Betty Louise McCollum (/məˈkɒləm/ mə-KOL-əm; born July 12, 1954)^[1] is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for Minnesota’s 4th congressional district, serving since 2001. She is a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). McCollum’s district centers on St. Paul, Minnesota’s capital city. She is the second woman elected to Congress from Minnesota. McCollum became the dean of Minnesota’s congressional delegation in 2021.

Before her election to the U.S. House, McCollum served eight years as a state representative.

McCollum was born in Minneapolis. She graduated from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1976. McCollum has worked as a high school social sciences teacher and as a sales manager.

She first won election to the North St. Paul city council in 1986.^[2] In 1992 she was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives after she defeated an incumbent state representative in the DFL primary. She served four terms in the Minnesota House before being elected to Congress in 2000.^[3]

After 4th district Representative Bruce Vento decided not to seek a 13th term due to illness in 2000 (he died before the election), McCollum won the DFL nomination to succeed him. The district is heavily Democratic; among Minnesota’s congressional districts, only the neighboring Minneapolis-based 5th district is considered more Democratic. The DFL has held the seat without interruption since 1949.

McCollum’s main concern during the campaign wasn’t her Republican opponent, State Senator Linda Runbeck, but Independence Party candidate Tom Foley. Foley had previously been county attorney for Ramsey County (almost all of which is in the 4th district) as a Democrat. Many thought Foley might siphon off enough votes from McCollum to allow Runbeck to win. But McCollum defeated Runbeck by 17 points, with Foley in a distant third place. Foley held McCollum to 48% of the vote, making her the only Democrat not to win at least 50% of the vote since Democrats began their dominance in the district. The district has since reverted to form, and McCollum has been reelected nine times with no substantive opposition.

According to the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, McCollum held a Bipartisan Index Score of -0.1 in the 116th United States Congress for 2019, which placed her 219th out of 435 members.^[4] Based on FiveThirtyEight‘s congressional vote tracker at ABC News, McCollum voted with Donald Trump’s stated public policy positions 11.4% of the time,^[5] which ranked her average in the 116th United States Congress when predictive scoring (district partisanship and voting record) is used.^[6] In the 117th Congress, she voted with President Joe Biden‘s stated position 100% of the time.^[7]

For the 118th Congress:^[8]

• Committee on Appropriations
  • Subcommittee on Defense (Ranking Member)
  • Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies

• Senior Whip
• Co-founder of the Congressional Global Health Caucus
• Co-founder of the Quality Care Coalition
• Vice Chair of Congressional Native American Caucus (Co-Chair Emeritus)^[9]
• National Council on the Arts
• Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (Associate Member)
• Congressional Caucus on Global Road Safety
• International Conservation Caucus
• Congressional Arts Caucus^[10]
• Afterschool Caucuses^[11]
• Co-Chair United States Congressional International Conservation Caucus^[12]
• Veterinary Medicine Caucus^[13]
• Congressional Coalition on Adoption^[14]

McCollum is the first woman elected to Congress from Minnesota since Coya Knutson in the 1950s.

McCollum received a 91% progressive rating from Progressive Punch, a self-described nonpartisan group that provides a “searchable database of Congressional voting records from a Progressive perspective”,^[15] and a 13% conservative rating from the conservative SBE Council.^[16]

McCollum is pro-choice and supports Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association.^[17] The latter organization aims to provide access to family planning and reproductive health care services and advocates for reproductive freedom.^[18] She indicated on the 2002 National Political Awareness Test that she believed abortions should always be legally available, but only within the first trimester of pregnancy.^[19]

McCollum has consistently supported the rights of members in the LGBTQ community.^[20] The Human Rights Campaign, one of America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality, has continually approved of her voting record.^[21][20] In a speech opposing the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, McCollum said, “Gay and lesbian Americans are citizens who must never be treated as second-class citizens”.^[22]

She has supported the interests of the elderly with regard to preserving Social Security. She has backed organizations such as the Alliance for Retired Americans and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, which share the mission to ensure social and economic justice and full civil rights for all citizens so that they may enjoy lives of dignity, personal and family fulfillment and security.^[23] In a position paper, McCollum defended her position on Social Security, writing, “We can secure the future of Social Security with common sense and a shared, bipartisan commitment to economic security and fiscal responsibility for all Americans. This is my commitment, and you can count on me to work to protect Social Security and to find a solution that truly protects the retirement security of every American.”^[24]

McCollum advocates shifting America’s energy consumption to cleaner, non-carbon-based sources. Along with Al Franken and Kit Bond, she introduced the Renewable Energy and Efficiency Act, a bill to utilize thermal energy sources and create renewable energy production tax credits.^[25] She also voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment in 2009.^[26]

In 2004, McCollum gained national visibility when she and fellow Democrat Jim McDermott of Washington called for Secretary of Education Rod Paige to resign for claiming the National Education Association was “a terrorist organization.”

She also introduced amendments in June 2011 and 2012 to cut funding for military bands by $125 million, a proposal opposed by the Fleet Reserve Association and which the National Association for Music Education called “potentially devastating.”^[27]

McCollum opposes Conceal-and-Carry legislation and voted against Right-to-Carry reciprocity in November 2011.^[19]

In July 2019, McCollum voted against a House resolution introduced by Representative Brad Schneider of Illinois opposing the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement targeting Israel.^[28] The resolution passed 398-17.^[29] In February 2020, McCollum called AIPAC a hate group and accused it of hate speech.^[30]

In April 2021, McCollum introduced the Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living under Israeli Military Occupation Act, a bill that aims to prohibit Israel from using U.S. aid to detain Palestinian minors, demolish Palestinian homes, or further annex West Bank land. The bill requires the State Department to file an annual report to Congress detailing the extent to which U.S. aid from the previous fiscal year was used to bankroll any of the aforementioned activities.^[31]

On July 18, 2023, McCollum voted “present” on a congressional non-binding resolution proposed by August Pfluger that “the State of Israel is not a racist or apartheid state“, that Congress rejects “all forms of antisemitism and xenophobia”, and that “the United States will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel”.^[32]

On July 19, 2024, McCollum called for Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 United States presidential election.^[33]

• United States congressional delegations from Minnesota
• List of United States representatives from Minnesota
• Women in the United States House of Representatives

• Betty McCollum, A Letter to AIPAC, New York Review of Books, Volume 53, Number 10, June 8, 2006, with an introduction by Michael Massing.

• Congresswoman Betty McCollum official U.S. House website
• Betty McCollum for Congress
• Betty McCollum at Curlie

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
• Legislation sponsored at the Library of Congress
• Profile at Vote Smart
• Minnesota Legislators Past and Present
• Appearances on C-SPAN