Minnesota
Locked capitol doors, more security funds are new normal after Minnesota assassination
Nearly a year after the assassination of a Minnesota legislative leader, lawmakers across the U.S. have worked to fortify security in state capitols and improve safeguards when officials are in their communities.
The changes have followed a rise in political violence nationwide that included the stunning assassination last June of Rep. Melissa Hortman, the top Democratic leader in the Minnesota House, and the September killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was speaking at a college in Utah.
In Minnesota, most doors at the state Capitol are now locked, and people entering must go through weapons detectors. People entering the visitors’ galleries to watch floor debates must go through a second set of detectors.
“It’s important for us to be able to not have our government fall apart if our legislators are under threat,” said Minnesota Rep. Julie Green, a Democrat who sits directly across the aisle from Hortman’s old desk, which remains empty except for fresh roses, her portrait and a speaker’s gavel. “It’s a complicated, complex, very emotional issue, as you can imagine.”
In addition to the killings of Hortman and Kirk, violence targeting political figures in the U.S. in the last few years has included an arson attack last year at the home of Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro; an assassination attempt on then-candidate Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally in 2024; and a hammer attack on the husband of Democratic then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at their California home in 2022.
Twenty-five states, including Minnesota, now formally allow candidates to use campaign funds for personal security. Most made the change after the killings of Kirk and Hortman. Eleven states have laws permitting it, while others have approved it through rules or other mechanisms, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and the VoteMama Foundation.
This year alone, Alabama, Oregon, Nebraska and Utah enacted laws allowing campaign funds for security. Bills to legalize it are pending in about a dozen other states.
It’s not just happening at the state level. Security spending for congressional and presidential campaigns has jumped fivefold over the past decade. Federal political committees spent more than $40 million on expenses labeled as security during the 2023-24 campaign cycle, according to an April report from the nonpartisan Public Service Alliance.
Metal detectors — one of the most visible signs of concerns about political violence — were installed at Alaska’s Capitol last year. Democratic Rep. Sara Hannan said the change was due to “increased risk of violence in our public institutions.” Lawmakers approved them before Hortman was killed.
But some states have balked at making it harder to access the halls of power. Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican who knew Hortman, resisted efforts to install metal detectors in his state, saying he didn’t want to “fortify” the Capitol. Wisconsin’s is one of 11 state capitols that don’t have metal detectors, a state audit found.
Minnesota lawmakers are also considering creating a special unit within the State Patrol, which oversees Capitol security, that would provide protection for legislators, the state attorney general, secretary of state, state auditor, and Supreme Court justices.
One lead author is Democratic Sen. John Hoffman, who survived being shot nine times the night Hortman was killed. Prosecutors say the gunman, disguised as a police officer, began his rampage by shooting Hoffman and his wife, then stopped at the residences of two other lawmakers who weren’t home. He then went to Hortman’s home, where he killed the representative and her husband, and wounded their dog so severely that he had to be euthanized.
At a hearing Tuesday, Hoffman called his measure “a necessary response” that would “keep elected officials and Supreme Court justices safe and dedicate the resources necessary and hopefully stop future tragedies from happening.”
Numerous states have also taken action to protect lawmakers’ personal information. North Dakota lawmakers on Wednesday discussed a bill draft for next year that would make confidential the home addresses of candidates and public officials upon request.
The NCSL in February created a $1.5 million fund to reimburse legislatures for expenses related to lawmakers’ personal safety and security while they’re away from their statehouses. More than 30 states have applied or are preparing to, NCSL spokesperson Katie Ziegler said.
NOTE: The original airdate of the video attached to this article is April 23, 2026.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) – Families and officers gathered outside the state capitol on Friday to remember and honor Minnesota’s fallen law enforcement officers.
Families honor loved ones killed in the line of duty
What we know:
The Peace Officers Memorial Day event began with a 24-hour vigil Thursday night, where officers from around Minnesota stood guard at the memorial.
The day included moments of silence, the playing of Taps and several wreath-laying ceremonies.
“Every once in a while, something tragic happens and somebody dies in the line of duty,” said Chief Brian Hubbard, president of the Minnesota Law Enforcement Memorial Association, which organized the service.
According to organizers, 314 officers have died in the line of duty in Minnesota.
Behind every name is a family, a story and painful memory.
Tina Arendt of Cold Spring was young when her father, Stearns County Senior Sheriff’s Deputy Edwin Arendt, 61, died in the line of duty in November 1987. On Friday, she laid a wreath in his memory.
“It was just a random accident out in the middle of the country, and he didn’t make it home,” she recalled. “Things I remember about him – he loved his job. He loved being out helping people. There wasn’t a day that he wasn’t proud and honored to wear the badge.”
The event was as much about supporting families as it was about honoring the fallen.
“The main heart behind doing this is to make sure that those family members, those survivors left behind, know that we won’t forget about them,” said Hubbard.
The vigil and service at the memorial
Timeline:
The 24-hour silent vigil began Thursday night and ends Friday night. Officers took turns standing guard at the memorial throughout the day and night.
The former sportscaster is expected to struggle to win the endorsement over her GOP rivals.
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A dream candidate for the national Republican Party, former sportscaster Michele Tafoya is finding support from Washington to be a double-edged sword as she seeks to win retiring Sen. Tina Smith’s seat.
Tafoya, 61, is a skilled and media-savvy communicator whose name recognition and political smarts prompted the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) to call her “the only candidate with the common-sense leadership Minnesotans are desperately craving.”
Tafoya gets endorsement from Sen. Tim Scott
The endorsement by NRSC Chairman Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., made just after Tafoya announced her candidacy in January, has rankled some Minnesota Republicans.
Why? Because there were other Republicans vying for Smith’s seat, including Navy SEAL Adam Schwarze, former NBA player Royce White and Navy veteran Tom Weiler.
Another GOP candidate, former Minnesota Republican Party candidate David Hann, was also in the race at that time but dropped out last month. And Mark York, a seven-generation farmer from Lake Wilson is also running.
Yet the national Republican Party, which is battling to prevent a Democratic takeover of the U.S. Senate in November’s midterm election, placed its bet on Tafoya.
That has disgruntled some of the 2,500 Republican delegates who will vote to endorse the GOP Senate candidates in Duluth at the end of the month.
“You have people who would see (support from the national party) as a plus, and there also are people who would see it as meddling from Washington,” said Frank Long, a delegate and longtime party activist from Watertown Township who supports Schwarze.
Long said the state’s Republicans “are not a monolithic organization.” He said some delegates are concerned about Tafoya’s support for abortion – which she says now is limited to procedures in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Tafoya has also expressed support for “red flag” laws — which allow law enforcement to temporarily remove weapons to individuals a court has assessed might be a danger to themselves or others — that are opposed by many gun-rights delegates.
Remarks Tafoya made about President Donald Trump in 2022 are another turnoff for some GOP delegates. She wrote an open letter to Trump in a now deleted post on Substack that said she hoped he would not run again, and even as she praised his accomplishments, she called his politics “messy.”
While Tafoya may not be the first choice of some delegates, “she has the right to run,” Long said.
Tafoya has since aligned herself closely with Trump’s platform and embroiled herself in the culture wars with her fierce opposition to transgender women in female sports.
But if she makes it to the general election, running against either Rep. Angie Craig, D-2nd District, or Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who are locked in battle for the Democratic nomination, Tafoya will likely revert to the more moderate candidate she once considered herself to be.
“I think Minnesota is starving for a moderate Republican who doesn’t tell them that they’re going to ban abortion who is the antithesis of the Tim Walz regime,” Tafoya told WDAY Radio when Smith announced her retirement early last year.
After the February 2022 Super Bowl, Tafoya quit her broadcasting career, launched a political podcast and spent several years weighing whether to run for political office. She met with the NRSC in December and declared her candidacy about a month later.
Weiler, who ran unsuccessfully for the 3rd Congressional District seat in 2022, said he contacted the NRSC last fall seeking support. But he said the people he spoke with seemed uninterested in him because he was “not rich or famous.”
He said he was surprised and disappointed that the NRSC backed Tafoya.
“It was clearly a decision made in Washington, D.C., without any input from Minnesotans,” Weiler said.
Tafoya raised more than $2 million in the two months after she announced her candidacy, with the help of the national GOP. That’s more money than all of her GOP rivals combined.
According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, the NRSC gave Tafoya’s campaign $62,000 and Senate Republican Leader John Thune’s leadership political action committee has held joint fundraisers with Tafoya’s campaign.
The national party’s endorsement also brings help in recruiting campaign staff and campaign consulting, a must-have for a candidate who has never before run for political office.
Minnesota is ‘a grass-roots state’
Tim Lindberg, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota-Morris, said the national Republican Party had to step into the race for Smith’s seat “to some extent because the state party has been in disarray.”
Shut out of holding a statewide seat for 20 years, the state party is low on cash and divided between the establishment Republicans, like Tafoya, and more conservative MAGA activists.
So, while Tafoya’s campaign has had a boost from the NRSC and other GOP national organizations it is not guaranteed that she will win the votes of 60% of the GOP delegates needed to win an endorsement.
Tafoya’s campaign did not respond to requests for an interview and information. But the former sportscaster has said she will continue to run for the U.S. Senate and participate in the Aug. 11 primary even without an endorsement.
Historically, not all of Minnesota’s GOP candidates have abided by the endorsement. But the state’s political history also shows that Republican voters don’t reward non-endorsed candidates very often, especially in statewide elections, when the primary comes around.
Schwarze, another rival for the GOP endorsement, said Republicans “don’t reward people who take shortcuts.”
He called Tafoya a “D.C. out-of -the -box candidate” and is confident he will earn the endorsement, even if it takes several rounds of balloting.
“Minnesotans are not for sale,” Schwarze said. “This is a grass-roots state.”
The former Navy SEAL speaks in military terms about the U.S. Senate race.
“I’ve been preparing for this campaign run as if it were a ‘no-fail’ mission,” he said. After Tafoya, Schwarze, who reported raising more than $1 million as of March 31, has amassed the largest campaign chest among the GOP Senate candidates. Yet Democrats Craig and Flanagan have much larger war chests than Tafoya and Schwarze.
Both Schwarze and White — who won the GOP endorsement to run against Sen. Amy Klobuchar in 2024 — have vowed to abide by the endorsement and support the delegates’ candidate of choice.
“The mission is going to get a Republican U.S. Senator,” Schwarze said.
But Weiler has a different attitude. He said he would continue his campaign unless he’s convinced the delegates have chosen a candidate “who can win and be an effective senator for Minnesota.”
Tafoya is a high profile Minnesota senate candidate
Lindberg said Tafoya is well liked for her high profile in the world of sports.
She spent three decades covering the NBA, NFL, Olympics and college football. A Californian by birth, many Minnesotans got to know Tafoya when she worked as a sportscaster and reporter for sports radio KFAN in Minneapolis — covering the Vikings — the Midwest Sports Channel and WCCO-TV.
Lindberg said the NRSC is “banking” on her popularity and name recognition. But he said that strategy could “backfire” in an endorsement process that is dominated by party activists in both the Democratic and Republican state conventions.
“It’s not clear that the people at these conventions really care about electability,” he said.
Northern lights spotted across the globe
A severe geomagnetic storm made a stronger aurora than usual.
Minnesotans could see northern lights on May 14 and 15 as the natural spectacle will be visible through several northern states.
The best time to look for the aurora borealis is between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
Showers and thunderstorms are predicted in the early evening in St. Cloud, but skies should clear somewhat before the northern lights show would begin, according to the NOAA forecast.
There could be more auroras to come this weekend as well, as the geomagnetic activity that makes the lights viewable is predicted to continue through May 16.
Here’s what to know about catching the northern lights.
When will the northern lights be viewable?
People in several U.S. states may get chances to see the aurora display on May 14 and 15. The best times to view the lights are generally between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time, according to NOAA, though this can vary significantly by location and as weather and visibility forecasts are updated.
This time around, geomagnetic activity is expected to peak between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time, according to the forecast, which could trigger moderate geomagnetic storms that make the auroras viewable farther south.
More up-to-date forecasts can be found on NOAA’S Aurora Dashboard.
Which states can see the northern lights?
How far and wide the auroras can clearly be seen will depend on whether the geomagnetic storm reaches a G1 to G2 (mild to moderate) or G3 (strong) level and the weather in your location.
Though Canada is getting the best, most intense viewing this time around, the states listed below will have at least a chance of catching a glimpse, according to NOAA’S forecast map.
- Washington
- Idaho
- Montana
- North Dakota
- Minnesota
- Michigan
- Wisconsin
What are the northern lights, aka aurora borealis?
The northern lights are a luminous glow seen around the magnetic poles of the Northern and Southern hemispheres, according to the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. Known for creating ribbons of colorful light in the night sky, the aurora borealis are polar lights, or aurora polaris, that appear in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Southern Hemisphere has its own polar lights known as the southern lights, or aurora australis, which create their own dazzling display.
Put simply, auroras are a result of the sun interacting with the Earth’s atmosphere. A collision between electrically charged particles from the sun and gases in Earth’s atmosphere produces a series of minuscule flashes that appear like moving lights in the sky. The charged particles are pulled toward the North and South poles due to Earth’s magnetic field.
While that magnetic field usually protects the Earth from solar winds, the winds can occasionally get strong enough to bypass the field, allowing particles and gases in the magnetosphere to interact and generate the colorful displays, according to the Geophysical Institute and the Canadian Space Agency.
Tips for viewing the northern lights
The top tip for getting the best view of the northern lights is finding a dark spot away from light pollution. Space.com recommends finding a location as far as possible from city lights and heading out there as soon as the sky gets dark. Then, it’s a waiting game.
Find a north-facing view with a clear horizon and exercise patience, as the lights often come in waves, said Space.com. You can also download apps to track aurora forecasts based on your location, such as “My Aurora Forecast & Alerts.”
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