Copy shortlink: Minnesota's Native women legislators are spearheading the creation of a new state office to bring the largely hidden epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls to the forefront. They're behind legislation to establish a Minnesota office of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives, which would pull in data from state and federal sources on missing person cases and unsolved murders of Native American women and men. Unlike other races, Native missing person cases aren't tracked in any comprehensive way. "It's powerful to look across this lawn and see the visual representation of an issue that, for far too long, has been invisible," said Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. "Every Native woman I know is related to at least one person that has been affected by this issue. This violence can no longer be swept under the rug."