. In: Roll Call , October 9, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Peterson, Collin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Peterson, Collin Clark (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Democratic Party politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Fargo , North Dakota