'It's just tragic': Former Iowa state senator mourns loss of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman
Former Iowa State Sen. Rob Hogg said he is heartbroken over the death of Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman.
Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed in their Brooklyn Park home. Sen. John Hoffman, also a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, were injured at their Champlin address, about nine miles (about 15 kilometers) away.
Authorities were still searching for the suspect, 57-year-old Vance Boelter, as of Sunday evening.
"It's about the worst nightmare you can imagine," Hogg said. "It's just tragic what has happened to her and her husband. And they have two kids who I think are in their 20s because they're about the same age my kids are."
Hogg and Hortman were law school classmates at the University of Minnesota in the 1990s. They both served as minority leaders in their respective legislatures in 2017. Hogg served in the Iowa House from 2003 to 2005, and he served in the Iowa Senate from 2007 to 2021.
"When I think about public servants who are in the legislature for all the right reasons, there would be nobody I would rank ahead of Melissa Hortman," Hogg said.
Hogg said the two kept in touch over the years. It had been more than a year since Hogg saw Hortman in person. Hortman also spoke at the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding fundraiser in 2023 in Clear Lake. Hogg said Hortman was one of the most successful state legislative leaders in the country.
"She was somebody who was in it for the right reasons, who was effective and knew how to get things done and can do it in a way that brought people together," he said. "She deserves a lot of credit for that."
In a statement, Iowa Democratic Wing Ding Board Member Susan Nelson confirmed Hortman was the keynote speaker at their 2023 event. Nelson wrote:
Speaker Melissa Hortman was the keynote speaker at the 2023 Iowa Democratic Wing Ding, shortly after finishing an extraordinary legislative session in which Democrats passed a long list of laws to lift up Minnesota families. In her speech, Speaker Hortman quoted the late Paul Wellstone: “Politics should be about improving people’s lives.” Under her leadership, Democrats in Minnesota made that their mission.
She said they spent two decades listening to Minnesotans in town halls across the state, then running on the issues voters said they cared about. When they finally had Democrats in the majority, they hit the ground running. They invested in child care and public education, provided free breakfast and lunch for all children in school, froze college tuition and made it free for families earning less than $80,000, passed paid family and medical leave, protected reproductive freedom, put Minnesota on a path to a public option in health care, passed multiple climate solutions including requiring 100% clean energy by 2040, universal background checks and red flag laws, and much more.
She said that the work of the Minnesota legislature in the last five months of the 2023 legislative session will have an impact for generations to come. That work is her legacy. In years to come, children in Minnesota will be healthier, better educated, well fed, cared for, and thriving thanks to her leadership. Women will be able to control their own reproductive healthcare. Fewer people will die from gun violence, and much more. Speaker Hortman was an inspirational and brilliant leader, and her loss is devastating. The Iowa Democratic Wing Ding Board sends our condolences to her family and her many friends.
Hortman, 55, had been the top Democratic leader in the state House since 2017. She led House Democrats in a three-week walkout at the beginning of this year's session in a power struggle with Republicans. Under a power-sharing agreement, she turned the gavel over to the top Republican, Rep. Lisa Demuth, and assumed the title speaker emerita.
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