She’s moving on
Senator touts paid family leave, plans town hall meetings
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand feels blessed by the opportunity to run for president./
If Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is shedding a tear over her lost 2020 presidentialnomination quest, she’s not letting it show.
A chipper Gillibrand on Tuesday insisted the campaign never sidetracked her from issues important to her New York constituency. Not only that, but the five or so months she spent out on the trail — much of it in Iowa and New Hampshire — helped her better understand the “overlap” on issues important to the country generally and New York particularly, she said.
Chemical contamination of water supplies is an example, she said. The dangers posed by PFAS/PFOA contamination in Hoosick Falls, Petersburgh and Newburgh also are a threat in New Hampshire.
“I feel very blessed by the opportunity to run for president,” she said on a conference call Tuesday to promote her Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act for paid family leave. “I learned a lot that I can apply to my job in the U.S. Senate.”
Gillibrand boasted that two pieces of legislation she sponsored were enacted while she was out campaigning. The first was the bill boosting the federal fund for workers at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan who scoured wreckage of the downed World Trade Center towers.
The second was a bill expanding veterans benefits to those who served in Vietnam in the “Blue Water Navy” — ships that plied the coastline and inland water ways. Veterans of those boats also suffered from exposure to the harsh chemical Agent Orange but benefits for a time were reserved for “boots on the ground” military personnel.
“I never took my eye off the ball while running for president,” she said.
Gillibrand is now planning appearances at town hall-type events around the state. She is scheduled for events in Buffalo and Rochester on Wednesday and Westchester County on Thursday. And she also is expected to visit Albany on Thursday.
Gillibrand entered the presidential race in March, confident that her championship of issues such as combatting sexual assault on campus and in the military could turn her into a contender. But despite a grueling road schedule, her poll numbers stayed low.
Her two debate appearances over the summer did little to move the numbers. And when she was denied a
place on the stage for the third debate, she decided enough was enough.
But her early withdrawal yielded some benefits, she insisted. Her two sons are “excited over more homecooked meals by their mother,” she said. “So that’s a good thing.”
But as she continues her transition back to life as a senator, the even-harsher realities of politics in the impeachment era likely will intrude on her legislative wishful thinking.
On Tuesday, she released a study by Data for Progress, showing 66 percent of voters surveyed approve paid
family leave along the lines of Gillibrand’s FAMILY Act, which provides up to 12 weeks of paid leave for serious personal or family health issues or to care for a new child — paid for through a payroll tax increase.
The same respondents took a dim view of paid leave only for new parents, a policy advocated by President Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump.
But even though details of proposals may differ, Gillibrand said there is enough bipartisan support to keep her hopeful.
“Maybe this is the kind of legislation that can break through the politics,” she said. “This is really a middle-class issue. It can
be a win for everybody.”
In the meantime, New York is close to the end of its first year in a state paidfamily-leave plan.
In 2019, working New Yorkers were able to receive 55 percent of their average weekly wage, with a maximum weekly benefit set at $716 a week.
Trump himself has declared support for the paid-family-leave concept in his last two State of the Union speeches.
But Trump has also said the continuing controversy over his July 25 call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy could rupture progress on bipartisan legislation.