100 Dollar Bills.

Despite record gains in the 2018 elections, women are still a small fraction of elected officials, comprising 23.7  percent of the U.S. Congress and 28.8  percent of state legislators. https://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/women-elective-office-2019 Connecticut's numbers are only slightly better: 32.6  percent of state legislators are women, as is 28.5 percent of our congressional delegation.  But Connecticut law makes it harder for women to decide to run, because although you can use campaign funds to pay for your spouse's dinner at campaign events, you can't use them to pay for child care.

Caitlin Clarkson Pereira discovered this when she ran for state representative in 2018. She sought to use campaign funds for babysitting after her three-year-old became exhausted going door-to-door with her in the summer heat.  Pereira was not seeking payment for the childcare she already uses to work fulltime, but simply for the extra care needed so she could fulfill the off-hour obligations campaigning requires. When she checked with the State Elections Enforcement Commission, however, the Commission told her that because she had received a grant from the Citizens Elections Program, she could not use campaign funds–public or private–for childcare. The Commission issued a formal declaratory ruling on the question on April 3, 2019. https://seec.ct.gov/Portal/data/AdvisoryOpinions/DR201902UseofCampaignFunds.pdf

Connecticut's campaign finance statutes permit expenditures for many things, including “travel, meals and lodging expenses of . . . the candidate and the candidate's spouse for political and campaign purposes,” and “any other necessary campaign or political expense.” They prohibit expenditures for “personal use” including “expenditures to defray normal living expenses,” C.G.S.A. § 9-607(g), but one /might think that payments for added childcare while a candidate campaigns would be as much a “necessary campaign or political expense” as meals for her spouse. In fact, the commission held as much in 1976, holding that necessary dependent care was the equivalent to travel and lodging, and could be paid for with privately-raised campaign funds. While not overruling the 1976 decision, the commission held it did not apply to candidates qualifying for public campaign financing.

This was not easy decision. The commission was receptive to “the laudable goal of increasing the opportunities for parents of young children to more easily participate in state elections.” Other jurisdictions have taken different approaches. The Federal Election Commission recently ruled that congressional candidates can use campaign funds for childcare. Alabama, Texas, Maryland, Minnesota also allow all campaign funds to be used for childcare, while New York permits only privately-raised funds to be so used. Iowa, Massachusetts, and West Virginia, in contrast, do not count childcare as a permissible campaign expense.

The State Elections Enforcement Commission's decision is not the last word in Connecticut. Pereira has appealed the decision in state court, alleging that it misinterprets the relevant statutes and impermissibly discriminates against women. A more immediate solution could–and should–come from the Connecticut Legislature. Indeed, the Commission declared that its staff “stand ready to work with the Petitioner to assist” in seeking a legislative fix, and Governor Lamont has pledged to sign such legislation. The ball is now in the Legislature's court.

Women's voices are an important addition to public debate, but they are still woefully underrepresented. There are many reasons for this, but at least one is that women still bear an unequal burden of dependent care. Permitting campaign funds to be used for childcare is a modest first step to address that problem. Before the current session closes, the Legislature should take that modest step.