Collin Peterson Quotes

The use of methamphetamines has become pervasive in our country, and especially in rural areas.

I am personally saddened and stunned by the tragic events that took place in Red Lake.

The [Democratic] party's become an urban party, and they don't get rural America. They don't get agriculture.

I think we are starting to get some information that will allow us to get to the bottom of this, and I hope we continue to work on this until we get to the bottom of it.

We [Democrats] have become a party of assembling all these different groups, the women's caucus and the black caucus and the Hispanic caucus and the lesbian-gay-transgender caucus and so forth, and that doesn't relate to people out in rural America.

I fought NAFTA when it passed; it has been a big disaster for us, in my opinion. If we can renegotiate that, it would be wonderful.

The New York Federal Reserve is a tool of the big banks.

The banks run the place.

There's no question that [Donald] Trump got elected because of rural America. And our party still is in denial. They don't get it.

I've tried to maintain my independence in Congress. Sometimes that has meant opposing my own party leaders.

It appears to me that no one has learned a thing; that Wall Street is still operating as if 2008 never happened.

[Rural voters] have a different view of the world than people do in these urban centers.

Republicans have spent a lot of money redistricting and everything, getting control of these governorships and statehouses.

I don't know how you change that. There's hardly anybody left like me in the Democratic Party in Congress. These districts have been so gerrymandered that, in most of them, a Democrat can't win. Somebody like me trying to start off today, he'd never get endorsed. Because I'm too conservative.

I always run ahead of the ticket [compared to Democratic presidential candidates]. But this time there were a lot of people that just voted party line, a lot more than usual.

What's happened is the Republicans have been smart.

So [Republicans] packed all the Democrats into districts, very Democratic districts. What that's done is made our party urban, more liberal, and so those people are doing what their constituents want. But that's not what my constituents want.

[People] don't like the government telling them what to do or telling them how to live their lives.

When it [NAFTA] was sold, we were supposed to get two or three times more exports to Canada or Mexico than they exported to us. It's been the exact opposite.

NAFTA's been a big problem for sugar.

It was clear that [the number] just kept growing, and there were no [Hillary] Clinton signs. People were fed up.

The only thing I can think to do is if the Democratic Party can do what the Republicans have done, which is go in there and take control of these legislatures and governors' areas.

Try to un-gerrymander these districts so that you're not packing all the Democrats into one district, so you've got districts that are competitive, so that you've got a shot at electing Democrats. But that's more a long-term proposition, if it can even be done.

There's no question about it. If you look at the map, there's hardly any [Democrats representing rural districts]. There's me, [Rick] Nolan, [Tim] Walz, [Dave] Loebsack and Cheri Bustos. So that's five. And all the rest of them are in urban cities. That's a problem.

If everybody in our caucus had a 50/50 [Democrat/Republican] district, we'd have a lot different discussion. But if they have a 90 percent Democratic district, they don't ever talk to a Republican, they don't have to and they don't want to.

Well, the sugar guys have been dealing with NAFTA ever since it passed. Now we've got Mexico dumping sugar that's subsidized by the Mexican government into our market in violation of the World Trade Organization, because NAFTA gave them open access to our sugar market. They claim they're not subsidized, but the government owns half the industry in Mexico.

It was kind of interesting: [People] didn't really want to talk about it too much. And then after the election, it's kind of like they've been unleashed.

A lot of it is backlash against all this political correctness that's going on.

[People] think [the government is] coddling people, like when people's feelings are hurt at the colleges and they send somebody in to make them feel better. Stuff like that drives [voters here] crazy.

I heard a lot about the Affordable Care Act, too. About how people in the individual market were getting clobbered with all these increases, which is a legitimate issue.

You know what the economics are like in Red Lake County. There's no way a family can pay $15,000, $20,000 a year for health insurance and make it work. You just can't do it. It's got to change.

[Rural people] have a different lifestyle, and they don't want to change it. They're happy with the way things are. It's causing the party political problems.

Pushing gun control drives people [in my district] crazy, gay marriage, abortion, deficit spending.All of that stuff adds up to be a problem for Democrats.

[Trade] was clearly a factor.That was a complete reversal of where things are normally at. Usually Republicans are all for free trade.

[Bernie] Sanders tapped into that [trade issues]; that was part of his support. And then when he didn't make it, some of those Sanders people went to [Donald] Trump.

I agree with [Donald] Trump: These trade agreements have not been good deals for America, and they need to be fixed.

Some of the people in my caucus, some of the people in the state party in Minnesota have basically said, "We don't want to deal with these guys because they're too conservative," or "We don't agree with them on social issues."

You can't have a majority party in Minnesota or throughout the country without [support from] the people in these [rural] districts. Given the position [the Democratic Party] has taken, it's very hard to see how you can do that.