Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan spoke at the Harris-Walz Native American national coalition launch at Mystic Lake Center in Prior Lake on Oct. 2, 2024. Photo by Michelle Griffith/Minnesota Reformer.
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan on Wednesday helped launch the Harris-Walz campaign’s new Native American coalition, seeking to energize the often overlooked but increasingly important Indigenous vote.
“Native people will absolutely help decide the results of this election,” Flanagan told the ballroom of Native leaders and attendees at the Mystic Lake Center in Prior Lake. “Native voters in Arizona in 2020 absolutely helped to deliver the presidential race for Biden-Harris, and that’s why I’m so grateful to be here with you … to talk about everything that we can do in this moment.”
Flanagan — a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe — would become the nation’s first Native governor if Gov. Tim Walz is elected vice president.
In August, Vice President Kamala Harris made an appeal to Native voters at a rally in Arizona, telling the crowd that as president she would honor Native American treaties.
“I will always honor tribal sovereignty and respect tribal self-determination and fight for a future where every Native person can realize their aspirations, and every Native community is a place of opportunity,” Harris said.
Native issues have been at the forefront of federal policy in recent years, especially in the courts. Last year, U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, which established federal standards aimed at keeping Native American children in the foster care system in the care of Native families. The Supreme Court that year also ruled in a 5-4 decision that the U.S government didn’t need to ensure the Navajo Nation’s access to water in the drought-ridden Colorado River system, despite an 1868 treaty guaranteeing a permanent home on the reservation.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, is the nation’s first Native American cabinet secretary. In 2021, she launched the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, which aims to recognize the government’s role in forcibly removing Native children from their families and assimilating them in boarding schools.
On Wednesday, Flanagan said Walz would also be a good partner to Native people and defender of tribal sovereignty if elected vice president. She cited his record as governor, noting that he was the first Minnesota governor to visit all 11 tribal nations within the state’s borders; helped open the country’s first office for missing and murdered Indigenous relatives; and signed off on historic investments for tribal nations.
She also noted that in 2023, the Walz-Flanagan administration, with the help of the Minnesota Legislature, returned the land in the Upper Sioux State Park back to the Upper Sioux Community — a land transfer that the tribal community had requested for years.
Flanagan said over the next 34 days, she’ll campaign for Harris and Walz, including in Michigan.
“I’m so proud that we have two incredibly strong advocates for Indian Country on the ticket,” Flanagan said.