Once upon a time, Minnesota Democrats seemingly ran out of farm-conscious leaders.
When Rep. Collin Peterson, a son of the Red River Valley and an agriculture committee chair, lost his seat in the U.S. House in 2020, he told supporters that was it for his party.
“When I lost the election in 2020, I told some allies, ‘That’s the last time we’re ever going to have a head job in agriculture for Democrats in Minnesota,’” Peterson said.
But when Congress convened in Washington, D.C., this month, much to Peterson’s pleasant surprise, two Minnesota Democrats — Amy Klobuchar in the Senate and Angie Craig in the House — ascended to the ranking member spots on agriculture committees. What they’ll bring back to their home states will be twin-powered political leverage, ever crucial in a divided Congress.
“It’s not so much what they’re going to gain,” Peterson said, “as what they’re going to not lose [for Minnesota].”
That two Minnesotans in Congress will sit in the ranking member spot on the Agriculture Committee in the Senate and House wasn’t on pundits’ post-election bingo cards. With the retirement of Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow, it was widely expected the four-term Klobuchar would become the ranking member in the Senate. Klobuchar herself, a supporter of biofuels and Minnesota staple crops from sugar beets to corn and soybeans, turkey to hogs, frequently had spoken of the apparent succession in her party on stage at summer Farm Fests and the State Fair.
“I don’t think it’s ever happened,” said Klobuchar, referring to farm committee leadership in both houses of Congress coming from the same state. “You’re going to have two people who understand Minnesota agriculture.”
For Craig, the road was more unpredictable. In December, the four-term congresswoman representing the southern suburbs and a broad swath of Minnesota farmland, bested fellow Democrats, including past chair Rep. David Scott of Georgia, to gain the mantle atop the Agriculture Committee in the House.