Hundreds gather to remember prominent Minnesota lawmaker and husband slain in their home
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Hundreds of people, some clutching candles or carrying flowers to lay in front of a memorial, gathered outside Minnesota's Capitol on Wednesday evening for a vigil to remember a prominent state lawmaker and her husband who were gunned down at their home.
As a brass quintet from the Minnesota Orchestra played, Gov. Tim Walz wiped away tears and comforted attendees at the gathering for former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, who were killed early Saturday in the northern Minneapolis suburbs.
Colin Hortman, the Hortmans' son, embraced Walz and lay a photo of his parents on the memorial.
The memorial, which sprang up outside the Capitol after the killings, features flowers, American flags, photos and sticky notes with such messages as, 'Thank you for always believing in me and in Minnesota' and 'We got this from here. Thank you for everything.'
Wednesday's vigil also included a Native American drum circle, a string quartet and the crowd singing 'Amazing Grace.'
Around the gathering, there was a heavy police presence, with law enforcement blocking off streets leading up to the Capitol and state troopers standing guard.
The event didn't include a speaking program and attendees were instructed not to bring signs of any kind.
The man charged in federal and state court with killing the Hortmans, Vance Boelter, is also accused of shooting another Democratic lawmaker, Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, at their home a few miles away in Champlin. They survived and are recovering. Federal prosecutors have declined to speculate about a motive.
Boelter's attorneys have declined to comment on the charges.
Hortman had served as the top House Democratic leader since 2017, and six years as speaker, starting in 2019. Under a power-sharing deal after the 2024 election left the House tied, her title became speaker emerita and Republican Rep. Lisa Demuth became speaker.
Walz has described Hortman as his closest political ally and 'the most consequential Speaker in state history.'
The Hortmans were alumni of the University of Minnesota, which held a midday memorial gathering on the Minneapolis campus.
Rebecca Cunningham, the university's president, spoke during the event about the grief and outrage people are grappling with along with questions about how things got to this point.
'I don't have the answers to these questions but I know that finding answers starts with the coming together in community as we are today,' she said.
Funeral information for the Hortmans has not been announced.
Vancleave and Golden write for the Associated Press. Golden reported from Seattle. AP writer Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis contributed to this report.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
24 minutes ago
- New York Post
‘60 Minutes' Kamala Harris interview at center of Trump lawsuit runs afoul of Cronkite-era CBS guidelines
The infamous '60 Minutes' interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris that sparked President Donald Trump's $20 billion 'election interference' lawsuit conflicted with Walter Cronkite-era CBS News guidelines. Cronkite, who was the face of 'CBS Evening News' from 1962 to 1981, was the premier anchorman of America's golden age of network news. In 1976, at the height of Cronkite's reign as 'the most trusted man in America,' CBS News president Richard Salant penned a 76-page document outlining CBS News standards. Advertisement Page 58 is focused on editing and suggests the '60 Minutes' interview at the center of Trump's lawsuit against CBS News would have been frowned upon during the Cronkite era. 'The objective of the editing process is to produce a clear and succinct statement which reflects fairly, honestly and without distortion what was seen and heard by our reporters, cameras and microphones,' Salant wrote in the 1976 document, which has come to the attention of the Trump legal team. Trump's lawsuit alleges CBS News deceitfully edited an exchange Harris had with '60 Minutes' correspondent Bill Whitaker, who asked her why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn't 'listening' to the Biden administration. Harris was criticized for the 'word salad' answer that aired in a preview clip of the interview on 'Face the Nation.' 3 60 Minutes election special, Bill Whitaker asks Vice President Kamala Harris how she'll fund her economic plan and how she'd get it through Congress. 60 Minutes / CBS Advertisement However, when the same question aired during a primetime special on the network, she gave a different, more concise response. Critics at the time accused CBS News of editing her answer to shield the Democratic nominee from further backlash leading up to Election Day. The raw transcript and footage released earlier this year by the FCC showed that both sets of Harris' comments came from the same lengthy response, but CBS News had aired only the first half of her response in the 'Face the Nation' preview clip and aired the second half during the primetime special. 3 Trump's lawsuit alleges CBS News deceitfully edited an exchange Harris had with '60 Minutes' correspondent Bill Whitaker. 60 Minutes / CBS CBS News, which has denied any wrongdoing and stands by the broadcast and its reporting, did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital when asked if the Cronkite-era standards have changed. Advertisement 'If more than one excerpt from a speech or statement is included in a documentary broadcast, the order of their inclusion in the broadcast will be the same as the order of their inclusion in the speech or statement, unless the broadcast specifically indicates otherwise,' Salant wrote in the 1976 CBS News Standards guide. When Cronkite died in 2009 at age 92, his Associated Press obituary said the famed anchor 'valued accuracy, objectivity and understated compassion' and 'always aimed to be fair and professional in his judgments' regardless of personal views on a topic. 3 Photograph of Walter Cronkite in the year 1950, doing the 6 o'clock news at WTOP-TV in Washington, D.C., taken from the book 'A Reporter's Life'. 12.18.96 Two polls pronounced Cronkite the 'most trusted man in America': a 1972 'trust index' survey in which he finished No. 1, about 15 points higher than leading politicians, and a 1974 survey in which people chose him as the most trusted television newscaster, according to the AP. Advertisement Salant, who was running CBS News when '60 Minutes' was launched, was lauded by The New York Times when he died in 1993. Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post's signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here! 'He was credited with raising professional standards and expanding news programming at CBS,' the Times wrote. CBS News, along with parent company Paramount, are currently in mediation with hopes of settling with Trump. The mediator recently proposed the network end the president's $20 billion lawsuit with a $20 million settlement, according to the Wall Street Journal. Last month, Trump rejected Paramount's $15 million settlement offer as he sought at least a $25 million payout as well as an apology. According to the Wall Street Journal, Paramount 'isn't prepared' to give one.
Politico
33 minutes ago
- Politico
Louisiana hospitals warn Mike Johnson of 'devastation' from megabill
Senate Republicans released updated megabill text late Friday that would make sharp cuts to the Inflation Reduction Act's solar and wind tax credits after a late-stage push by President Donald Trump to crack down further on the incentives. The text would require solar and wind generation projects seeking to qualify for the law's clean electricity production and investment tax credits to be placed in service by the end of 2027 — significantly more restrictive than an earlier proposal by the Senate Finance Committee that tied eligibility to when a project begins construction. The changes came after Trump urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune to crack down on the wind and solar credits and align the measure more closely with reconciliation text, H.R.1, that passed the House, as POLITICO reported earlier on Friday. The changes are likely to put some moderate GOP senators, who have backed a slower schedule for sunsetting those incentives, in a tough position. They'll be forced to choose between rejecting Trump's agenda or allowing the gutting of tax credits that could lead to canceled projects and job losses in their states — something renewable energy advocates are also warning about. 'We are literally going to have not enough electricity because Trump is killing solar. It's that serious,' Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) responded on X early Saturday. 'We need a bunch of new power on the grid, and nothing is as available as solar. Everything else takes a while. Meantime, expect shortages and high prices. Stupid.' The revised text would retain the investment and production tax credits for baseload sources, such as nuclear, geothermal, hydropower or energy storage, as proposed in the Finance Committee's earlier proposal. But it would make other significant changes, including extending a tax credit for clean hydrogen production until 2028. The panel's earlier proposal would have eliminated the credit after this year. And despite vocal lobbying by the solar industry, the proposal would maintain an abrupt cut to the tax incentive supporting residential solar power. The committee's earlier proposal would have eliminated that credit six months after the enactment of the bill; now the updated draft proposes repealing it at the end of this year. It would also deny certain wind and solar leasing arrangements from accessing the climate law's clean electricity investment and production tax credits, but, in a notable change, removed earlier language specifically disallowing rooftop solar. And it would move up the timeline for certain rules barring foreign entities of concern from accessing those credits. The bill would move up the termination date for electric vehicle tax credits to Sept. 30, compared to six months after enactment in the earlier Finance text. The credit for EV chargers would extend through June 2026. The new text also provides a bonus incentive for advanced nuclear facilities built in communities with high levels of employment in the nuclear industry. And the bill makes metallurgical coal eligible for the advanced manufacturing production tax credit through 2029. Sam Ricketts, co-founder of S2 Strategies, a clean energy policy consulting group, said the new draft is going to 'screw' ratepayers, kill jobs and undermine U.S. economic competitiveness. 'All just to give fossil fuel executives more profits,' he said. 'Or to own the libs. Insanity.' Josh Siegel contributed to this report.
Politico
33 minutes ago
- Politico
Elon Musk renews megabill attacks
Senate Republicans released updated megabill text late Friday that would make sharp cuts to the Inflation Reduction Act's solar and wind tax credits after a late-stage push by President Donald Trump to crack down further on the incentives. The text would require solar and wind generation projects seeking to qualify for the law's clean electricity production and investment tax credits to be placed in service by the end of 2027 — significantly more restrictive than an earlier proposal by the Senate Finance Committee that tied eligibility to when a project begins construction. The changes came after Trump urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune to crack down on the wind and solar credits and align the measure more closely with reconciliation text, H.R.1, that passed the House, as POLITICO reported earlier on Friday. The changes are likely to put some moderate GOP senators, who have backed a slower schedule for sunsetting those incentives, in a tough position. They'll be forced to choose between rejecting Trump's agenda or allowing the gutting of tax credits that could lead to canceled projects and job losses in their states — something renewable energy advocates are also warning about. 'We are literally going to have not enough electricity because Trump is killing solar. It's that serious,' Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) responded on X early Saturday. 'We need a bunch of new power on the grid, and nothing is as available as solar. Everything else takes a while. Meantime, expect shortages and high prices. Stupid.' The revised text would retain the investment and production tax credits for baseload sources, such as nuclear, geothermal, hydropower or energy storage, as proposed in the Finance Committee's earlier proposal. But it would make other significant changes, including extending a tax credit for clean hydrogen production until 2028. The panel's earlier proposal would have eliminated the credit after this year. And despite vocal lobbying by the solar industry, the proposal would maintain an abrupt cut to the tax incentive supporting residential solar power. The committee's earlier proposal would have eliminated that credit six months after the enactment of the bill; now the updated draft proposes repealing it at the end of this year. It would also deny certain wind and solar leasing arrangements from accessing the climate law's clean electricity investment and production tax credits, but, in a notable change, removed earlier language specifically disallowing rooftop solar. And it would move up the timeline for certain rules barring foreign entities of concern from accessing those credits. The bill would move up the termination date for electric vehicle tax credits to Sept. 30, compared to six months after enactment in the earlier Finance text. The credit for EV chargers would extend through June 2026. The new text also provides a bonus incentive for advanced nuclear facilities built in communities with high levels of employment in the nuclear industry. And the bill makes metallurgical coal eligible for the advanced manufacturing production tax credit through 2029. Sam Ricketts, co-founder of S2 Strategies, a clean energy policy consulting group, said the new draft is going to 'screw' ratepayers, kill jobs and undermine U.S. economic competitiveness. 'All just to give fossil fuel executives more profits,' he said. 'Or to own the libs. Insanity.' Josh Siegel contributed to this report.
