Attorney General Ellison sends open letter on start of legislative session

To the members of the Minnesota Legislature and the people of Minnesota,

Today, as we open a new legislative session, our hearts are heavy with grief. We come together not only to govern, but to remember and honor the extraordinary life and service of our friend and colleague, Speaker Emeritus Melissa Hortman. The tragic and senseless violence that took her life, along with her husband’s and their family dog’s, has left a wound in the conscience of our state. We mourn her deeply even as we celebrate the legacy she built through a lifetime of service to the people of Minnesota.

I first met Melissa when she was a young legal aid lawyer, long before either of us held elected office. At the time, I was serving as Executive Director of the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis, and we both worked on behalf of a woman named Stormy Harmon, a Black mother of three whose landlord refused to repair a dangerously failing furnace in her Minneapolis duplex. Forced from her home, Ms. Harmon and her children faced not only homelessness, but racist harassment and threats from the landlord who should have provided them safe housing.

Melissa took that case with the tenacity and heart that defined her entire career. As a housing attorney with Legal Aid, she sued on Ms. Harmon’s behalf and proved that the landlord had engaged in race-based discrimination in violation of Minnesota law. She won what was, at the time, the largest jury award for race-based housing discrimination in Minnesota history: roughly $490,000 in damages for Ms. Harmon and her children. This stunning victory that helped change the trajectory of that family’s life. Before either one of us held public office, Melissa Hortman was already fighting and winning for people who needed a champion. That is who she was at her core.

As a legislator and as Speaker, Melissa brought the same courage, intellect, and compassion to her public service that she brought to her clients. She fought for working people, for clean air and water, for public education, and for fairness and equality in every corner of Minnesota. She listened deeply, led boldly, and never lost sight of the humanity in every issue that came before this body.

In this moment of loss, we can honor Melissa best by continuing her work of building a government that serves the common good. Her early fight for Stormy Harmon’s family reminds us that justice is not abstract; it is about whether a mother and her children can sleep safely in their home, whether the law protects them equally, and whether someone will stand up when their rights are denied. Melissa taught us that empathy is a strength, that courage is contagious, and that justice is a daily act of faith.

On behalf of the Office of the Attorney General, I offer my deepest condolences to her children, her family, her friends, and to all those whose lives she touched. Let her memory be both a comfort and a challenge for all of us to live and lead with the same heart, integrity, and resolve she brought to everything she did, and may her example continue to guide Minnesota forward.

Keith Ellison  
Minnesota Attorney General

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