Two weeks ago, my home state of Minnesota experienced a loss beyond description.
As you likely know, my good friends Melissa and Mark Hortman were assassinated by a madman with a violent political agenda. Two of my other friends, John and Yvette Hoffman, were shot several times and yet — by the Grace of God — are still alive and with us today.
These four people, these four friends of mine, were targeted for their beliefs. They were targeted for their family’s commitment to public service.
So many of us in Minnesota and across the country, including my wife Jenn and I, are still reckoning with what happened.
This weekend, I’m back home for the service to honor Melissa, Mark, and their beloved golden retriever Gilbert.
I want to share something I wrote about Melissa in the hours after I learned she and Mark were murdered. This was hard to put into words and even harder to reflect on again today.
There’s no tribute I can offer that will fairly or fully capture her life, her contributions as a lawmaker, and my friendship with the Hortmans.
I can only speak about the Melissa I knew. I can only speak about my friend as I remember her.
I hope you’ll take a few minutes out of your day to give it a read.
And if you pray, I hope you’ll say a prayer for Melissa and Mark — and for the Hortman kids, whose parents were stolen from them.
I’ve had the profound privilege of knowing Melissa Hortman for nearly half my life. We met in 2000, after she first ran for the Minnesota House of Representatives. She was a proud alumna of Senator Gore’s office; I was working for the Gore presidential campaign. I was 27. She was 30. We became fast friends, and over the years, we became more than that — we became trusted allies, confidants, and chosen family in this work we both loved.
She didn’t win that first race. But even in defeat, Melissa never lost her resolve. In 2002, she tried again — running in one of the most devastating election years we’ve ever faced. That was the year we lost our friends and colleagues in the tragic plane crash in northern Minnesota. Our souls were shattered, our movement shaken. It was hard to imagine going on. But even then, in the face of deep grief and personal loss, Melissa stood tall. She carried on. She persisted.
In the fall of 2003, we spent a lot of time together campaigning for John Kerry. Melissa had once worked in his Senate office, and I was building out his Minnesota team. On one long drive back from Iowa, she turned to me and asked if she should try again — run a third time for the House. We weighed it, back and forth. She spoke of Paul Wellstone, whom she admired deeply — not just for his politics but for his heart.
Melissa had the same fire in her. A daughter of the working class, she grew up helping in her dad’s auto parts shop in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities. She never lost touch with those roots. She carried them with pride, even as she earned a law degree and returned home to serve the people, not herself.
I reminded her of something Wellstone said: “The future does not belong to the cynic or to those on the sidelines. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams and are changemakers.” Melissa ran again. She won. And she became one of the greatest changemakers Minnesota has ever known.
She rose quickly. In 2017, after Democrats lost the House majority, she was elected Minority Leader. She didn’t shrink from the challenge — she rose to meet it. I’ll never forget the moment when Republican men were caught playing cards in the backroom while women of color gave floor speeches. Melissa called them out. When they demanded an apology, she said what only Melissa could: “Sorry, not sorry.” She never flinched. She never backed down. She persisted.
In the 2018 campaign, I witnessed something extraordinary. Melissa wasn’t just a brilliant policy mind — she was a tactician, an organizer, a relentless strategist. She crisscrossed Minnesota, raising money, recruiting candidates, knocking on doors herself. She expected discipline and hustle, but modeled it in everything she did. That work helped flip the House in one of the greatest victories in DFL history — and it helped make her the third woman ever to become Speaker of the House. Arguably, the most consequential.
When the DFL secured the trifecta in 2022, it was Melissa who led with clarity and courage. She insisted we not waste a second. That we pass bold, visionary policies rooted in the voices of the people — their hopes and fears she heard in town halls through the Minnesota Values Project. We only had a one-seat majority in one of the most divided legislatures in the nation. But Melissa knew: power is fleeting. If you have a chance to change lives — you do it. And we did.
Because of Melissa Hortman, Minnesota passed the most pro-family, pro-worker agenda in America: Paid family and medical leave. The biggest child tax credit in state history. Free school meals. Free college tuition. The largest K-12 investment ever. Codified abortion rights. Earned sick and safe time. So much more. None of it — not one piece — would have happened without her.
My heart is broken. Like so many across Minnesota and this nation, I’m in disbelief. I’m devastated — for her family, for our state, and for those of us who had the privilege of knowing and loving her. This isn’t just a personal loss. This is a seismic one for Minnesota and for all who believe in the promise of public service.
We lost a giant. A friend. A fighter. A quiet revolutionary who led with brilliance and humility, with grace and grit. The kind of leader who doesn’t come around often. And certainly one who can never, ever be replaced.
There’s a saying that if you change one life, you change the world. Melissa Hortman didn’t just change one life. She changed an entire state — and in doing so, she changed history.
She persisted. She prevailed. And she left this world better than she found it.
Rest in peace, my dear friend. We will carry your legacy forward — with broken hearts, but with deep gratitude.
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