By BILL SALISBURY | bsalisbury@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press
PUBLISHED: October 28, 2021 at 6:19 p.m. | UPDATED: October 28, 2021 at 9:49 p.m.
_____________________________________________________________________
State Rep. Alice Hausman, a DFLer who has represented a St. Paul-area district for 32 years, announced Thursday she will retire from the Legislature next year when her 17th term expires.
Hausman, 79, who recently moved from St. Paul to Falcon Heights, said she’s stepping down now because new district lines will be drawn before the 2022 election, and it’s time for new candidates to emerge.
“It really seems like the appropriate time to decide that it’s helpful to get a fresh start when you have new lines” she said in an interview.
Hausman, who represents District 66A, including Roseville, Falcon Heights and northwestern St. Paul, has been a key player on a broad range of state infrastructure issues at the Capitol. She currently chairs the House Housing Committee, and she served on the House Capital Investment Committee, which writes the bonding bills that borrow money to pay for building projects and other infrastructure, from 2003 to 2019, serving as chair or lead Democrat on that panel during most of those years.
Rep. Alice Hausman, DFL-St. Paul (Courtesy of the Minnesota House of Representatives)
She was the chief author of the bills that funded construction of the Blue and Green light-rail lines in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
She believes her most important infrastructure accomplishments, however, were for the state’s public colleges and universities.
“Higher education for me was always the most significant part of the bonding bill because that’s where we train the workforce of the future,” she said. “We want to be sure that Minnesota students have the best classrooms and laboratories to be prepared for their careers.”
One of her most satisfying achievements, she continued, was securing funding for a new science building at Saint Paul College, even after Minnesota State officials gave up on the project. In 2017, when Republicans controlled the House, she managed to persuade a House-Senate conference committee to include that money in a small bonding bill that passed during a special legislative session.
“It matters if you know what you’re doing, if you have experience to get things done, even when you’re in the minority,” she said.
The college named Hausman “Saint Paul College Community Partner of the Year” later that year.
She also was an effective champion for virtually every major St. Paul arts institution, including the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, Science Museum of Minnesota, Minnesota Children’s Museum and the Minnesota Museum of American Art.
In her final year in the House, Hausman said she will focus on securing a substantial funding increase for housing. “The housing crisis is getting worse at this point in the pandemic,” she said.
Specifically she wants to provide more funding to upgrade public housing across the state, which she said faces “$550 million in unmet needs,” and to save “naturally occurring affordable housing,” which she said is being snapped up by out-of-state businesses that turn the houses into rentals, rather than selling them potential homeowners.
The last three years have been particularly hard to get things done in the politically divided Legislature, she said. “But when you have to work that hard, it becomes almost more rewarding because what you learn is you just don’t give up. That’s what I’ve tried to play out.”