Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman’s life embodied the American dream. She was raised in a family that owned a junkyard, became a lawyer but declined a life of comfortable wealth for public service, emerging as among the most influential legislators in Minnesota history.
Now she’s an emblem of the American nightmare, another victim – along with husband Mark Hortman and their golden retriever Gilbert – of the political violence that’s consumed America in the past decade, adding Brooklyn Park to Buffalo, El Paso and other grim signposts of a damaged democracy.
The Hortmans were remembered at their funeral Mass at The Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis Saturday as kind, generous and driven by a common set of values to make the world just a little bit better.
The funeral was mostly light on politics, despite the hundreds of politicos in attendance. Father Daniel Griffith in his homily, however, highlighted the injustices that Melissa Hortman tried to ameliorate.
“In Minnesota we have been the ground zero place, sadly, for racial injustice – the killing of George Floyd just miles from our church,” Griffith said. “And now we are the ground zero place for political violence and extremism. Both of these must be decried in the strongest terms, as they are, respectively, a threat to human dignity and indeed our democracy.”
Gov. Tim Walz, who was both friend and governing partner to Hortman, was visibly shaken while serving as a pallbearer alongside the Hortman children. The packed Basilica was filled with Hortman’s family, friends and vast political network that Melissa Hortman built over decades by way of her effectiveness at the Legislature and down-to-earth charm. Former President Joe Biden – who hosted the Hortmans at the White House – Vice President Kamala Harris, former Gov. Mark Dayton, Democratic and Republican lawmakers and state commissioners also memorialized the lives of Hortmans.
Melissa Hortman served in the Minnesota Legislature for two decades. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor legislator was beloved around the Capitol and is known for scoring major legislative victories including free school lunch for K-12 students, a new paid leave program and a mandate that Minnesota utilities use 100% carbon-free energy sources by 2040.
The Hortmans were killed on June 14 in their Brooklyn Park home in a politically motivated assassination. Their deaths have roiled Minnesota politics.
Hortman was a Catholic Sunday school teacher whose politics were shaped by Catholic social teaching. She was a devotee of the Golden Rule, from Matthew, “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” So she would have endorsed the choice of Gospel reading Saturday, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which is a fundamental text of Christianity.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God,” Griffith said. “Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.”
In his sermon, Griffith highlighted Melissa and Mark Hortman’s service and community, which he called, “the antidote to our present afflictions” and a stark contrast to the “idol of autonomy” that has ravaged America’s political landscape.
Melissa and Mark Hortman met in Washington, D.C. when they were both mentoring a student. Colin and Sophie Hortman, their adult children, released a statement in the days after their killings, calling for people to honor their parents’ legacy by standing up “for what you believe in, especially if that thing is justice and peace.”
Walz during his five-minute eulogy encouraged Minnesotans to find common humanity and “build a state equal to (the Hortmans’) aspirations and a politics worthy of their example.”
“Melissa was an extraordinary legislator, and Mark was her proudest supporter,” Walz said. “It’s easy sometimes to forget, for all of its significance, politics is just people. That’s all. It is just a bunch of human beings trying to do their best. Melissa understood that better than anybody.”
Robin Ann Williams, a close friend of Melissa and Mark, eulogized them at the request of the children. She remembered the Hortmans as anything but a stereotypical political family, just as focused on their children and dog and card nights and monthly dinners for law school friends as on the latest political flareup.
Williams also captured the dynamic between Melissa and her supportive husband.
“I always saw her as a balloon bouncing around, but still tethered to the earth by Mark,” Williams said.
Williams remembered the many dinners she shared with the Hortmans, including their last together on June 6 at an Italian restaurant in Robbinsdale. Walz had just called for a one-day special session, and Melissa was often getting up from the table to take calls from the governor or her DFL caucus members. No one at the table, including Mark Hortman, minded the disruption.
Even though many are grieved by the Hortmans’ deaths, Williams said that the couple would have wanted people to remember them with joy, citing Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet”:
“Some of you say joy is greater than sorrow, and others say, nay, sorrow is the greater. But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
Williams then said, “We are buried in sorrow right now, but I do believe that we will experience joy again. Mark and Melissa would not want it any other way. Goodbye, my friends.”
Colin Hortman ended the service with a prayer of St. Francis, which Melissa Hortman carried in her wallet.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
The procession departed in silence, except for the massive bell of The Basilica of St. Mary tolling, tolling.
The caskets were loaded into two hearses.
Walz handed Sophie and Colin Hortman American flags in the traditional 13-fold, for the Hortmans.
When the Hortmans were lying in state at the Capitol Friday, Rep. Michael Howard, DFL-Richfield, wondered aloud what Melissa Hortman – who was famously blunt and unimpressed with grandeur – would have thought about all the pageantry.
“I think she would have said, ‘It’s a bit much.’”
Editor’s note: This story was written by Michelle Griffith and J. Patrick Coolican and first appeared in the Minnesota Reformer on June 28. Griffith covers Minnesota politics and policy for the Reformer, with a focus on marginalized communities. Coolican is editor-in-chief of the Minnesota Reformer.
The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and uncovering stories other outlets can’t or won’t report. It is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501(c)(3) public charity.
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