Ohio lawmakers are a step closer to beginning an important process, after a provision that could lay to rest thousands of Native American remains passed the House of Representatives. In fact, according to the Associated Press, Ohio History Connection has more than 7,100 remains and funerary objects in its possession that should have been returned under a loosely followed federal law in the 1990s.

ProPublica’s investigation on the matter found other U.S. museums and universities still holding Native American remains, but Ohio History Connection has the third-largest amount in the country.

Now, the state’s budget could include language that allows Ohio History Connection to use any land it owns to bury the remains. It has approximately 6 acres set aside for an intertribal burial ground. But it can’t do that until the land is designated a burial ground by the Legislature.

Ohio History Connection will also be required to work with “federally recognized Indian tribal governments” on the selection and use of those sites. “We believe very strongly their spirit never rests until they are reconnected with Mother Earth,” Glenna Wallace, chief of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, told the Dispatch.

It is good to see progress toward making that reconnection. Now it is up to the state Senate to maintain the provision in its consideration of the budget it must pass before the end of June, as they surely will do.