Who is Peggy Flanagan? What to know about Minnesota's lieutenant governor

If Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz make history in November, so too will Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan .

Flanagan was elected as the state’s 50 ^th lieutenant governor in 2018. A member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, she is currently the country’s highest ranked Native woman voted into executive office.

Minnesota statute states that if there’s a vacancy in the office of governor for whatever reason, “the lieutenant governor shall become governor.”

Walz is currently still the governor of Minnesota, as under state law Walz can maintain his position while running for vice president. But if he is elected vice president under Harris in November, he will resign from the governor’s office.

In that scenario, Flanagan would ascend to the governorship. She would make history as the first woman to become governor of Minnesota and the first Native American woman to serve as governor of a state in US history.

Flanagan speaks at the DNC

Flanagan was one of the first speakers to take the stage Monday night at the Democratic National Convention . She is a co-chair of the convention.

Flanagan spoke about her Native American heritage, saying her name in the Ojibwe language means “speaks with a clear and loud voice woman.”

“My family is the wolf clan, and the role of our clan is to ensure that we never leave anyone behind,” she said. “That’s why I am supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to be the next president and vice president of the United States.”

She described working with Walz for the past several years, saying he has worked hard for the children of Minnesota and has done so with a “big heart” and a “bottomless bag of snacks.”

Flanagan also called back to the COVID crisis, relaying her personal experience with her brother becoming the second person to die of the virus in Tennessee.

"Our country was brought to the brink by (Trump's) failure to respond, but the Biden-Harris administration stepped in with quick and decisive action,” she said. “Under their leadership, American began to heal.”

Who is Peggy Flanagan?

As Lieutenant Governor , Peggy Flanagan is the Chair of the Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board (CAAPB) and Chair of the Advisory Committee on Capitol Area Security (ACCAS.) She also co-chairs the work of the Young Women’s Initiative, which centers around the voices of women in the state government's work. Along with other legislative accomplishments, Flanagan helped establish the country’s first Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office.

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Before her current role, Flanagan served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019.

Flanagan is from St. Louis Park, Minn., and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in American Indian studies and child psychology.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Who is Peggy Flanagan? What to know about Minnesota's lieutenant governor