Legislators grapple with grief, tumult after ‘hardest’ year in Minnesota politics

It was hours into a gathering to remember murdered Minnesota DFL Leader Melissa Hortman when the thought occurred to Rep. Mike Howard: She would be so over this.

Hortman, a brass tacks legislator murdered in June in what prosecutors have dubbed a politically motivated attack, wasn’t one for the spotlight. She showed her care though her work, but wasn’t “touchy-feely,” Howard said.

For the colleagues, friends and mentees she left behind, getting to share stories about her created a moment of catharsis in a hellish summer.

“I didn’t realize how much I needed that — to hear from my colleagues funny stories, heartwarming stories," Howard said. He knew Hortman for two decades, starting as a staffer.

Many lawmakers whose legislative service was shaped by her influence are still reeling from the murder of Hortman, as well as the shooting of Sen. John Hoffman.

Lawmakers are also grappling with the recent deaths of two senators, the arrests and resignations of two others and a tumultuous legislative session in which the nation’s most closely divided Legislature worked in fits and starts to balance Minnesota’s budget.

“I’ve never had a year like this in the Legislature,” said Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul. “It is the hardest of my 18, and for me, it is a reminder of how human we are.”

“There’s also the professional side of this — the grief of the loss of the kind of innocence of the process,“ said Rep. Paul Torkelson, R-Hanska. ”We’re used to being exposed to the public and kind of not at all worried about that exposure, but now, you kind of think, it’s in the back of your mind.”

Months before Hortman was killed, the Legislature started its spring session without one of its most revered leaders.

Former Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic, a Democrat who worked alongside Hortman to pass landmark progressive legislation in 2023, died in December from ovarian cancer.

Dziedzic’s loss left a hole in the Senate. Sen. Zaynab Mohamed, DFL-Minneapolis, said Dziedzic was looking out for others even as she was suffering, writing a graduate school recommendation for her only weeks before she died.

“That was the hardest thing, is going into a session that was really hard and not being able to just call her and say like, ‘I’m so upset right now,’” Mohamed said.

It was a blow to the Senate to lose Dziedzic, said Sen. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka.

“Her personality, I think, was such that she engendered the best of the Senate — collegiality, humanity and respect," Abeler said.

Sen. Nick Frentz, DFL-North Mankato, said the loss of Dziedzic meant senators came into the session in January without “the most unselfish leader” he ever saw. But they had to keep moving.

“We’re grieving,” he said, “but we have work to do.”

With 101 Democrats and 100 Republicans — the most narrowly divided Legislature in state history — the parties wrangled all year over control. Opening weeks in the House were marked by partisan skirmishing over the razor-thin margin.

Each time the House or Senate lost a member this spring, Torkelson said, it dramatically slowed the work because the parties were so closely divided.

With the tie in the House and close split in the Senate, work on the budget was arduous. Neither party could advance legislation without support from colleagues on the other side. The Legislature went into overtime to pass the budget in a one-day special session.

Sen. Karin Housley, R-Stillwater, said lawmakers were hoping for stable and normal times after the special session.

“That’s how we ended the session, going, ‘Let’s just put this year behind us and move on,’ and then we had the assassination and shooting,” she said. “And so it flipped on its head again.”

Only a few days after the special session, the Hortman and Hoffman shootings took place.

“What has been striking to a lot of us,” said Rep. Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, who was on the list, “is we are all now survivors of gun violence. This idea that was theoretical for most of us is now a reality for us all that we can understand on a visceral and personal level.”

Only a month later, Sen. Bruce Anderson, R-Buffalo, died unexpectedly at age 75, yet another loss to the Legislature. He had spent decades at the Capitol in the House and Senate.

In the wake of it all, Abeler said he sees his colleagues being kinder to one another. The pendulum swung toward seeing one another’s humanity, he said.

“No one’s quite the same,” Abeler said.

Even as they grieve, lawmakers are trying to honor their departed colleagues by forging ahead.