Melissa Hortman

Minnesota state legislator and House Speaker Melissa Hortman was a fierce advocate for working families, abortion rights, climate action and gun safety. Her assassination in June 2025, in what officials describe as a politically motivated attack, underscores the rising tide of violence targeting women in power and those who defend reproductive freedom. This archive honors Hortman’s legacy and documents the broader feminist fight against extremism, political violence and the rollback of essential rights.

War on Women Report: MAGA Republicans Hope to Turn Miscarriage Into a Crime and Gut Planned Parenthood

and

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—On June 14, between 4 and 13 million people attended No Kings rallies nationwide to protest President Trump’s immigration and economic policies.
—Four states—California, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey—have petitioned the FDA to undo restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone.
—Some good news out of Montana: This month, the state supreme court struck down three abortion restrictions that Republican lawmakers passed in 2021.

… and more.

Keeping Score: Americans Oppose Mass Deportations; Supreme Court Upholds Free Preventive Care Under ACA

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—marking three years since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade
—”Deep cracks are showing in the Trump and Miller mass deportation agenda,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice.
—Rest in power, Minnesota Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, who were assassinated in an act of political violence. “Political violence of any kind has no place in our democracy,” said Democratic Women’s Caucus chair Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.).
—The Supreme Court upheld bans on gender-affirming care for minors.
—Harvey Weinstein was again convicted of a criminal sex act.
—raising awareness for LGBTQ Equal Pay Day
—82% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans believe funding for childcare should increase. 

… and more.

In a Summer of Protest, We Find Our Power

There’s a lot worth protesting right now.

Last week, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in U.S. v. Skrmetti affirming that Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth is constitutional. (ICYMI Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented “in sadness.”)

There’s the ongoing battle to save Medicaid, Medicare and SNAP in Congress—where Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” continues to threaten programs that so many lives depend on.

The same day as the No Kings protests, news broke of the assassination of Melissa Hortman, a Democratic Minnesota state legislator and former speaker. Since then, media accounts of the shootings have increasingly failed to mention the potential role of abortion in motivating the alleged shooter’s actions.

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: Elected Leaders Should Be Able to Serve Without Fear; Honoring Opal Lee, Grandmother of Juneteenth

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. 

This week:
—new research on the importance of women’s leadership
—how Opal Lee became known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth
—No matter who wins the race, Virginia’s next governor will be the first woman to ever hold the office.

… and more.

Political Violence Is Becoming America’s New Normal

Among the myriad headlines that roiled the nation last week, rising political violence in the United States was a sickening drumbeat—one that culminated and resounded most loudly during a weekend of targeted shootings directed at two Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses.

Though the shooter’s motivations are still unconfirmed, news reports reveal that notebooks found in his car were “full of plans, lists of names, surveillance efforts and home addresses.” Among those listed are Democratic elected officials, including state Rep. Kelly Morrison, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, as well as state and federal leaders from other states; and local Planned Parenthood contacts, including abortion providers and advocates. Accounts by the shooter’s friends as well as his social media footprint indicate his vehement opposition to abortion and LGBTQ rights—an opposition he made especially clear.

All of it is worrisome, but the combination of antiabortion extremism, anti-democratic fury and actual violence is growing exponentially more potent. The federal government is communicating with utter precision that abortion is the exception, the excuse, the issue for which violence is an acceptable response. We ignore that message at our collective and societal peril.

Rest in Power, Melissa Hortman—The Kind of Leader Patriarchy Fears

“I’m not sorry. … I’m really tired of watching women of color in particular being ignored.”

Over the weekend, the feminist movement lost a lion. Melissa Hortman, former speaker of the Minnesota House and longtime champion of reproductive justice, climate action and racial equity, was senselessly gunned down in a targeted attack at her home. Her husband, Mark, was also killed. 

Kelly Dittmar, a political science professor at Rutgers University-Camden and the director of research at the Center for American Women and Politics, shared on social media a powerful speech Hortman gave eight years ago, when she was the minority leader, on the House floor about the power of women’s voices. In it, she interrupted and called out white male legislators during a key debate—and when asked to apologize for her candor, she didn’t flinch.

As Antiabortion Violence Surges, Republicans Vote to Strip Federal Protections for Providers

and

Early Saturday morning, news broke of the assassination of Melissa Hortman, a Democratic Minnesota state legislator and former speaker, along with her husband Mark. State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were also shot multiple times; both survived and are fighting for their lives following emergency surgery. The suspect had a list of more than 50 additional “targets,” including other Democratic officials, some from outside Minnesota, as well as abortion facilities and leading abortion rights advocates in the state.

Although we don’t yet know if his extremist views on abortion were the driving cause in his murderous rampage, it is proof of the ongoing threats to abortion providers in this climate of escalating political violence.

Yet, just weeks after the suicide bombing of a Palm Springs fertility clinic, and despite rising rates of threats and violence against abortion clinics after the Dobbs decision, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to advance HR 589, the FACE Act Repeal Act of 2025. The bill would repeal the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a statute protecting clinicians’ and patients’ right to safely provide and access reproductive healthcare. All Democrats on the committee voted against the proposed bill.

Invest in Caregiving—and Give Women and Families a Break

The COVID-19 pandemic forced our nation to look critically at how our societal infrastructure, or lack thereof, has failed women in our roles as both workers and caregivers. As one sociologist put it: “Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women.” So what can we do?

(This essay is part of The Majority Rules project—an artful essay and op-ed series from Ms. and Supermajority Education Fund.)