ST. PAUL, Minn. (BN24) — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris joined more than 1,000 mourners Saturday at the funeral of Melissa Hortman, Minnesota’s former Democratic House speaker, who was remembered as both a transformative political leader and a person of deep compassion.
Hortman was fatally shot two weeks ago by a man impersonating a police officer in what federal authorities have called an assassination that also left her husband, Mark Hortman, dead. A state senator and his wife were seriously wounded in the attacks.
“Melissa Hortman will be remembered as the most consequential speaker in Minnesota history,” Gov. Tim Walz said in an emotional eulogy at the Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis. “I get to remember her as a close friend, a mentor, and the most talented legislator I have ever known.”
Walz credited Hortman’s leadership for improving millions of lives, citing her determination to pass policies that expanded abortion and transgender rights, guaranteed free school lunches, and strengthened Minnesota’s social safety net.
During the 2023 session, Hortman, first elected in 2004, steered an ambitious liberal agenda through the House. This year, with Democrats and Republicans tied 67-67, she stepped down from the speaker’s gavel under a power-sharing agreement, took the title speaker emerita, and helped resolve a budget standoff that threatened a government shutdown.
Biden and Harris did not speak during the service but sat in the front row with Walz, who had been Harris’ running mate in the 2024 election. The president had visited the wounded senator in the hospital and was among more than 7,500 people who paid their respects Friday as the Hortmans and their golden retriever, Gilbert—who was gravely injured in the attack and later euthanized—lay in state in the Capitol rotunda.
Rev. Daniel Griffith, pastor of the Basilica, called the violence a symptom of a nation in crisis, invoking W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming.”
“Here in Minnesota, we have been ground zero for racial injustice with the killing of George Floyd,” Griffith said. “And now, ground zero for political violence and extremism. Both must be decried in the strongest possible terms.”
But Griffith also said the overwhelming show of solidarity suggested Minnesota could become “a ground zero place for restoration and justice and healing.”
Hortman’s son, Colin, fought back tears as he read the Prayer of St. Francis, which his mother kept in her wallet.
“She and my dad embodied the Golden Rule,” he said. “They believed in showing up for people, even when it was hard.”
After the service, Walz presented Sophie and Colin Hortman with U.S. and Minnesota flags flown over the Capitol on the day their parents were killed.
Authorities say the suspect, 57-year-old Vance Boelter of Green Isle, fatally shot the Hortmans in their Brooklyn Park home on June 14 and then critically wounded Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, in a separate attack. He was arrested the next night after Minnesota’s largest-ever manhunt.
Boelter has not entered a plea. Prosecutors are pursuing a grand jury indictment, which could lead to federal death penalty charges.
At the funeral, Walz urged Minnesotans to honor the Hortmans’ memory not only by grieving but also by recommitting to a politics grounded in dignity and respect.
“Maybe this is the moment,” Walz said, “where each of us can examine how we work together, how we talk about each other, how we fight for what we care about—but without ever losing sight of our common humanity.”
A private burial will be held later.
