This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.
After more than two decades serving in the Vermont Legislature, Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, does not plan to run for reelection this fall.
Clarkson made the announcement to voters at Reading’s town meeting on Saturday, the Valley News reported. The former Senate majority leader’s decision comes days after Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, made the surprise declaration that he will be stepping down later this year.
Clarkson, who lives in Woodstock, said she plans to devote her time to reestablishing a culinary institute in Vermont and supporting children involved in Vermont’s courts.
“One of the gifts of serving in the Statehouse is that you get to see a lot of the opportunities and all the needs in Vermont,” Clarkson said in an interview. “I would like to turn to working on some of those a little more substantively.”
Clarkson was first elected to the House in 2004, and earned a seat in the Senate in 2016. She served as majority leader of the upper chamber from 2020 to 2024, but fellow Democrats chose to oust her from that role following the major Republican gains of the 2024 election cycle.
She currently serves as chair of the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs. From that perch, she helped negotiate a major deal last spring to create a new financing program for infrastructure that supports housing construction. She tuned in to final hearings from her home before her son’s impending wedding.
Clarkson blew kisses to her House colleagues when they accepted the Senate’s offer on that package, which followed weeks of acrimonious debate.
“Thank you for this step, for really creating a new tool for housing creation,” Clarkson exclaimed from her Zoom screen.
Clarkson said some of her most rewarding achievements include supporting legislation that expanded choices for end-of-life care and shepherding through bills that reduced barriers to housing development. Beyond policy accomplishments, though, she said she’s particularly proud of putting on Statehouse social events, like musical performances.
Fostering a sense of community has helped build the relationships needed to make compromises and pass bills, she said.
“That doesn’t happen unless you’ve built a level of trust and those relationships — those are essential for us to make good policy,” she said.
In her last few months as chair, Clarkson plans to focus on reviving an effort to pass a data and genetic privacy bill, and advancing a housing package that would make municipalities include state housing targets in their town plans, among other measures.
