Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is urging the Federal Election Commission to let campaigns use donor dollars for babysitting when female candidates have to leave their kids behind to hit the trail.
Her legal team argued in a case before the FEC that not allowing child care expense from campaign coffers would put a chill on potential campaigns by young mothers.
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Denying use of campaign dollars, they wrote in a letter, would “discourage young mothers from seeking elective office, and deprive parents of ordinary means of the opportunity to serve.”
The letter from lawyers Marc E. Elias and Courtney T. Weisman was filed in support of a request from New York congressional candidate Liuba Grechen Shirley. She has a three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son and told the FEC that she can’t afford to run without her campaign paying her childcare.
“Having forgone my income while still managing my typical finances including medical bills, student loans, and a mortgage, paying for full-time childcare for an extended period of time in order to campaign for Congress is not financially possible. It is critical that we make running for office accessible to all working parents, not just for the independently wealthy,” she argued in her early April request to the FEC.
Clinton’s team agreed, writing, “For young mothers like her, the ability to seek office hinges on access to child care. Ms. Shirley’s case is especially striking. Before she became a candidate, she worked from home, cared for her infant children herself, and needed no outside child care. Thus, under a plain reading of the law, as applied to Ms. Shirley’s facts, the answer to her question can only be ‘yes,’” said the lawyers.
