Former US President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris were amongst more than 1,000 mourners who on Saturday attended the funeral of Democratic former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman.
She had been shot to death two weeks earlier by a man posing as a police officer in an attack that Minnesota’s chief federal prosecutor has called an assassination.
Her husband Mark was also killed in the attack, with a state senator and his wife also being seriously injured.
“Melissa Hortman will be remembered as the most consequential speaker in Minnesota history. I get to remember her as a close friend, a mentor and the most talented legislator I have ever known,” said governor Tim Walz in his eulogy.
“For seven years, I have had the privilege of signing her agenda into law. I know millions of Minnesotans get to live their lives better because she and Mark chose public service and politics.”
Hortman helped pass an expansive agenda of liberal initiatives including free lunches for public school students along with expanded protections for abortion and trans rights.
Dozens of current and former state legislators from both parties and other elected officials who worked with Hortman also attended the funeral.
The man accused of killing the Hortmans at their home in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park on June 14, and wounding Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, at their home in nearby Champlin, made a brief court appearance Friday. He's due back in court Thursday.
