Melissa Hortman, Minnesota’s House Speaker from 2019 to 2025 and a member of the legislature since 2005, was politically assassinated on June 14, 2025. She was shot and killed alongside her husband Mark, and their dog Gilbert. One year later, Minnesotans are grieving their loss, and remembering her legacy as a lawmaker who championed democracy, and as “the most consequential speaker in House history.”
In each interview with Courier Minnesota, lawmakers who worked alongside Hortman said they have asked themselves “What would Melissa do?” throughout the 2026 legislative session–the first without Hortman in two decades.
Representative Nathan Coulter (D-Bloomington), who was elected to the House in 2022, says one of Hortman’s strengths was “sensing the political moment, and sort of being there to do the work and respond to what folks were telling us.” He described her as always “ready to go on,” no matter the struggle or emergency; ready to “roll up her sleeves and get to work, and not to expect anybody to do anything she wouldn’t do herself.”
The 2026 Legislative session
The most recent legislative session was not short on struggles. With a divided House, led by Republican Rep. Lisa Demuth–who is now running for governor–Representative Brad Tabke (D-Shakopee) said it was hard for Democrats to make headway on key legislation.
This year’s session also came one year after House Republicans took the gavel and made Demuth the speaker, despite not having the majority votes to do so.
Representative Kristi Pursell (D-Northfield), who’s served in the House since 2023, said Democrats “knew Republicans were going to try and seize power.” Democrats left their seats empty for weeks until a decision was made to appoint co-speakers of the 67-67 tied House: Demuth and Hortman.
According to Coulter, the 2026 legislative session was made especially difficult thanks to the federal administration “that just seems sort of hell-bent on, quite honestly, making Minnesotans’ lives as miserable as possible.” He specifically wonders how Hortman would have responded to the hardships Minnesota has been through since her death, like Operation Metro Surge. Hortman would “be right there, stepping up to protect our neighbors, protect our undocumented neighbors, and making sure that they can live their lives and contribute to our state,” Coulter said of his former colleague.
She also would have called for Democrats to do more to protect the state’s immigrant population from the federal government’s interference, her former colleagues suggested.
Still, Tabke—who was a close friend of Hortman’s—emphasized that Democrats got more done than they thought they would. He listed saving HCMC and passing a bonding bill as huge accomplishments that Hortman would have been proud of, adding that she “was a huge believer in infrastructure and the nuts and bolts of government, making sure that we’re doing the right things for people.”
Tabke credited Minnesota House DFL Leader Zack Stephenson and the legislature’s Democratic body for “how we got this done and how we got moving forward,” but also said the late Hortman’s leadership of the party had a lot to do with it as well. “Melissa developed leaders that she believed in,” he said. “The reason why we were able to hold things together after just such a tragedy was because she built and invested in and cared about leaders.”
Carrying on Hortman’s policies
Looking ahead to the next legislative session and beyond, DFL House lawmakers are placing particular emphasis on the policies their late colleague carried forward, such as her love for trees, push for more sustainable energy like solar, and sensible gun reform.
Gun reform
The tied House left Republicans with the stopping power to kill bills before they went to the Senate or governor for signage. Bills banning assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines did not pass, despite a days-long sit-in protest by Democrats.
Just two months after the Hortman killings, as well as the shootings of Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette by the same gunman, a mass shooting took place at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. The shooter killed two children and injured 28 others before taking their own life. Tabke says Hortman would be “extremely p*ssed at us” for not getting any gun reform legislation passed this session, not “because she and Mark and Gilbert were assassinated by a gun, but that for those kids that were killed.”
Sustainable environment
Tabke said Hortman also cared deeply about the environment, energy, and trees.
With the construction of the new State Office Building (SBO) on track for next year–which may eventually be named after Hortman–Tabke said Minnesotans will see plenty of trees being planted at the site. He says some of the last meetings he had with her were talking about getting trees planted at the new SBO, which he says is “a legacy that will live for hundreds of years, and our kids will see those things.”
Pursell added that Hortman was “known as the tree lady,” a title that has since passed on to Representative Leigh Finke (D-St. Paul). “I think that was such a beautiful kind of handing off the baton,” Pursell noted, adding that many of the House DFL members got a tree tattoo in Hortman’s honor, such as Pursell’s white pine tree piece, and Finke’s conifer tree piece.
In regard to solar energy, the Minnesota Legislature chose to rename the state Community Solar Garden Program after Hortman this year. Pursell said this was Hortman’s “baby, and she was so proud when she was chair of the energy committee.” Minnesota has a goal of 100% clean energy by 2040, and Pursell said this wouldn’t be possible without Hortman’s efforts.
Tabke is also working to label the State Capitol as a state park. He said Hortman wanted park rangers “teaching kids about solar panels and be teaching kids and school groups that come to the Capitol about the importance of having shade cover.” Tabke said Hortman knew that there was little infrastructure to keep people shaded when it comes to Capitol rallies and events, and that more trees and resources from state park status could help remedy the issue.
Lawmaker wellbeing
Minnesota’s state legislature is only in-session part-time, meaning they have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. With this task comes long hours and little sleep, despite holding the responsibility of making the laws that govern Minnesotans.
Pursell says Hortman cared so deeply for the institution, staff, members, and their families, that she always “tried to make it a less brutal workplace for us.” Hortman helped cap the House hours to midnight in 2019, so lawmakers wouldn’t debate into the middle of the night. “If you’re legislating at three, four in the morning after starting 12 to 15 hours earlier, you’re probably not making the best decisions. So she did it in a way to care for our people, so we weren’t making silly avoidable mistakes because we hadn’t slept and things like that,” Pursell said.
Tabke agreed, and tells the story of Hortman wiping down the DFL conference table at all times, so lawmakers could have a clean place to work in because “that’s what she always did, she was always taking care of us.” He said lawmakers need to continue this effort to “treat each other like human beings.”
Moving forward
All three lawmakers relished their time working alongside Hortman and said the lessons they learned from that experience would stay with them throughout their careers. Tabke called working with Hortman an honor and said that she saw the role of the House DFL clearly: to “push Minnesota to be better, take the next steps, and take care of our neighbors.”
But Pursell added that Hortman would“not expect flowers, she would just be like, ‘That’s my job.’” And while House Democrats still disagree, Pursell said that they now “try and keep it together for Minnesotans, and to do our job, and that was really important to Melissa.”
Further, she said, Hortman emphasized to all members of the party that, “you are a team player, you respect people’s humanity, you’re not disrespectful,” something she said that Republicans in the Minnesota House “just did not understand.”
As they look ahead to the midterm elections, the lawmakers see just what’s at stake. Coulter said it’s about “winning elections and then using that sort of political power…continuing to hold each other accountable, to do our best to deliver on the things that we said we were going to do on the campaign trail.” Ultimately, as he said Hortman knew best, “it’s about the future and doing it right by people.”
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