Good morning. Happy last day of the state fiscal year and birthday to Dana Ferguson!

The Tillis decision underscores another point: It’s hard for GOP lawmakers to cross Trump, who has a firm grip on the party and its base. Tillis would have undoubtedly faced a fierce primary challenge. That’s what is happening in Kentucky with a House member, Rep. Thomas Massie, who often takes stances in opposition to Trump’s wishes. Another Republican who hasn’t always fallen in line, Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon, is expected to announce today that he is departing rather than try to swim upstream. Democrats, meanwhile, are searching for the winning message and recipe. It will be a different mix depending on the area, but Republicans will no doubt try to nationalize a campaign against them.

The public goodbye to Melissa and Mark Hortman was a series of moving tributes. Thousands of people — between 7,000 and 10,000 based on various estimates — passed through the Minnesota Capitol on Friday to pause and reflect by their caskets and the paw-printed urn of Gilbert, the couple’s loyal golden retriever. Visitors included many colleagues of former Speaker Hortman, ordinary people who didn’t even know her personally and political dignitaries, including former President Joe Biden. The setup was visually powerful, from the potted trees all around to the portraits to the placement of the caskets on the rotunda’s gold-and-glass star.

A day later was the private yet publicly streamed funeral at the Basilica of St. Mary. The service itself was full of Catholic ritual. The eulogies were both vivid and funny . Robin Ann Williams offered a rollicking look at both Hortmans, describing them in down-to-earth ways and sharing the impact of their public service. Gov. Tim Walz appealed for people to recognize the humanity of public servants like Hortman. The homily was the firmer call to action. The Rev. Daniel Griffith described Minnesota as ground zero for events that drove home racial injustice, with the murder of George Floyd, and political violence, with the killings of the Hortmans and the wounding of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife. He said Minnesota can be “a ground zero place for restoration and justice and healing but we must work together and there is much more work to be done.”

State Sen. John Hoffman and wife, Yvette, are on the mend but their recovery will take awhile. While in Minnesota, former President Biden paid a visit to his hospital room. It offered the first glimpse at Hoffman, shown in a photo smiling from his hospital bed, since the shooting weeks ago. The family issued a statement  Sunday that elaborated on their conditions and the horror they went through when a man posing as a police officer showed up at their door in the middle of the night. It said the family was “lined up at gunpoint” and that their daughter, Hope, acted heroically by calling 911 to alert authorities to the attack and help them interrupt the suspect before it could get even worse than it tragically was. The Hoffmans said they “face a long road ahead” as they recover from their “physical injuries and emotional trauma.”

I purposely haven’t put a lot about the suspect and his court proceedings in this newsletter. Those will be part of the crime and courts coverage that we’ll surely do in the weeks and months ahead and can be found on mprnews.org as those reports are done. The parallel state and federal cases could reveal new details about what happened and how the alleged plot to attack lawmakers came to be. We’ll maybe learn if there were missed signs or chances to short-circuit the worst of it.

One thing I heard repeatedly in recent days is a real concern that this moment of political detente in Minnesota won’t last . People are grasping for answers and ways to keep things from springing back to the blazing tensions in place before June 14. No one expects there to be harmony forever or maybe for long. No one disputes that there are real divisions over policy and politics. But the Legislature won’t be the same. It probably can’t be the same after something so depraved and rattling as the attacks on lawmakers in their homes. Some lawmakers won’t run again, but people will fill these seats and the work of the Capitol will go on. The incentive structure, where the most outrageous comments or the most extreme positions get all the attention and elevate those behind them, is a place where thoughtful examination is needed. Those who are out to do the work without regard to who gets the credit or what it takes to achieve measurable results should get more focus. Maybe it’s Pollyannaish, but to me that’s a place to start.

Minnesota’s main public sector unions are moving into the ratification phase for new state employee contracts. That came after tentative agreements were struck with Gov. Tim Walz’s administration late last week. It came toward the end of a week where union leaders publicly lashed out at the administration’s offers. Now those leaders are recommending that rank-and-file sign off on the pacts. Votes will be held in August. It heads off any real chance of a work stoppage.

St. Cloud city leaders will approach major festivals and political rallies differently after saying the city didn’t get adequately reimbursed for a Trump rally last July. The city said invoices haven’t been satisfied for more than $200,000 for police, fire, technology and public works expenses tied to the rally. The city, the Trump campaign and the U.S. Secret Service don’t agree on who should be responsible for those costs. MPR’s Kirsti Marohn reports that going forward the city will do more to  alert hosts of large or special events about the costs associated with them in advance. 

Programming note: We’ll be in your inbox only three days this week and then taking a break until July 8.