In Minnesota, where parties must work together, lawmakers push back on Washington rhetoric

When some prominent national Republicans and conservative commentators posted misinformation and insensitive comments about the recent assasination of former Minnesota Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman, Minnesota lawmakers on both sides of the aisle had a message for them.

Knock it off.

“I suggest you take just a pause, though, and have just a bit of empathy for the many people touched by the horrible crimes committed in Minnesota on Saturday,” Minnesota House GOP Floor Leader Harry Niska responded to one conservative commentator on X.

The united, bipartisan pushback tapped into a part of Minnesota political culture that has been born over decades out of necessity: Voters more often than not send divided representation to the Legislature, meaning both sides often have to sit in the same room and work together.

“While you see people like [President] Donald Trump always seem to be throwing fuel on the fire in Minnesota, we’ve worked really hard to have a different political culture,” Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said.

Hortman and her husband Mark were killed in their home early Saturday, and Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, are recovering after being shot multiple times. A 57-year-old Green Isle, Minn., man faces multiple murder and attempted murder charges after being caught in a massive weekend manhunt that shook the state.

The events also rattled even the most partisan operators at the Minnesota Capitol. Rep. Walter Hudson, R-Albertville, a conservative firebrand, said he was forced to rethink the consequences of political rhetoric.

“It’s definitely something I’ve been thinking about more over time,” Hudson told the Star Tribune. “And this is one of the most profound examples as to why that’s important.”

Hudson was one of the first Minnesota Republicans to condemn widely derided posts from Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Lee. The Utah senator said in one now-deleted post over the weekend: “This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way,” spreading an unfounded claim that the alleged gunman, Vance Boelter, had liberal ties.

Minnesota’s two Democratic U.S. senators also criticized Lee over the posts, which he eventually deleted. Sen. Tina Smith confronted Lee in person and Klobuchar called him to express her concerns.

“I’m glad he took them down, took them both down,” Klobuchar told the Star Tribune. “I told him that this is not funny to our constituents.”

Minnesota’s Legislature is one of only three divided statehouses in the nation, and it’s never been more closely split than it is now. With the death of Hortman, the Legislature has exactly 100 Democrats and 100 Republicans pending a special election to replace her.

Hortman led the DFL caucus for years but still forged relationships across the aisle.

As a Republican legislative staffer more than a decade ago, Bill Walsh remembered privately sharing legislative strategy with Hortman to find out if either of them were going to get home to their kids before bedtime.

“‘How many amendments does your side have left?’ ‘Is this the last bill for the night?’” Walsh, who now leads the Center of the American Experiment in Minnesota, remembered in a recent blog post. “I’m not trying to claim we were close friends. We weren’t. Just that we shared this bit of humanity as co-workers at the State Capitol.”

Paul Gazelka served as Republican Senate majority leader between 2017 and 2021 during a period of split control of state government and the COVID-era lockdowns and protests. He, Hortman and Walz hammered out difficult budget deals and compromised on police reform legislation after the death of George Floyd, Gazelka said.

Gazelka said he would sometimes take heat from conservatives who’d ask him how he could work with “this liberal person that did all these terrible things.” His answer, he said, was that he and Hortman were both bonded by traumatic events that rocked the state, likening their experience to that of World War II soldiers.

“As a result of that, we actually just became good friends,” he said.

After Minnesota Democrats had taken full control of state government in late 2022, Hortman, then the House speaker, reached out to then-minority leader Lisa Demuth, a Republican.

“She said, ‘I’d like to meet weekly with you to start building that working relationship,’” Demuth remembered this week. “That really stood out to me because she didn’t have to do that.”

The two women worked closely together through the 2025 session, bonding over a love for Cheetos in tense, lengthy closed-door negotiations over the state budget. They were ultimately successful, passing a $66 billion two-year budget with tight margins.

Without the working relationship Hortman had cultivated years earlier, Demuth said, the already difficult 2025 session would’ve been a lot harder. Demuth called Hortman a “colleague, leaning toward a friend.”

In the nation’s capital, rhetoric is heightened and lawmakers who relish partisan brawling tend to get the most attention. While many Republican state lawmakers have condemned Lee, the state’s congressional delegation has remained silent about the senator’s posts.

“I think the federal delegation serves the interests of their national party and the brand under which they run,” newly elected DFL Chair Richard Carlbom said. “And I think the state lawmakers in Minnesota knew Melissa Hortman, very, very close and personally, and are probably as outraged at the misinformation as a lot of my friends are.”

Trump has made headlines for refusing to call Walz in the wake of the tragedy. Days before the shooting, Walz was in the hot seat at a House Oversight Committee hearing in Washington over sanctuary polices. He was repeatedly interrupted by Republican lawmakers, including fellow Minnesotans Tom Emmer and Pete Stauber.

“That was particularly heated. It was very unusual between two members of the same delegation,” said former Republican Congressman Vin Weber.

Though Minnesota’s Republican delegation in Congress has not addressed Lee’s posts, Democratic U.S. Rep. Kelly Morrison of Minnesota said she is proud that the entire delegation got together quickly to condemn the violence.

“I hope very much that they will do that, and the American people should expect that,” Morrison said.