Same story, different bill.
Blue Dog Democrat Collin Peterson was the lone outlier in the Minnesota congressional delegation yesterday on a largely party-line vote for a $174 billion jobs bill.
The rural chairman of the Agriculture Committee joined 38 Democrats voting against the legislation, which barely passed the House with only five votes to spare. No Republicans supported the measure.
The vote isn't entirely surprising, given that Peterson was one of seven Democrats to vote down the $787 billion stimulus bill in February.
Peterson said in an interview that he felt the bill should focus almost exclusively on transportation and infrastructure projects, rather than also allocating money for things such as teachers and law enforcement.
"At one time, they were talking about putting that money into infrastructure ... and maybe extending unemployment and COBRA," Peterson said. "I probably could have gone along with that. But when they added that other stuff in there that was too much."
Democratic Rep. Jim Oberstar, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee who represents northeast Minnesota, successfully pushed for a large portion of the bill's total funds to be directed toward transportation.
"I had a discussion with Jim," Peterson said. "He was trying to get me to vote for it. He said, 'Well half of the bill is infrastructure.' And I said 'Well it should have been 100 percent.'"
