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Politically Speaking: Rep. Unsicker reflects on eventful first year in Missouri House

St. Louis Public Radio | By Jason Rosenbaum,
Jo Mannies
Published October 16, 2017 at 5:24 PM CDT
State Rep. Sarah Unsicker
State Rep. Sarah Unsicker

On the latest edition of the Politically Speaking podcast, St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum and Jo Mannies welcome state Rep. Sarah Unsicker to the program for the first time.

The Shrewsbury Democrat was first won election in 2016 to represent the 91st House District, which takes in portions of St. Louis and St. Louis County, including most of Webster Groves, Shrewsbury and Crestwood.

Unsicker is an attorney who chose to run for the seat after state Rep. Jeanne Kirkton left the House due to term limits. She squared off against Republican Greg Mueller, a member of the Webster Groves City Council.

State Rep. Sarah Unsicker joins the Politically Speaking podcast.

While Mueller was well-supported financially, Unsicker ended up winning by a fairly comfortable margin. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton ended up winning most of the 91st District, making it one of the few places in the state where Donald Trump’s presence on the ballot likely hurt down-ballot GOP contenders.

Since joining the Missouri General Assembly, Unsicker has served on the House’s fiscal review and rules committees. Those two panels play a big rule in determining the cost of legislation — and figuring out which bills end up making it to the floor for debate.

Here’s what Unsicker had to say during the program:

  • Unsicker doesn’t support reducing a property tax break for elderly renters, known as the circuit breaker, to restore cuts to in-home health care services. That’s a proposal that a number of House Republican embrace.
  • Instead, Unsicker says lawmakers should consider paring down an incentive for businesses to turn in their taxes on time. She says it costs the state around $117 million a year — more than enough to restore the in-home care cuts. “Consumers don’t realize that not all of those sale taxes they pay are going to the government,” she said. “Two percent is going back to those businesses that pay in a timely manner.”
  • Unsicker said she’s worried that more housing discrimination will occur now that the statelost fundingfrom the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Earlier this year, HUD canceled a contract to hear housing discrimination cases after Gov. Eric Greitens signed a law making it more difficult to successfully sue for discrimination.
  • She said Democrats will introduce legislation next year to increase Missouri’s minimum wage. Democratic activists and organized labor groups are getting behind a ballot initiative to gradually boost the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour.


Follow Jason Rosenbaum on Twitter:@jrosenbaum

Follow Jo Mannies on Twitter:@jmannies

Follow Sarah Unsicker:@SarahUnsicker

Music: “You’re Dreaming” by Wolf Parade

Copyright 2021 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.

Missouri News
Jason Rosenbaum
Since entering the world of professional journalism in 2006, Jason Rosenbaum dove head first into the world of politics, policy and even rock and roll music. A graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Rosenbaum spent more than four years in the Missouri State Capitol writing for the Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri Lawyers Media and the St. Louis Beacon.
See stories by Jason Rosenbaum
Jo Mannies
Jo Mannies has been covering Missouri politics and government for almost four decades, much of that time as a reporter and columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was the first woman to cover St. Louis City Hall, was the newspaper’s second woman sportswriter in its history, and spent four years in the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau. She joined the St. Louis Beacon in 2009. She has won several local, regional and national awards, and has covered every president since Jimmy Carter. She scared fellow first-graders in the late 1950s when she showed them how close Alaska was to Russia and met Richard M. Nixon when she was in high school. She graduated from Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana, and was the daughter of a high school basketball coach. She is married and has two grown children, both lawyers. She’s a history and movie buff, cultivates a massive flower garden, and bakes banana bread regularly for her colleagues.
See stories by Jo Mannies