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(WCCO) Businesses need to be open in Minnesota's 7th Congressional District during the coronavirus to avoid economic catastrophe.
That was a point of agreement during a District 07 Congressional candidate debate Thursday afternoon on WCCO Radio where Republican challenger Michelle Fischbach and Collin Peterson, the Democratic incumbent, faced off.
Fischbach added that Gov. Tim Walz needs to let the legislature decide what's open and closed, and stop using emergency powers to make that call on his own.
"We need those businesses to get back to work," said Michelle Fischbach during the debate that was also carried live on RADIO.COM and on WCCO's Facebook page. Fischbach, the former lieutenant governor, beat four Republicans in the primary to take on Peterson. She's backed by President Donald Trump.
Collin Peterson, a pilot, accountant and musician who was first elected in 1990, agreed with her assessment of the business situation, saying, "These businesses should be open."
Peterson added that Walmarts and grocery stores have been open across the district and haven't become a hotbed of coronavirus cases.
"Give us a different set of rules here in rural Minnesota," he said of how the governor should handle business priorities during the coronavirus.
The seat Fischbach and Peterson are battling over is considered pivotal nationally as the GOP seeks to take control of the U.S. House. Democrats hold 232 of the 435 seats in the House.
They're seeking the seat in the Seventh District, a mostly rural and agricultural district that stretches from the Canadian border in the north, almost to the Iowa state line in the south.
The debate centered on how each of the candidates would handle the needs and future of agriculture. And there was a dash of talk about Trump, who allegedly told journalist Bob Woodward in a taped interview in February that he was intentionally downplaying coronavirus.
"I don't know what to think about that," Peterson said, adding the U.S. wouldn't be in the situation it's in now if the president had handled COVID-19 more like Korea and immediately imposed rules about wearing masks and social distancing. Fischbach disagreed, saying "lots and lots of stuff comes out 53, 54 days before an election ... I think President Trump has been very strong in his response to COVID."
On the main topic at hand, Fischbach said Trump is taking a strong stand against China in trade negotiations to benefit local farmers while Peterson, the House Agriculture Committee chairman, said he started warning people 20 years ago that agricultural trade policy with China needed to be addressed. "We're making some progress, but we're still way behind where we were," he said. "These trade tariffs have not been successful." Tariffs from China that are hurting local farmers are "tit for tat" for tariffs imposed by Trump, he added.
But how can the market for ethanol and biofuel be expanded to benefit Minnesota? "I would be able to talk to (Trump). I would be in his ear and talking to him and making sure that we are moving forward and that we are expanding those markets," Fischbach said.
On the other hand, Peterson said a lot of Republicans are talking to the president "till they're blue in the face," and he keeps awarding oil refinery requests for waivers. Per federal regulation, oil refiners must blend biofuels into their products, or buy credits from those that do. But they may seek waivers if they can prove the requirements would cause them financial harm.
As for agriculture, Peterson was integral in the passing of the farm bill two years ago and he conceded that "none of us are happy" with where things stand in agriculture right now. "Is it a perfect bill? Was it an adequate safety bill? No. I was not in charge .. I supported it because that's what I had to do."
The top priority in the next farm bill, Fischbach said, has to be figuring out which programs are working, which ones aren't, and moving agriculture into the future. She said she's traveling around talking to farmers to determine what they need next. Peterson said he's been talking to unions and people in packing plants to come up with a program, rules and funding to deal with "whatever comes at us," including swine flu, foot and mouth disease or another pandemic.
At the center of all this is what happens at the top of the ticket in November. Trump has for months raised questions about the integrity of the upcoming election and whether it's safe. Peterson said he has no worries about voter fraud in the 7th District and he's confident everything will go off fine. Fischbach agreed the election will be on the up-and-up, though she said she doesn't agree with randomly mailing out ballots to people who haven't applied because it opens up the possibility of fraud.
Although he trusts the 7th District, Peterson said he wouldn't expand beyond that -- even to the Twin Cities -- saying "some people believe that's a foreign country." "People in the Twin Cities don't understand the scale of agriculture ... This is a complicated job ... People who don't live out in the rural communities, my experience is they just don't get it."
Balancing the interest of agriculture in Minnesota with environmental regulation is part of this job, and Peterson said some Democrats -- and Republicans -- are "out of whack" when it comes to creating unnecessary regulation.
The debate was hosted by the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, which is raising awareness of the importance of Minnesota’s agricultural sector and the issues that impact its future.
“This election season arrives as farmers continue to battle through a depressed farm economy impacted by a number of issues on both the state and federal level,” MCGA President Les Anderson said. “We are proud to co-host these debates and provide a forum for each candidate to share how they will represent not only agriculture, but also our Greater Minnesota communities.”