NANNY STATE’S NEW DIMENSION
Pols push campaign bucks for their child care
Like politicians don’t have enough perks already, here’s the latest: free babysitting.
State lawmakers are making a push to let candidates use their campaign cash to pay for child care expenses incurred doing campaign-related work, and it’s not as far-fetched as you might think.
The Federal Election Commission ruled just last week that a New York congressional candidate can pay for babysitting with her campaign account, paving the way for any federal incumbent or candidate to get the same perk.
Of course, ordinary people could never get away with charging their employer for child care. Can you imagine telling your boss that you’ll work late only if the company ponies up for little Janey and Johnny’s babysitter?
But politicians and wouldbe politicians live in a different world. It’s a world where they can go to an expensive dinner with a “constituent” and write it off as a “campaign” expense. And where they can charge their campaigns for their monthly auto lease. Now it’s babysitting.
In Massachusetts, state Sen. Patricia Jehlen (DSomerville) is behind the budget amendment with the generic sounding name of “Modernizing Campaign Expenditures for Working Parents.”
Current state law bars candidates from using funds for “personal use” but Jehlen’s amendment would exempt child care costs from that definition, allowing state and municipal candidates to charge their campaigns for “expenses relating to the provision of child care services for a candidate performing work or attending events directly related to the candidate’s campaign.”
Lawmakers are increasingly using “budget” amendments to push their pet causes even if it has no relation to the budget.
In the Senate alone, there are amendments for everything ranging from climate change to a statewide plastic bag ban.
One amendment would provide $2 million in grants to set up water “bottle filling stations” in schools to “discourage the consumption of sugar sweetened beverages.”
Another amendment would provide $1.5 million to establish early voting in the 2018 election.
Then there’s the amendment to exempt antique automobiles from the annual safety inspection.
Jehlen’s amendment may have a chance of passing this year because of the latest FEC ruling clearing the way for federal candidates to get the babysitting perk.
New York Democratic congressional candidate Liuba Grechen Shirley requested the FEC ruling after she began to charge her campaign for child care for her 3-year-old and 1-year-old daughters.
Other lawmakers jumped on the idea, and of course one of its champions was Hillary Clinton. Clinton’s counsel told the FEC that denying child care as a campaign expense would “discourage young mothers from seeking elective office and deprive parents of ordinary means of the opportunity to serve.”
That logic ignores the fact that increasing numbers of women, including young mothers, are already running for office.
My own mother ran for state rep when she was taking care of six children. She didn’t get free babysitting to do it. And by the way, she won.