MPR’s Tim Pugmire reports on the disparity of people of color in state legislature. When Peggy Flanagan, executive director of the Children's Defense Fund-Minnesota wins election to the Minnesota House, she'll join an exclusive club. A member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, Flanagan will become one of only a handful of legislators of color at the Capitol.
Segment includes interviews with Flanagan; Rena Moran, DFL-St. Paul, the only black member of the House; Jon Koznick, state representative of Lakeville; and state representative Eric Lucero of Dayton.
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HOST: The makeup of the Minnesota legislature doesn't match the racial and ethnic diversity of the state's population. Less than 5% of state lawmakers are people of color, compared to about 19% of the population. That will change slightly next week, when Democrat Peggy Flanagan of Saint Louis Park wins a special election for a House seat in the Western suburbs.
She'll be the only candidate on the ballot, and she's a member of the White Earth band of Ojibwe. But many more people of color will need to win elections for the legislature to look like the state at large. Tim Pugmire has more.
TIM PUGMIRE: Peggy Flanagan is executive director of the Children's Defense Fund Minnesota. She spends much of her free time campaigning in the neighborhoods of Golden Valley, Medicine Lake, Plymouth, and Saint Louis Park that make up House District 46A. Few Native Americans live there, but Flanagan proudly highlights her heritage and how it will influence her as a legislator.
PEGGY FLANAGAN: I can't ever stop being a Native woman. And so that's the lens through which I see much of the work that I do and so would like to have an open door for other folks in the community, in the American Indian community and in communities of color, to be an advocate on those issues.
TIM PUGMIRE: The Minnesota Legislative Reference Library keeps a list of self-reported minority legislators past and present. It shows that Flanagan will become the seventh Native American to serve in the legislature since statehood. An additional four were in the territorial legislature. In
158 years, there have been only 12 African-American legislators, 9 Hispanic Latino, and 4 Asian. That's less than 1% of the legislators' total historic membership. The current roster of 201 legislators includes 10 minority group members. Flanagan said she wishes the list were longer and more representative of the population.
PEGGY FLANAGAN: We need to be really intentional about growing leadership in districts, demystifying the process, and inviting people to run.
TIM PUGMIRE: African-Americans make up 5.9% of Minnesota's population but less than 1.5% of the legislature. There are just three African-American legislators. DFL representative Rena Moran of Saint Paul is the only Black member of the House. Moran, who is serving her third term, said the underrepresentation is troubling.
RENA MORAN: I would love to see a body that's more diverse. I think it would be helpful and healthy for me as a legislator. Life is about relationships and being connected to others. And so often in this body, I feel alone.
TIM PUGMIRE: But Moran said the lack of diversity also hurts the state. She said it sometimes leads to lawmakers making poor decisions on education, health care, and other issues because their perspective is limited.
RENA MORAN: Just because something is working for one individual or one community does not mean it's going to work for another community. And so often, it doesn't work for communities of color.
TIM PUGMIRE: The list of past and present minority legislators is almost all Democrats, but the most recent additions are two Republicans elected last year, state representatives John Koznick of Lakeville and Eric Lucero of Dayton, are the first ever Latino Republicans to serve in the Minnesota legislature. Despite that groundbreaking distinction, Lucero said his Latino heritage is not what he chooses to emphasize.
ERIC LUCERO: How about values and ideas? A diversity of ideas, in my opinion, is the most important. If all we hear about are the same ideas rehashed over and over again for lack of diversity, that's not healthy.
TIM PUGMIRE: Koznick said he too ran on core principles not ancestry. But now that he's in office, Koznick said he's learning about the needs of the Latino community.
JOHN KOZNICK: I didn't grow up in a strong Latino culture. But the issues and the demographics, I think, are important. And from policymaking perspective in the Republican Party, we're recognizing those issues and working to address those.
TIM PUGMIRE: Koznick said he's been encouraging other suburban Republican Latinos to get involved in politics. He said that outreach could help bring more diversity to state government. The addition of DFLer Peggy Flanagan in next week's special election points out another disparity in the legislature. Women hold only a third of the 201 seats. Tim Pugmire, Minnesota Public Radio news at the Capitol.