Sturdevant: How Melissa Hortman would have guided us through a moment like this

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Count this among the tragic realizations that yesterday hit those who knew Melissa Hortman:

The Minnesota House speaker emerita would have been among the first at a moment like this to call for order, nonviolence and as much bipartisan action as could reasonably be mustered. She would have been a voice of calm, assuring Minnesotans that their state government is stable and democracy remains sound.

That a leader with that spirit would be the target of an assassin’s bullet in the dark of night is a profound outrage. It’s an affront to much that Minnesotans believe about themselves and their manner of governing this state.

The fact that she was one of two legislators gunned down, and that other elected leaders from her DFL Party were also reportedly on the assassin’s hit list, adds to the horror of his crime.

But knowing she was one of multiple targets does not alter the sense of loss and violation that Hortman’s many admirers feel. That sense could scarcely be larger.

As I told readers on these pages only a few days ago, I was a Hortman fan. That’s been true since I met her in 2002, when she was a young attorney running for the second time for the state House.

As was the case when she first ran in 1998, Hortman didn’t win that year. The third time, in 2004, was the charm. But she won the endorsement of this newspaper’s 2002 Editorial Board. We presciently said that we believed she would be “good from the start” and that she “appears to possess what it takes to grow into an outstanding legislator.”

Hortman lived up to our prediction. She rose to positions of leadership within the DFL caucus early in her tenure. As speaker beginning in 2019, she steadied the House through to the tumult of the COVID pandemic and presided over one of the most fruitful sessions in state history, in 2023.

What will be remembered as her final demonstration of leadership came only last Monday. She — alone among House DFLers — voted with Republicans to end MinnesotaCare eligibility for undocumented immigrants.

She did so because she had given her word to support a bipartisan deal — and, likely, because she had been around long enough to experience two previous state government shutdowns. She knew that a shutdown — especially this year — was much to be avoided.

She also knew that by taking a tough vote, she was granting tacit permission to others in her caucus to vote their consciences. If they took it out on her — well, she was prepared to take the heat. That’s what good stewards of state government do.

Instead, she took a bullet.

Though it’s not known at this writing what motivated the gunman, I’m convinced that, intended or not, one of his targets was representative democracy itself. He did not want the voters of District 34B in Brooklyn Park to have the representative they elected. He took their choice away from them.

And he likely deterred an untold number of potential future leaders from entering the political arena. Who wants to run for office if serving literally puts a target on one’s back?

That fear is palpable in Minnesota today — and it’s worrisome. It strikes at something fundamental about the way Minnesotans govern themselves.

Minnesota’s political culture was built on a belief in widely participatory democracy. This state’s Yankee- and Scandinavian-born founders arrived in the 19th century with the idea that tending the commons is shared work. They wanted lots of hands on the levers of government. They encouraged the best and brightest among them to take a turn in elected office. They treated elected officials with decency and respect.

The bullets that killed Melissa and Mark Hortman and that sorely wounded John and Yvette Hoffman also struck a blow at those ideas.

How severe is that blow? That’s up to all of us who mourn Melissa Hortman today. We would do well to channel her manner of leadership. She would surely be counseling Minnesotans not to abandon democracy or public service out of fear.

Lori Sturdevant is a retired Star Tribune editorial writer. She is at lsturdevant@startribune.com.