By STEVE KARNOWSKI and JOHN HANNA, Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Americans talk constantly about how their country is split down the middle politically. Melissa Hortman lived that every day as a Minnesota House member.
Her unique perspective on politics came from her job as the House’s top Democrat and its unusual challenge. She had to defend liberal priorities in a chamber divided 67-67 between Democrats and Republicans while working to see that the even split didn’t keep the Legislature from funding state government.
She and her husband were shot to death early Saturday in their Minneapolis-area home in what authorities are calling an act of political violence. Another prominent area lawmaker, state Sen. John Hoffman, was shot and wounded, along with his wife, in their home about 15 minutes away.
Hortman had served as House speaker for six years when the 2024 elections cost Democrats their slim majority. She led fellow Democrats in boycotting House sessions for almost a month, starting in mid-January, to prevent the GOP from using a temporary vacancy in a Democratic seat to cement control over the chamber, forcing Republicans into sharing power.
She wanted to protect state health coverage for adult immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, a liberal policy enacted on her watch as speaker in 2023. But when the only budget deal that she could broker included a GOP bill to cut that coverage, she provided the single Democratic vote in the House, securing its passage so that state government would remain funded for the next two years.
“She battled fiercely, but never let it impact the personal bond that we developed serving as caucus leaders,” GOP House Speaker Lisa Demuth said in a statement. “I am beyond heartbroken by her loss.”
The Legislature is sharply divided in politics but united in mourning
The shootings shocked a state that prides its politics as being “Minnesota nice,” even despite higher partisan tensions in recent years.
To outsiders, Minnesota looks blue. The state hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1972, and all of its statewide elected officials are Democrats.
Yet the Legislature is now almost evenly split, with Democrats clinging to a 34-33 majority in the Senate. Republicans are still frustrated with how Democrats used their slim majorities in both chambers in 2023 and 2024 to roll over them and enact a sweeping liberal agenda.
In 2023, Democrats had an ambitious wish list and passed practically everything on it, with Hortman a key player. The measures included expanded abortion and trans rights, paid family and medical leave, universal free school lunches, child care credits and other aid for families.
But on Saturday, the mourning for Hortman, Hoffman and their families was bipartisan.
The wounded senator chairs a key committee
Hoffman, 60, is chair of the Senate Human Services Committee, which oversees one of the biggest parts of the state budget. He lives in Champlin, in the northwest part of the Minneapolis area, and owns a consulting firm, and he and his wife, Yvette, had one daughter.
He previously was marketing and public relations director for a nonprofit provider of employment services for people with mental illnesses and intellectual and developmental disabilities and supervised a juvenile detention center in Iowa. He was first elected to the Senate in 2012.
In 2023, Hoffman supported budget legislation that extended the state MinnesotaCare health program to immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, starting this year. On Monday, he voted against a bill to end that coverage for adults on Jan. 1 — a GOP goal that was a key part of the budget agreement that Hortman helped broker.
Last year, Hoffman sponsored a bill designed to prevent courts from blocking people with disabilities from adopting children, and in 2023, he proposed an amendment to the state constitution to create a fund to pay for long-term care by taxing the Social Security benefits of the state’s wealthiest residents.
Hortman had served nine years as Democratic leader
Hortman had served as the House Democrats’ leader since 2017, and six years as speaker, starting in 2019. Under a power-sharing deal, her title became speaker emerita.
She and her husband, Mark, lived in Brooklyn Park, another suburb in the northwest part of the Minneapolis area. They had two adult children.
A lawyer, she twice lost races for the House before first winning her seat in 2004. U.S. Sen. and Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar recalled campaigning door to door that year with Hortman, when Klobuchar was the elected chief prosecutor for Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis.
Klobuchar praised Hortman’s support for free school lunches, women’s rights and clean energy, calling her “a true public servant to the core.”
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, who attended the University of Minnesota’s law school with Hortman, said: “She was smart, savvy, strategic, kind, funny, brave, and determined.”
Hortman’s skills as a legislator are being praised
Hortman became part of the Democrats’ legislative leadership team in 2007, then House minority leader in 2017, before Democrats recaptured a House majority in 2019.
Her proposals included state emission standards like ones imposed in California and a ban on the sale of products containing mercury.
She also proposed studying the feasibility of ending state investments in fossil fuel companies. Demuth, the current Republican House speaker, said Hortman was a nationally recognized expert on energy policy.
“She wasn’t only a leader — she was a damn good legislator, and Minnesotans everywhere will suffer because of this loss,” said Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, a former Minnesota state party chair and a friend of Hortman’s.
Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas.
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