The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
CT candidates can start spending campaign money on child care
Candidates for elected office in Connecticut can now spend public campaign money on child care while they're campaigning.
The new election rule was finalized this week and follows a years-long fight by a Fairfield mom and former state House of Representatives candidate that gained national attention.
Caitlin Clarkson Pereira, 37, lost her race but fought successfully to make child care an allowable expense in Connecticut's publicly financed campaigns. When she first ran for office in 2018, Pereira often had her daughter, Parker, who was 3-years-old at the time, in tow when knocking on constituents' doors.
“I was often not in a position to budget for a babysitter,” Pereira said Friday, adding she relied on family and Parker's father to take care of her when she couldn't bring her on the campaign trail. “It was clear to me very early on that if you didn't have those support systems, that posed a serious challenge to running for office,” she said.
Pereira filed a lawsuit against the State Elections Enforcement Commission, or SEEC, after it turned down her request. Her suit was successful but she and her supporters, including Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, said the judge's ruling should be codified into law, which happened during the 2021 legislative session.
It took about a year for the new rule to be finalized. Now that it is, SEEC will begin circulating forms to campaign treasurers to enable candidates who are the parent or legal guardian of child under thirteen years of age to receive reimbursement for child care that is necessary as a “direct result of campaign activity.”
State law limits how much campaign money candidates can spend on child care. The law restricts spending to no more than the total amount of individual contributions candidates, who participate in the Citizens Election Program must raise, so for a state rep candidate, the limit is $5,800. For a state Senate candidate, it's $17,300.
Next month's campaign finance reports will provide an early picture as to how many candidates are taking advantage of the new rule.
Pereira, who is now a firefighter in Fairfield, said she expects more parents in Connecticut will seek political office as a result. “It gives an opportunity for parents to run without having to make such a consideration as to who will watch my child,” she said.
Asked whether she would run again, Pereira said: “It's certainly not off the table.”