Peterson says 12 years in Congress were ‘for the folks’
U.S. Rep. John Peterson just gave notice that he’ll move out of his Washington apartment later this month. In his Capitol Hill office, he and his staff have begun emptying bookshelves and filling cardboard boxes.
Down will come the wall map of the Gulf Coast oil platforms, the framed photos of north-central Pennsylvania, the pennants from the schools that dot his sprawling, rural congressional district. Sometime this fall, the movers will cart away the small, round conference table at which, Peterson believes, he helped persuade a key John McCain adviser of the importance of offshore drilling.
After 12 years in Congress, Peterson will return to his two-acre garden in Pleasantville to spend his days tending thousands of roses and tulips while trying to figure out his next move.
“I have a lot of mixed emotions,” Peterson said last week in an interview with the Centre Daily Times in his office. “Each time I come back could be my last.”
He may be back in December if Congress returns for a lame-duck session after the election. If not, the vote he cast this past week may have been his last.
It has been a remarkable few months for the small-town conservative Republican. He saw the nail driven into the coffin of the Interstate 80 tolling plan, buoying truckers and local businesses who hated the idea. And Congress finally lifted a moratorium on drilling off the United States’ coastlines, capping a years-long drive by Peterson that frustrated coastal lawmakers from Florida to California.
Going against the grain
Though Peterson easily won five re-elections, he hasn’t been universally popular in his district. Dianne Gregg, chairwoman of the Centre County Democratic Party, said Peterson has seldom been seen around State College.
“He’s very socially conservative,” she said. “His record on those issues is not a good fit for Centre County.”
Indeed, Peterson, who attended a one-room schoolhouse and never went to college, tends to be more rural in his orientation.
In Congress, he helped push though extra millions for rural hospitals and was co-chairman of the Rural Caucus. He tried to protect small airports and expand technology training for rural workers.
In the past year, he also angered some constituents with his vote against an expansion of state health insurance programs for poor children. Residents staged a nighttime vigil outside his State College office.
“He disappointed quite a few people in voting against (the bill),” Gregg said.
Peterson, who helped write the first such program while in the state General Assembly, defended his vote and said the expansion would have gone too far.
A member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, he has worked in other cases to bring money home to his district, including millions of dollars for infrastructure improvements in small towns and special contracts for companies. Executives of some of those companies contributed to Peterson’s campaigns, but he says there is no connection.
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