| Pete Stauber | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| State: | Minnesota | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Term Start: | January 3, 2019 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Predecessor: | Rick Nolan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Office1: | Member of the St. Louis County Commission from the 5th district | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Term Start1: | January 1, 2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Term End1: | January 3, 2019 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Predecessor1: | Peg Sweeney | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Successor1: | Keith Musolf | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Name: | Peter Allen Stauber | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 10 May 1966 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Place: | Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse: | Jodi Stauber | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Children: | 6 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Party: | Republican | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Education: | Lake Superior State University (BA) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Module: |
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| Relations: | Dan Stauber (brother) Robb Stauber (brother) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Allen Stauber (born May 10, 1966)[1] is an American politician, former professional hockey player, and retired law enforcement officer from Minnesota serving as the United States representative for Minnesota's 8th congressional district. A member of the Republican Party, Stauber has represented the district since 2019.[2]
Stauber was born and grew up in Duluth, Minnesota. He played college hockey for Lake Superior State University, where as a star player on the team, he led the Lakers to a national championship in the 1988 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament. Stauber met his political idol President Ronald Reagan when the team visited the White House after winning the national championship. He later said this event formed his political ambition.[3] He went on to have a brief career in professional hockey. Stauber served as a lieutenant in the Duluth Police Department from 1995 to 2017. During his service as a police officer, he was shot while on duty. He also served as a county commissioner in St. Louis County, Minnesota, from 2013 to 2019.
Stauber succeeded DFL incumbent Rick Nolan by defeating Democratic nominee Joe Radinovich in the 2018 United States House of Representatives elections. Representing a working-class and mostly rural district, Stauber is only the second Republican to represent his district since 1947.
Stauber was born on May 10, 1966, in Duluth, Minnesota. He and his brothers, John, Jamie, Bill, Dan and Robb, all played hockey at various levels, but only Robb played in the National Hockey League (NHL).[4] Stauber attended Denfeld High School in Duluth and graduated from Lake Superior State University with a bachelor's degree in criminology.
Stauber was a star player for the Lake Superior State Lakers.[5] [6] [7] [8] [9] He is credited with helping lead the Lakers to victory in the playoffs and the 1988 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Championship game.[10] [11] Lake Superior "became the smallest school ever to win college hockey's biggest prize."[6] In that game, Stauber took a critical shot, described by opinion columnist Mike Mullen during Stauber's 2018 candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives as "risky, arguably crafty, and inarguably illegal,"[6] and by Star Tribune sportswriter John Gilbert in his 1988 story on the championship game as the moment when "Pete Stauber got away undetected when he straight-armed the net off its moorings during a Saints rush with 1:23 to go in regulation."[12]
After winning the national championship, the team was invited to the White House, where Stauber met President Ronald Reagan, an event he has called a pivotal moment in the formation of his interest in politics.[6]
In 1990, Stauber signed a multi-year contract with the Detroit Red Wings.[13] He played three seasons with affiliate club Adirondack Red Wings in the American Hockey League (AHL), and played 25 regular season games with the Toledo Storm in the ECHL, as well as a successful Riley Cup play-off run during the 1991–92 season.[14] The Florida Panthers selected him from the Red Wings in the 1993 NHL expansion draft.[15] However, due to a longstanding neck injury, he announced his retirement and joined the Duluth Police Department, where he served for 23 years.[14]
| Team | League | GP | GP | G | A | Pts | PIM | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1984–85 | Austin Mavericks | MWJHL | — | — | — | — | — | 8 | 3 | 6 | 9 | — | ||
| 1985–86 | Rochester Mustangs | MWJHL | 46 | 40 | 28 | 68 | 58 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1986–87 | Lake Superior State University | WCHA | 40 | 22 | 13 | 35 | 80 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1987–88 | Lake Superior State University | WCHA | 45 | 25 | 33 | 58 | 103 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1988–89 | Lake Superior State University | WCHA | 46 | 25 | 13 | 38 | 115 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1989–90 | Lake Superior State University | WCHA | 46 | 25 | 31 | 56 | 90 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1990–91 | Adirondack Red Wings | USHL | 26 | 7 | 11 | 18 | 2 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1991–92 | Adirondack Red Wings | USHL | 25 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 14 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1991–92 | Toledo Storm | ECHL | 25 | 7 | 21 | 28 | 46 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 46 | ||
| 1992–93 | Adirondack Red Wings | USHL | 12 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 8 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| WCHA totals | 177 | 97 | 90 | 232 | 388 | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
| USHL totals | 63 | 11 | 18 | 29 | 24 | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
In June 2018, Donald Trump campaigned for Stauber during his run for U.S. Representative, making his first visit to Minnesota as president and attending his first rally to support a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives in the 2018 general election, visiting Stauber's hometown of Duluth.[16] [17] At the time, Stauber had been involved in local politics, serving since 2013 as a member of the St. Louis County, Minnesota Commission (which includes Duluth). He had also served on the Hermantown City Council for eight years.[18]
The 8th district had an open seat in a previously Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL)-held district where the last two elections were close.[17] [19] [20] Partisan funders on both sides of the aisle reserved "millions" of dollars for advertising in a race widely regarded as a potential Republican pickup of a seat that had been held since 2013 by Rick Nolan.[21] In November, Stauber defeated the DFL nominee, former Nolan aide Joe Radinovich, to become only the fifth person to represent the district in 71 years, and the second Republican to do so. He won primarily by running up his margins in the district's more conservative western portion.
During his 2018 campaign, Stauber ran on a policy of allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, becoming only one of a handful of Republicans to endorse what was primarily a progressive idea.[22] Stauber has since walked back from his campaign pledge.
Stauber was reelected on November 4, 2020, defeating DFL nominee Quinn Nystrom, becoming the first Republican in 76 years to be reelected in the 8th district.[23] In December 2020, he filed a motion to support Texas v. Pennsylvania, described as a "seditious abuse of the judicial process" and aimed at invalidating millions of votes in various swing states. The Duluth News Tribune, which had endorsed Stauber, and many other local officials sharply criticized him for the ploy in an open letter.[24]
Stauber was reelected on November 8, 2022, defeating DFL nominee Jennifer Schultz.[25]
According to the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, Stauber held a Bipartisan Index Score of 0.7 in the 116th United States Congress for 2019, which placed him 64th out of 435 members.[26] Based on FiveThirtyEight's congressional vote tracker at ABC News, Stauber voted with Donald Trump's stated public policy positions 90.4% of the time,[27] which ranked him average in the 116th United States Congress when predictive scoring (district partisanship and voting record) is used.[28]
On September 30, 2020, Stauber hosted Trump in a visit to his district, attending a rally of about 3,000 people at the Duluth International Airport. Along with two of his Minnesota Republican House colleagues, Stauber rode with Trump on Air Force One.[29] After it was determined that Stauber had interacted with people who tested positive for COVID-19 in Washington D.C., including Trump, Stauber took a Delta flight in violation of Delta's rules, potentially exposing the other passengers to the virus.[30]
In December 2020, Stauber was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden defeated Trump.[31]
A group of Ojibwe tribes from Stauber's district rebuked him for his attempts to block President Biden's nomination of Deb Haaland as United States Secretary of the Interior. The Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes also complained about his actions. A member of the House subcommittee on Indigenous Peoples, Stauber cited Haaland's support of the Green New Deal and opposition to oil drilling. As a member of the House, he did not vote on the nomination.[32]
During the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election in January 2023, Stauber consistently voted for Kevin McCarthy.[33] In October 2023, he voted against removing McCarthy as speaker, which was unsuccessful and resulted in another election.[34] Stauber backed Jim Jordan on the first ballot and Bruce Westerman on the next two ballots[35] before voting for Mike Johnson on the fourth and final ballot.[36] In December 2023, he was among the 105 Republicans who voted to expel George Santos from the House.[37]
In April and May 2023, Stauber introduced a resolution and bill to end mineral withdrawal in Ely, Minnesota, as a response to a moratorium the Biden administration enacted the previous year.[38] In April 2024, the House of Representatives passed Stauber's bill, 212–203. It is unlikely to pass the Democratic–controlled Senate, and the White House has publicly voiced its opposition to it.[39] [40]
For the 118th Congress:[41]
Of German ancestry, Stauber lives in Hermantown, where he and his family belong to the St. Lawrence Catholic Church.[48] He is married to his wife, Jodi, an Iraq War veteran and the first female Command Chief of the 148th Fighter Wing.[49] The couple have six children.[50] Their eldest son, Levi, plays as a forward for the Michigan Tech Huskies.[51]
Stauber and his brothers run the Stauber Brothers Military Heroes Hockey Camp, a summer program for children with parents in the military.[52] The six co-own the Duluth Hockey Company, which began as a sporting goods retailer but since 2015 has specialized in hockey-related merchandise.[53] [54] During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company received over $86,000 in relief funds from the Paycheck Protection Program.[55] [56]
As one of his sons has Down syndrome, Stauber has advocated for continuing medical research of the genetic disorder. He received the Quincy Jones Exceptional Advocacy Award from the Global Down Syndrome Foundation in 2023.[57]
While on police duty in 1995, Stauber was shot and lightly wounded in the head when a bullet entered his squad car.[58] [18] [59]