Couple eulogized as ‘extraordinary public servants’

More than 1,000 people gathered Saturday morning at the Basilica of St. Mary to remember Melissa and Mark Hortman, who were shot and killed in their home in mid-June in what officials have called an act of political violence.

State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were also shot and seriously injured on the same night.

Gov. Tim Walz and Hortman family friend Robin Ann Williams delivered eulogies for the couple, while the Reve. Dan Griffith gave the homily during the traditional Catholic Mass.

Below are selected portions of the eulogies and speeches during the Hortmans’ service on Saturday:

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here to help us celebrate the lives of two extraordinary public servants.

Melissa Hortman will be remembered as the most consequential speaker in Minnesota history – and I’ll always remember her as a close friend, a mentor, and the most talented legislator I’ve ever known. For seven years, I’ve had the privilege of signing her bills into law. And I know that millions of Minnesotans will get to live better lives because she and Mark chose public service.

More kids in pre-K, fewer in poverty. More schools with the tools and teachers they need, fewer with hungry students.

More trees in the ground and clean energy coursing through the grid, fewer roads and bridges at risk of failure.

More people in safe and secure housing, fewer worrying about how to manage caring for their loved ones.

That’s the legacy Mark and Melissa will leave behind for all Minnesotans. But there’s a part of the story that belongs only to those of us fortunate enough to know the people behind that legacy.

That part of the story doesn’t take place in some freezing, dimly-lit room at the Capitol. It takes place at CR’s Billiards, where Mark loved to shoot pool on Monday nights. It takes place in the garden, where Melissa fussed over her lilies like they were wayward members of the caucus. It takes place in the kitchen, where Mark fed his sourdough starter and Melissa mixed margaritas and baked cakes and Gilbert begged for scraps and the sound of laughter filled the air.

Look, Melissa was an extraordinary legislator. And Mark was her proudest supporter, through her early electoral defeats to the height of her power as Speaker. But it’s easy sometimes to forget that, for all its significance, politics is made up of people. That’s all it is. Just a bunch of human beings doing their best.

Melissa understood that. She saw the humanity in everyone she worked with, and kept everyone focused on the people we serve. Her mission was to get as much good done for as many people as possible. It was the Golden Rule instilled in her by her father, and the passion to serve she learned from her mother. Mark’s focus was people, too. It’s no surprise Melissa and Mark met mentoring a student in Washington, D.C., or what a beloved friend and colleague he was. Though, admittedly, with Mark, I was always looking to ask him for tech tips or about 80s music first.

That focus on people is what made Melissa so effective. She knew how to get her way, no doubt about it. But she never made anyone feel like they’d gotten rolled at the negotiating table. That wasn’t part of it for her. She didn’t need someone else to lose to know she’d won.

I know that, in times of seemingly inexplicable tragedy, people often search for some kind of meaning, some kind of lesson we can learn as we process our loss. And maybe this is a moment when each of us can examine the way we work together, the way we talk about each other, the way we fight for the things we care about. A moment when each of us can recommit to engaging in politics and life the way Mark and Melissa did – fiercely, enthusiastically, heartily, but without ever losing sight of our common humanity.

But let’s not do it because of the way Mark and Melissa died. Let’s do it because of the way they lived, and the way they led. With joy and passion. With respect and empathy. With purpose and humility.

We won’t always get it right. After all, we’re only human. But the best way to honor these remarkable Minnesotans is to continue the work of building a state equal to their aspirations and a politics worthy of their example.

Sophie and Colin, I know you’ve heard it countless times since June 14, but your parents adored you and were proud of you. You’ve always carried yourselves well and your dignity and grace over the last two weeks has been tremendous. The apples did not fall far from the trees.

I also door-knocked Melissa during her first runs for the state House and the politicians in here know I mean door-knocked, not lit-dropped. We door-knocked. At first, it was a bit of a political terrain for Melissa, but she was undaunted. She always told voters when she disagreed with them, but I never saw incivility. More often than not, they would smile at Melissa and wave as she walked away from their front doors. Melissa would tell me when she thought someone was not going to vote for her, but in watching her interactions with voters, I wasn’t so sure she was always right.

In 2006, my husband, Paul, and I got married at Melissa’s parents house and the three musketeers became four. We did what friends do: We ate together, we watched the Super Bowl, we celebrated birthdays and we traveled. Melissa’s parents, Harry and Linda, have a best friend couple too, and I think that Melissa, Mark, Paul and I subconsciously emulated them. As my husband said this week, Melissa and Mark were the easiest friendships you could have.

The four of us were pretty casual about making plans. One of us would text to propose dinner that evening or that weekend, and we would see each other. Usually, the only nos we got were when Melissa had a political event, but Mark would join us if he wasn’t going, or when Mark or Melissa’s extended families were in town for a visit. We’ve heard it already, billiards nights and poker nights were off limits for Mark. And, also mentioned, Mark and Melissa belonged to the gourmet supper club comprising Melissa’s law school friends and their spouses. Those evenings held a sacrosanct position on Mark and Melissa’s calendars.

The heart of Mark and Melissa’s house was their kitchen. In the last two years, they remodeled their kitchen, and they loved it. Prior to the remodel, Melissa asked me to come over to help her pick paint colors for the kitchen. And when I arrived, I was met with no fewer than 15 paint samples, all of which were beige. Melissa spent hours deciding what color of beige to paint her kitchen. Mark and Melissa had remodeled the mud room adjoining the kitchen the year before, and the discussion really devolved when Melissa asked me if the beige in the mudroom was going to clash with the beige in the kitchen. And Mark watched all of this with great amusement as I tried to convince Melissa to paint her kitchen any color other than beige. Mark told me that she would never go for it, and he was right. Mark and Melissa were colorful people in many ways, but their kitchen is to this day, beige.

Melissa’s career took off through the 2000s and I always saw her as a balloon — bouncing around, but still tethered to the earth by Mark. During President Biden’s administration, she was invited twice to the White House, and off she would go, or she would bounce over to a Uniform Law Commission meeting or to the governor’s mansion. And then Melissa would come back to us and we would get together for takeout Indian food.

Early after their deaths, I heard Governor Walz say that Melissa had brought the book “Getting to Yes” to a high level negotiation. Mark Hortman did not need to read that book. Mark was game for anything. He loved accompanying Melissa on her political trips. They were last at the White House in December 2024 for a holiday reception for state legislators. Mark honed in on the important stuff and told us that the Christmas cookies at the White House were excellent. He went to the 2024 Democratic National Convention with Melissa. Paul and I asked for real time updates, and Mark texted us photographs and texts throughout the evening, and they would bring souvenirs home to me and Paul. Hershey’s kisses from the White House or campaign signs from the National Convention.

But Mark was also happy to stay at home. He was engaged in his own career and hobbies. As we’ve referenced, his newest interest was baking sourdough bread, which tasted a lot better than his homemade beer. He was always proud of Melissa, and vice versa, and they were never jealous of each other. Even in this day and age, a lot of men would be intimidated by, and I suspect were intimidated, by Melissa’s formidable political talents and achievements, but not Mark. He’d wait for us, wait for Melissa, our balloon, to come back home, and then we would have drinks on the deck.

I feel like the universe had our backs a little bit during our last dinner together. It was June 6, and the governor had just called for a one-day special session of the legislature to pass Minnesota’s budget bills. Melissa wanted Italian food, and we ended up at a little restaurant in Robbinsdale, recommended to her by a staff member. It was unusually chilly for a June day, but we toughed it out and we sat outside. Throughout dinner, Melissa would get up to take a call from the governor’s chief of staff or from legislators. Now, if I were sitting at dinner with friends and the governor called me, I’d be like, “The governor’s on the phone!” But not Melissa.

Melissa did this without any pretense or drama, and Mark was nonplussed. While she was gone on the phone, he’d lean back in his chair, he’d put his arm on the armrest, prop his feet up against the chair legs, and we just kept talking about the stuff we liked to talk about: dogs, kids and politics. We ordered one dessert that night with four spoons. And at 8:30 p.m., which was always Melissa’s witching hour, she announced that it was time for her to go home and go to bed.

As we walked to our cars in the chill of that June night, I thought to myself about what a lovely dinner we had had, and how Paul and I looked forward to many more dinners this summer with Mark and Melissa.

I thought to close my remarks today with a quote from a song, but Melissa liked ABBA and Mark liked Led Zeppelin, and it takes a smarter person than I am to reconcile those two musical traditions. Instead, I’d like to read something from my father’s funeral. My father died unexpectedly in 2004 in Maryland. Melissa Hortman dropped everything to fly to Maryland to be with me, and Mark Hortman caught everything so she could be with her friend.

From Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet.” “Some of you say joy is greater than sorrow, and others say, nay, sorrow is the greater. But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”

We are buried in sorrow right now, but I do believe that we will experience joy again and Mark and Melissa would not want it any other way. Goodbye, my friends.

Sophie and Colin rightly have communicated that this funeral Mass should be a celebration of the lives of Mark and Melissa, and it’s always a celebration at the Mass of God’s love and grace. Indeed, they lived lives with purpose and meaning. Lives lived in service of others, in community with those they loved, their family and their friends.

In a recent email exchange with a prominent Catholic layman from the United States, he said, our nation is in need of deep healing. I could not agree more. It seems as if we are living in the dystopian reality in the beginning of William Butler Yeats poem, “The Second Coming.” Yeats’ poem ends in hope. Hope is present here.

Here in Minnesota, we have been the ground zero place, sadly, for racial injustice, the killing of George Floyd just miles from our church today, and now we are the ground zero place for political violence and extremism. Both of these must be decried in the strongest possible terms, as they are, respectively, a threat to human dignity and indeed our democracy.

Sadly, racial disparities, some of the most acute in the country, persist here in Minnesota with modest gains in some areas and widening gaps in others over the last five years. But friends ... Minnesotans, this can be a ground zero place for restoration and justice and healing, but we must work together, and there is much more work to be done. Your presence here is a sign that we can do that work.

In meeting with Mark and Melissa’s family and in exchanges with friends and colleagues, two things stood out powerfully. There were two lights that guided their life: service and community. … Service and community are antidotes to our present afflictions as a state and as a nation.

They met in service, a great story. Upon first meeting, they were assigned to the same student. Now there is some information that Mark might have seen an opportunity and moved in. Some would say this was serendipity. I would say that it was God’s providence.

It was no wonder Mark and Melissa paired so beautifully. They shared similar values and interests. A rich humanity both manifested a dynamic pairing of head and heart.

Catholic social teaching conveys that authority should always be oriented to the common good. It is not about self and aggrandizement, but always in service of the common good. And what is the common good? Hoping to promote flourishing, personal and collective flourishing, with always care for those on the margins. Melissa manifested a servant’s heart in her work as a legislator.

The family told me that their neighborhood was and is an extraordinary place of community, and Mark and Melissa were the first to really foster that community.

And they enjoyed time on the deck with each other, having happy hour. They enjoyed friends. It was called the Hortman Hotel; everybody was welcome. Card games, monthly card games were a wonderful thing that was part of Mark’s life. And then gourmet dinners with their law school friends monthly. Now I have a pretty busy life; I’m also a professor at St. Thomas law school. I can’t believe how Melissa and Mark lived community with that degree of intentionality. It’s a beautiful thing.

They shared love for travel, other pursuits. Mark was described by his children as a hobbyist with a curious mind. He loved mountain biking and also making furniture. Colin told a beautiful story — that they had an opportunity to make furniture together, that one day, Colin and his fiancé’s children will be able to sit on … The children talked of his big smile, Mark, the cheesy dad jokes and having an indomitable spirit.

There is the story of Gilbert, the dog. They took in dogs and trained one successfully to go on to be a service dog. The other, Gilbert, had quite an attachment to Melissa, no doubt because she fed him many, many dog treats. And so finally, when Gilbert had to go into service, Melissa was wrecked and emotional, and the family wonders if Gilbert maybe failed that assignment on purpose so he could head back to the Hortman house.

The Hortman home and their commitment to intentional communities is a contrast to the idol of autonomy at all costs in our American culture, individualism and loneliness that many suffer from.