Who is Peggy Flanagan? MN’s next governor if Walz wins VP

Peggy Flanagan’s ardour for youngsters and households has outlined her profession in public service. She served on the Minneapolis faculty board, labored as govt director of the Youngsters’s Protection Fund Minnesota, and advocated for teenagers as a state legislator and lieutenant governor.

Now, she could convey that keenness to the governor’s mansion. On Tuesday, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris named Governor Tim Walz as her working mate. If Walz turns into vp, Flanagan will step in as governor. She could be Minnesota’s first feminine governor and first Native American governor — and the primary feminine Native American governor within the nation.

The governor’s communications workplace didn’t reply to Sahan Journal requests to interview Flanagan this week. As second-in-command, she has typically been much less seen than Walz. However her mates and political allies say she has constantly performed a pivotal function in negotiating insurance policies that profit kids and households, whereas bringing neighborhood teams to the desk. They anticipate she would convey that strategy to the governor’s workplace.

“Peggy’s hallmark is at all times coverage that can instantly influence Minnesota households,” mentioned Carin Mrotz, a detailed pal of Flanagan’s and senior adviser within the Minnesota Lawyer Normal’s Workplace.

“Nobody fights tougher than Peggy for teenagers,” mentioned Consultant Jamie Becker-Finn, DFL-Roseville.

Mrotz described Flanagan as an “extraordinarily hard-nosed coverage negotiator” and mentioned she had labored carefully with Walz on many key initiatives.

“Free faculty lunches was very a lot a group effort, and I see Peggy Flanagan’s palms throughout that,” Mrotz mentioned. 

She additionally pointed to Minnesota’s work in recent times to develop a first-in-the-nation state workplace for Lacking and Murdered Indigenous Family.

“That’s them as a group, however I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence that the governor has prioritized these issues,” Mrotz mentioned.

She additionally recounted how when Flanagan was first elected as lieutenant governor, she spearheaded efforts to boost money funds for the Minnesota Household Funding Program (MFIP). In 2019, when Flanagan took workplace, the funds had remained stagnant since 1986 — when Flanagan was in first grade. Flanagan led the hassle to barter a $100 month-to-month enhance to this system.

“Hardworking households who’re nonetheless residing in poverty are experiencing extra money of their pockets, and that’s due to Peggy Flanagan,” Mrotz mentioned.

A ‘younger whippersnapper’

Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, grew up in St. Louis Park, the place she nonetheless lives along with her household. Her father, Marvin Manypenny, was a longtime activist who spoke out in opposition to the lack of White Earth land. When she was a baby, her household relied on public help; she’s spoken incessantly about coming to high school with a different-colored lunch ticket. She beforehand advised Sahan Journal that she felt “invisible in my very own classroom” due to the restricted illustration of Indigenous individuals in St. Louis Park Colleges on the time.

In 2004, Flanagan, then 25, was elected to the Minneapolis faculty board. Javier Morillo, the previous president of Service Staff Worldwide Union Native 26, remembers being impressed with the polish of the “younger whippersnapper” when screening candidates for endorsements. Morillo now considers Flanagan his finest pal, and is godfather to her daughter.

They labored carefully collectively throughout a 2014 marketing campaign to boost the Minnesota minimal wage. At the moment, Minnesota Democrats held a trifecta of the Home, Senate, and governor’s workplace. The state minimal wage was $6.15 for big employers, beneath the federal minimal wage of $7.25. 

Flanagan, then the manager director of Youngsters’s Protection Fund Minnesota, co-chaired the Elevate the Wage Coalition. The coalition aimed to boost the minimal wage to $9.50 an hour by 2016. Morillo recalled that Flanagan led a subgroup to be sure that the brand new minimal wage could be listed to inflation. Although Democrats held a trifecta, this level was controversial amongst some Senate Democrats, Morillo recalled.

At one level, Morillo mentioned, the coalition reached a compromise on minimal wage that will have ignored the inflationary indexes. However Flanagan refused to just accept that concession, Morillo mentioned, at one level bodily blocking a chalkboard that laid out the compromise throughout a coalition assembly. She helped lead a subgroup to verify indexing was a part of the ultimate legislation.

Ultimately, the ultimate invoice included inflationary will increase. Due to these yearly raises, Minnesota’s minimal wage for big employers is now $10.85. 

Flanagan is “achieved, prepared and history-making,” Morillo mentioned.

Preserving incarcerated mothers with infants

Flanagan was elected to the Legislature in 2015 throughout a particular election. The incumbent legislator, Rep. Ryan Winkler, DFL-Golden Valley, resigned to observe his household when his spouse took a job in Belgium.

The yr after Flanagan was seated within the Legislature, Becker-Finn, a Leech Lake Ojibwe descendant, joined her. The 2 bonded instantly as the one Ojibwe ladies within the Legislature, Becker-Finn recalled. 

“We have been instantly actually good mates going by means of that collectively,” Becker-Finn mentioned.

Throughout the 2017-2018 legislative session, Republicans held the bulk within the Minnesota Home. Becker-Finn mentioned she and Flanagan, who had completely different areas of experience, typically discovered themselves combing by means of newly launched payments to determine adverse impacts for tribal communities and attempting to clarify them to invoice authors.

In October 2017, Walz, then a member of Congress working for governor, introduced that Flanagan could be his working mate. The gubernatorial election was nonetheless greater than a yr away. Walz introduced Flanagan as his working mate at an unusually early second, in an effort to point out that collectively they might symbolize all of Minnesota — rural white voters like Walz, and voters of shade from city and suburban areas like Flanagan.

From left to proper, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, Consultant Alicia Kozlowski, Senator Mary Kunesh, Consultant Jamie Becker-Finn, and Consultant Heather Keeler pose for a portrait within the Minnesota State Capitol on January 3, 2023. Credit score: Jaida Gray Eagle | Sahan Journal

Becker-Finn launched Flanagan at her first occasion as a candidate for lieutenant governor, on the American Indian Middle in Minneapolis. After Walz and Flanagan received the election, Becker-Finn noticed how Flanagan used her affect to form coverage.

In 2019, Flanagan and Becker-Finn visited the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Shakopee, the state’s solely ladies’s jail. Whereas there, they met with incarcerated ladies, guards, social staff and doulas. Becker-Finn mentioned they discovered from these ladies “that we have been nonetheless as a state doing the observe of taking new child infants away from their mothers.”

For Flanagan and Becker-Finn, each moms, the perception hit arduous: “Placing your self within the footwear of these ladies and imagining what that will have been prefer to have your child taken out of your arms at 36 hours outdated,” Becker-Finn mentioned.

Flanagan directed workers on the Division of Corrections to writer a invoice to alter this observe, whereas Becker-Finn led the hassle on the Legislature. At the moment, Minnesota had a politically divided Legislature; the push attracted bipartisan help. 

In 2021, Walz signed the Wholesome Begin Act, which permits ladies who’re pregnant or not too long ago postpartum on the time of their sentencing to serve their time in a midway home or neighborhood various for as much as a yr. Minnesota was believed to be the primary state to implement such a program.

“If I attempted to do this by myself with out Peggy and with out her leveraging the sources that she had as lieutenant governor, I don’t suppose that will have been a factor we have been in a position to get performed as shortly as we did,” Becker-Finn mentioned.

She additionally pointed to Flanagan’s work in pushing the state to codify Minnesota’s relationship with tribal governments into statute.

“Issues like which are trickier than they may appear to get throughout the end line,” she mentioned. “Each the governor and Peggy have visited tribal nations. They’ve truly put within the work.”

Indigenous training

One other focus for Flanagan has been ensuring all Minnesota youngsters have entry to training about Indigenous historical past and up to date information. In 2021, she spoke with Sahan Journal concerning the state’s efforts to supply higher curricular sources to lecturers. Since that point, Minnesota has adopted new social research requirements that additionally require extra training about Indigenous communities.

Flanagan advised Sahan Journal that this initiative got here instantly from tribal leaders, who made it a prime precedence. She mentioned that when she was rising up attending St. Louis Park Colleges, the curriculum didn’t mirror her lived expertise.

“Whenever you don’t see your self mirrored in your lecturers or curriculum, there’s an influence,” she mentioned. “To be actually candid, it made me really feel like I used to be invisible in my very own classroom.”

For Indigenous individuals specifically, lots of whom are only a technology or two away from members of the family being forcibly eliminated to boarding faculties, this erasure can gasoline mistrust within the training system, she mentioned.

However she famous that for her daughter, in the identical faculty system, illustration was beginning to enhance.

“I feel ensuring that our Black, Indigenous, and college students of shade see themselves mirrored of their curriculum, and that it’s taught in a manner that additionally makes them really feel valued, is a recreation changer,” she mentioned.

Governor Flanagan?

So what would a Flanagan governorship appear to be?

It’s early to say. However her mates and political allies stay up for seeing how her strategy to management may change state authorities.

Mrotz mentioned that she anticipated Flanagan to search out extra methods to convey extra voices to the desk in decisionmaking.

“She is any person who’s like, ‘Nicely, then let’s construct an even bigger desk, after which we are able to have extra individuals sitting right here,’” Mrotz mentioned.

Becker-Finn mirrored on the contradictions of being a Native American elected official in a system that was “designed to destroy your individuals.” She mentioned Flanagan may query processes and buildings that weren’t designed to incorporate everybody.

“I feel Peggy received’t be afraid to be open to doing issues in higher methods which are extra reflective of our values and of the truth of what a Minnesotan appears like,” she mentioned. “I simply suppose she’s going to be actually intentional about that.”