At 85, Senate Dean Lou D’Allesandro announces retirement

State Sen. Lou D'Allesandro explains his plans to bring casino gambling into the state during a Senate Committee meeting, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013 in Concord, N.H. The sponsors of an amended Senate gambling bill say they are hopeful gaming tax revenue will obviate the need to raise the gas tax to pay for highway and bridge projects in the state.  (AP Photo/Jim Cole)

State Sen. Lou D'Allesandro explains his plans to bring casino gambling into the state during a Senate Committee meeting, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013 in Concord, N.H. The sponsors of an amended Senate gambling bill say they are hopeful gaming tax revenue will obviate the need to raise the gas tax to pay for highway and bridge projects in the state. (AP Photo/Jim Cole) Jim Cole

New Hampshire Senate Dean Lou D'Allesandro waves to the crowd after announcing his retirement Tuesday.

New Hampshire Senate Dean Lou D'Allesandro waves to the crowd after announcing his retirement Tuesday. Michaela Towfighi—Monitor staff

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Monitor staff

Published: 05-21-2024 12:32 PM

Modified: 05-21-2024 2:26 PM


Among the cacophony of the New Hampshire State Senate, Lou D’Allesandro’s booming voice has often cut through the chaos. On Tuesday, though, the longtime senator was soft-spoken, his voice quivering, as he announced his retirement from state politics.

At 85, D’Allesandro, a Manchester Democrat, has served in New Hampshire government since 1973, with stints in the House, on the Executive Council and 12 consecutive terms in the State Senate. As the longest-serving member, he is considered the dean of the Senate.

“With everything, there is a beginning and there is an end,” he said. “And the hardest thing is to walk away.”

That time has come for him, though, D’Allesandro said at a press conference announcing his retirement alongside his wife, Pat.

“There comes a time in a journey where there is an end. Nobody lives forever and you can’t stay beyond the time when you can make a difference,” he said. “I believe that my service in the Senate has made a difference in the lives of people.”

With a storied career that has spanned more than five decades, it is no surprise that D’Allesandro has stories.

There are the legislative wins. In 2005, a woman in New York called him crying after New Hampshire became the seventh state to allow adults who were adopted to access their original birth record. D’Allesandro sponsored the bill and it was the only time in his Senate career, where he flipped a vote on the floor for it to pass, he said. She was looking for her child and now could find out who they were.

There are the failures, like the Rockingham Park casino in Salem. D’Allesandro pushed forward the proposal for years after then-Governor Maggie Hassan promised she would bring one to the state. It never came to fruition.

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“The tragedy now is we have twenty casinos,” he said. “Everything that nobody wanted we got. And we got more than we need.”

And there are there the friendships. Mike Downing served in the Senate with D’Allesandro as a Republican for nearly ten years. Before he passed in 2015, after a battle with cancer, he asked D’Allesandro to give his eulogy at the funeral.

“Which is a very, very moving situation to think that we got that close as friends,” he said. “A lot of moving things have happened as I’ve passed through this journey.”

A few familiar faces will be missing from the next state Senate alongside D’Allesandro. Sen. Becky Whitley, a Hopkinton Democrat, is running for U.S. Congress. Senate President Jeb Bradley, a Wolfeboro Republican, has also announced his decision to not seek re-election.

But despite these changes, D’Allesandro has confidence in the body’s leadership, he said. And their work is still cut out for them.

He’d like to see the state invest more in mental health and housing. He worries about the current proposal to legalize marijuana. He wants to see Manchester establish a “sister-city” partnership with the Canadian city Sherbrooke in Quebec.

But most of all he’d like the Senate to continue, what he hopes to be his legacy of doing good for others.

You don’t forget when someone helps you, he said. Or at least he hasn’t. When he was three years old the Boston Fire Department carried his family out of their third-floor apartment, after the neighbor lit a cigarette on the first floor that sent the building up in flames. At his retirement announcement, he was still telling the story 82 years later.

“For me, I can remember it to this day,” he said. “It was just a great desire to help.”

D’Allesandro said he would continue to work up until his term finishes at the end of the year. After that, he plans to endorse a Democrat to fill his seat and vowed to stay involved in politics until he takes his “dying breath.”

“I always want to leave you wanting more D’Allesandro,” he said. “You got to stay happy. You got to stay healthy. Have a great, great, great American Day.”