Sen. Hauschild talks legislative priorities, balancing state issues and local concerns

Kirsten Wisniewski | February 20, 2026

The Minnesota Legislature began the 2026 session on Feb. 17. For the second year in a row, state Senators and Representatives will need to navigate a nearly evenly split legislature as they hope to move forward on key state issues.

State Sen. Grant Hauschild represents District 3, which includes Cook, Lake, and Koochiching counties, and a portion of St. Louis and Itasca counties. He was first elected in 2022, and is finishing his freshman term in the legislature. He spoke with WTIP about what he hopes to accomplish this session, what challenges the legislature faces, and what issues District 3 voters have identified as priorities.

A split legislature

The close margins of the 2024 House elections meant rocky start to the 2025 legislative session. An initial tie opened talks of power-sharing in the House, then a disqualified representative-elect gave the Republicans a one-seat majority. A further disputed seat, which ultimately was retained by the Democrat-Farmer-Laborer party, led House DFL-ers to boycott the start of the session until it was resolved, pushing back the start of the session in the House.

The Senate had a smoother beginning to the session, but with just a single-seat margin, the DFL majority is slim.

After a difficult 2025 session, the remainder of the year in Minnesota was marked by high-profile gun violence. In June, former Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman, along with her husband Mark, were shot and killed in their home. The same night, Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were attacked in their home. Hoffman returned to the Senate on Feb. 17, and the session began by both welcoming him back to the legislature, and honoring the Hortmans.

Hauschild said that beginning the session with a moment of unity felt important. He said, “It was really a moment, with just everything that has happened in Minnesota over the last year, for us to really just have this cathartic moment to come together, put politics aside, and really take a look at some leaders that have had a truly historic impact on our state. So that really felt good.”

As the work of the session begins, Hauschild said he is hopeful that the leaders will be able to continue collaborating. “The other thing that happened yesterday with honoring Melissa Hortman is that we really talked about her legacy and how this was a moment for, I think, grown-ups in both bodies and both parties to really stand up and say, Let’s push aside the rhetoric. Let’s push aside the extremes and the terrible things that have happened in Minnesota, and let’s actually make a difference. Let’s actually address some of the core challenges that we have, together,” he said.

Voter concerns

Between the end of the 2025 session and the beginning of this year’s session, Hauschild has traveled across his districts to speak to constituents about their concerns and priorities. He said that top-of-mind for many people is balancing the price of providing local services with the cost of living. Hauschild said that he heard from local governments that infrastructure projects and unfunded mandated services were posing a challenge to fund, and that, for residents, increases in property taxes were adding pressure to their budgets.

He said that a major takeaway from speaking to voters is that they would like the legislature to “make sure that the state is well run, and make sure we’re moving forward on strong footing.”

Other legislative priorities

Hauschild said that in addition to the things he heard from constituents, he had several other goals for this session. First, he said a priority would be to change the current tax code, which routes money collected through property taxes on seasonal properties to the state general fund. He would like to see those funds instead applied to the local school districts where those second homes are located, as they were before the law was changed in 2001.

Hauschild serves on both the Senate Education and Tax Committees. This year, he will hold a leadership position within the tax committee. He told WTIP, ” Our chair is retiring at the end of the year, but I am lucky to be serving as a vice chair as a freshman senator, and that really gives me the chance to make an impact on a lot of the aids that go to Northern Minnesota.”

In addition to the tax law changes Hauschild is championing, he said he will also work to increase the 1854 treaty payments for the two tribal nations in his district, the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, to keep up with inflation rates. He said that the state funding is used for things like providing young band members with school supplies and clothing. “That’s one that we’ve been working together with Grand Portage on, and I’m hopeful that we can try to get something like that passed,” he said.

Hauschild has historically been a proponent of supporting rural health care services, and he told WTIP that he will continue to make emergency response and medical care priorities this session. He described access to health care in rural areas as “fundamentally important,” and said, “We have to address the federal legislation that is gutting and hurting rural health care.”

The Senate passed a bill that would establish an independent Office of Inspector General for the state to investigate fraud during the 2025 session. The bill had bipartisan support in the Senate, passing 60-7, but failed to pass the House before the end of the session. Hauschild said that creating that role would be a priority for the legislature this year. However, just a few days into the session, the bill is, once again, hitting snags in the House. Representatives have proposed amendments to how an OIG would be appointed and what the full scope of their job would include.

Federal Overreach

Hauschild also expressed concern about federal overreach in two primary areas: mining and the presence of federal agents in the state.

Mining has long been a topic that has divided District 3 voters, with some constituents supporting mining as an economic driver in the region, and others concerned about the risks of environmental damage that mines pose. Recently, a Minnesota mining project has been discussed on the national stage as Rep. Pete Stauber has pushed for the proposed Twin Metals copper-nickel mine near Babbit to move forward. Hauschild, who has historically spoken about the need for decisions about mining to be based on unbiased evaluation of the project, rather than politics, said that the federal push for this mine is an example of federal overreach.

“There is no question that they are throwing out the rule book on a lot of the ways that we traditionally have handled important issues, whether it is the Metro Surge catastrophe that has happened not just in Minneapolis, but across various communities in greater Minnesota, or really throwing out a lot of environmental standards that I think are critically important if we are to trust the ability for us to move forward on important projects,” he said. “We need to stay firmly against anything that would run roughshod over our standards and processes while maintaining objectivity in the strong environmental standards that we have here in the state.”

Hauschild also alluded to the presence of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota when asked about what issues he believed the legislature would try to address this session.

“We have to look at the federal overreaches and the challenges that are coming out of Washington D.C., and make sure that the state of Minnesota is in the best position to protect our freedoms. That means making sure we don’t have masked agents,” he said. He added that another concern is access to medical treatment for those who are injured by federal agents.

WTIP’s Kirsten Wisniewski spoke with Sen. Grant Hauschild about the start of the 2026 legislative session. Audio of that interview is below.