Minnesota Reels from Political Assassinations

Remembering assassinated Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark.

Saturday, June 14 was a grim day for Minnesotans. Many woke to hear that an assassin had shot Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette Hoffman at their house in Champlin and then Speaker Emerita Melissa and her husband Mark Hortman at their house in Brooklyn Park. We found out an hour or two later that the Hoffmans had survived the shooting, but the Hortmans had not. A huge police manhunt followed, and Vance Boelter was arrested Sunday night. He appears to have acted alone.

There’s been plenty of news coverage on these crimes and we won’t repeat that here. We want to say something about the victims.

Melissa Hortman was elected to the Minnesota House in 2004 on her third try for the seat. She succeeded Paul Thissen as Minority Leader for the DFL House Caucus in 2017. When the DFL won back the majority in 2018, she was elected Speaker when the House convened in 2019. She would be speaker for the next three legislative cycles and was in charge of the House during the amazing 2023-24 legislative session where so many DFL initiatives were enacted into law.

This year, with the House tied 67-67, she, as the leader of the DFL caucus, volunteered to let Lisa Demuth, the leader of the Republican House Caucus, to become Speaker in exchange for a power-sharing agreement that would protect the seat of a DFL member that the Republicans were threatening to unseat. She led negotiations with Republicans over bills that needed high-level agreement. This included dealing with Republicans’ insistence on removing public insurance coverage from adult undocumented immigrants without which they would let parts of the Minnesota government shut down. When that became part of the final agreement for the special session, she agreed to be the one DFL vote needed to pass that bill.

Hortman was the longest-serving leader of the DFL House Caucus in its 81-year history. She and her husband leave an adult son and daughter. Their son lives in Rochester.

John Hoffman was elected to the Senate in 2012 and has been a strong advocate for the disabled in the thirteen years in the Senate. He has chaired the Human Services Committee since 2023. Senator Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, are in stable condition and are recovering from physical injuries and emotional trauma.

Political violence in the United States is trending up because of dehumanizing political rhetoric, extreme policies and the proliferation of misinformation online and in social media. We condemn the use of political violence and causes of it.