Best of
the Twin Cities
To a certain extent, she’s Minnesota’s most invisible politician, neither a ubiquitous media presence nor a self-aggrandizing irritant that seems to magically appear everywhere you look. And that’s a good thing. For the past 18 years, U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum has been a consistent progressive vote. Her emphasis is on the home-and-hearth issues of regular people, from education to civil rights, renewable energy to a social approach that places compassion for others well above corporate needs. At a time when it seems there are just two kinds of politicians—one whose beliefs twist with each shift in the wind, and one whose morals are priced to move for the highest bidder—McCollum offers an old-school option rarely available in the voting booth: She understands that her job is to reflect the values of her constituents, and those values will never be up for sale.
