Peggy Flanagan Makes History For Her Tribe, Her Party, Her State

     2018's Blue Wave spelled doom for Donald Trump not because it was unusual for a majority party to lose seats in Congress, especially in the House of Representatives, but because the states he relied on to win the electoral if not the popular vote-- Wisconsin and Michigan-- rebuked him firmly. Democrats Tony Evers and Gretchen Whitmer won their gubernatorial elections handily. They also won with historic diversity, with lieutenant governors Mandela Barnes and Garlin Gilchrist II becoming the highest-ranking black officials in each state's history.

     Less recognized is the historic diversity that Peggy Flanagan brought to Minnesota as lieutenant governor. The daughter of Native rights activist Marvin Manypenny, raised in suburban Minneapolis by a single mother who worked as a phlebotomist, Flanagan got her bachelor's in child psychology and Native Indian studies from the University of Minnesota in 2002.

     After brief stints working for U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone and advocating for urban Native American communities, she served a term on the Minneapolis Public School Board from 2005 to 2009. She was a good contender for the Minnesota House of Representatives, but she was forced to drop out due to her mother's health problems. This didn't stop her. She worked for Wellstone Action and The Management Center training grassroots activists and served as the executive director of Children's Defense Fund of Minnesota, where she secured a raise in the state's minimum wage.

     Peggy Flanagan served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. She was one of only three members of the body to be a Native woman until two more were elected in 2017. A citizen of the White Earth nation, she came to prominence on July 28th, 2016, when she became the first Native American woman to address the convention of a major political party, the DNC.

     She was an obvious choice for lieutenant governor of Minnesota under Tim Walz in the 2018 race, and, in 2019, became the first minority woman elected to statewide office in Minnesota, the first Native American woman elected to statewide office in Minnesota, the second Native American woman elected to statewide office in the United States, the highest-ranking Native woman in the country, and the highest-ranking woman in Minnesota state history.

     Peggy Flanagan has made history and, at such a young age, will continue to make history for her tribe, her party, and her state.