[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 104 (Tuesday, June 17, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Page S3446]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  REMEMBERING MELISSA AND MARK HORTMAN

  Mr. MERKLEY. I am going to talk about a different aspect of the 
reconciliation bill, but before I do so, my heart is with the people of 
Minnesota, who have lost Melissa and Mark Hortman. Melissa was speaker 
of the house. As a former speaker of the house in Oregon, I know the 
type of effort that goes into coordinating a legislative session and 
commitment to so many different policy issues, striving to build a 
better State, a better State of Minnesota.
  And Melissa and Mark are no longer with us because of an act of hate, 
an act of violence, something that so goes against the vision of free 
speech and free assembly in America, where we can come together and 
argue our points and disagree profoundly with each other, but out of 
that big stew of ideas comes policies that hopefully take us forward, 
not violence that takes us to the grave.
  So, again, my heart is with Melissa and Mark's family and the people 
of Minnesota.
  And I hope we can all work together to end the type of rhetoric, the 
type of framing that suggests that on the differences that we have, 
though large on policy, neither side is coming from an evil point of 
view. We bring differences that have to be worked out in legislatures 
like the U.S. Senate.

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