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By Chris Boyette, CNN
(CNN) — A dedicated volunteer who taught Sunday school and loved dogs. A lawyer who served as a Girl Scout leader and worked at her dad’s auto parts store. A mother and wife whose husband was killed alongside her. Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman was more than just the state House’s top Democrat, according to those who knew her.
She “was a bright shining light of a human being,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, who went to law school with Hortman, said in a post on X.
Hortman and her husband Mark were shot and killed Saturday morning at their Brooklyn Park home in “a politically motivated assassination,” Gov. Tim Walz said. The suspect, Vance Boelter, is on the run, officials said.
Hortman, a “formidable public servant,” will be remembered as a giant in Minnesota, Walz said.
“A lifelong resident of the northern suburbs,” Hortman, 55, grew up in Spring Lake Park and Andover, according to a previous campaign page. She graduated from Blaine High School, about 24 miles north of the Minnesota state Capitol where she would later serve as speaker of the house.
Hortman worked for then-Senators Al Gore and John Kerry after graduating from Boston College before returning to Minnesota to get her law degree at the University of Minnesota, according to the campaign website and her profile on the Minnesota Legislature website.
Gore said he was “horrified” and “appalled” by Hortman’s assassination, the latest in a string of violence against elected officials.
He said in a post on X Hortman had a lasting impact on him, his team, and “many others who worked with her throughout her impactful career as a public servant and leading climate advocate.”
A member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Hortman was elected to the state House of Representatives in 2004, and represented District 34B in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis. She served as Speaker of the House from 2019 to 2025 and was DFL Leader when she was killed, according to her legislative profile.
A previous campaign page touted her 2013 efforts to enact Minnesota’s solar energy standard and community solar laws, and said she was “particularly active in the areas of transportation, K-12 education funding, higher education, energy, and the environment.”
Hortman was also involved with equity and inclusion in Brooklyn Park, the suburb where she lived and died, serving on what is now known as the Brooklyn Park Human Rights Commission, according to her campaign bio.
“She was wise, she was caring, she was brilliant and her smile lifted people up in a good times and helped them through the bad,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who knew Hortman for over 20 years, said in a statement.
The state House’s Republican leader, Speaker Lisa Demuth, said Hortman was “respected by everyone at the Capitol.”
“She has had a profound impact on this institution and on my own leadership… We worked together for the last several years to build a strong relationship based on our shared values and our commitment to making our state better,” Demuth said in a statement.
After the 2022 midterm elections, Hortman told CNN affiliate WCCO “choice, climate, gun violence prevention and protecting democracy” would be priorities for the Minnesota state legislature.
Legislation on abortion protections, she said at the time, would be “one of the first if not the first bill passed.”
Hortman co-authored recent bills concerning reproductive health care, gender-affirming health care, a state health care public option, and paid family leave among other issues.
On Saturday, investigators found a hit list in Boelter’s car with nearly 70 names, including abortion providers, pro-abortion rights advocates and lawmakers in Minnesota and other states, a law enforcement official briefed on the matter told CNN.
CNN has learned all the Democratic members of Minnesota’s Congressional delegation were on the suspect’s alleged target list, according to a law enforcement source.
“Melissa was a good friend and we started in politics at the same time and were always there for each other. She was a true public servant to the core, dedicating her life to serving Minnesotans with integrity and compassion,” Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar wrote in a post on X.
“Melissa’s legacy will endure, but today we grieve deeply.”
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A ‘formidable public servant.’ Who was Melissa Hortman, the Minnesota state representative assassinated in her home? News Channel 3-12.
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