Melissa Anne Hortman (née Haluptzok) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 61st Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2019 to 2025. A member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), she represented the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities in the Minnesota House for twenty years, from 2005 until her death in June 2025.
Born on May 27, 1970, in Fridley, Minnesota, she grew up in Spring Lake Park and Andover. She became interested in politics at the age of ten while watching coverage of the 1980 presidential election. After graduating from Blaine High School in 1988, she earned a bachelor's degree magna cum laude in philosophy and political science from Boston University, a law degree cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School, and, years later while already a legislative leader, a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Before elected office she interned in the United States Senate for Al Gore and John Kerry, clerked for a judge during law school, worked as an assistant Hennepin County attorney and served on the Brooklyn Park Human Relations Commission. In 1997 she won a $490,181 civil award in a housing discrimination case, then described as the largest such award in Minnesota history.
After unsuccessful runs in 1998 and 2002, she was elected to the Minnesota House in 2004, defeating Republican incumbent Stephanie Olsen, and was reelected every two years after that. She rose steadily through the DFL caucus: assistant majority leader, minority whip, speaker pro tempore and chair of the Energy Policy Committee, deputy minority leader, and then minority leader from 2017. When the DFL won back the House in 2018, her colleagues elected her Speaker, a post she held until January 2025.
Hortman was known for transportation, environmental and clean energy work. She championed the Northstar Commuter Rail line through her district and was the chief author of Minnesota's solar energy standard and its community solar laws. She supported abortion rights, gun control and police reform, and in 2020 helped negotiate a police accountability law that limited chokeholds and created an independent unit to investigate killings by officers. As Speaker during a narrowly divided legislature, she was credited by Governor Tim Walz with shepherding bipartisan budget bills to completion.
In 2025, after leading a quorum boycott at the start of the session, she negotiated a power-sharing agreement and served as DFL Leader alongside Republican Speaker Lisa Demuth. In June 2025 she cast the single deciding DFL vote for a budget compromise provision on MinnesotaCare eligibility.
Away from the Capitol she was a Catholic who taught Sunday school in Blaine, loved gardening and trees, and with her husband Mark helped raise and train dogs to partner with veterans. The couple, married in 1993, lived in Brooklyn Park with their two children, Sophie and Colin, and their golden retriever Gilbert.
In the early hours of June 14, 2025, Melissa and Mark Hortman and their dog Gilbert were shot and killed at their home by a man impersonating a police officer, in what Governor Walz called a politically motivated assassination. Senator John Hoffman and his wife had been wounded earlier that night by the same attacker. She was 55.
She was the first woman to lie in state in the Minnesota State Capitol rotunda, on June 27, 2025, and thousands queued to pay their respects. Her funeral at the Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis the next day was attended by former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris and leaders of both parties. In tribute to her love of gardens, the I-35W bridge was lit green. She is buried at Morningside Memorial Gardens in Coon Rapids, Minnesota.
lit a candle 2h ago
From social media
5Posts by Melissa, and posts about them, kept here so they are not lost.