Bill to allow campaign funds for child care on the move in Mass.

While Massachusetts allows political candidates to use campaign funds to rent a tuxedo to attend a formal event, child care is not an allowable campaign expense, unlike in Rhode Island. (Photo by Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent)

When she first ran for state representative more than 30 years ago, Pat Jehlen said it took long days door-knocking in her Somerville district to capture the seat. With her husband working full-time, she relied on a friend who offered to take care of her young children while she was canvassing.

“I had free child care,” said Jehlen, now a state senator. “Without that, I would never have gotten started,” she said of her long legislative career.

‘Mom’ legislators see their numbers, influence grow but barriers to elected office remain

More than three decades later, Jehlen is pushing an election law change that would make it easier for parents of young children to run for office without shelling out lots of money or relying on the kindness of friends and family.

Jehlen is a co-sponsor, with state Reps. Mike Connolly of Cambridge and Joan Meschino of Hull, of legislation that would allow campaign funds to be spent on a candidate’s child care expenses.

That such expenses can’t currently be paid with campaign funds came as a surprise to Lee Erica Palmer when she ran for a seat on the Somerville school committee in 2015. Palmer, a single mother and attorney, heard that male politicians could tap campaign funds to rent tuxedos to attend a formal function, but she was told by the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance that child care was not an allowable campaign expense.

While everything from pricey steakhouse dinners to travel to far-off conferences can be paid with campaign funds under the broad definition of allowable spending that furthers a candidate’s political career, child care was deemed to fall outside that interpretation.

Rhode Island passed a law in 2021 letting state and local candidates spend campaign funds on child care. However, it has yet to be used by any candidate with child care burdens, man or woman.

In 2018, the Massachusetts Legislature created a commission to study the issue. Its 2020 report recommended changing the law to allow such spending with campaign funds, a finding that formed the basis for the bill. Last week, the current version was reported out favorably by the Joint Committee on Elections Laws, raising hopes that it will make it to the Senate floor for a vote and then get to the House before the end of July.

“When we first brought this idea up, it was a pretty novel idea,” said Connolly, whose district includes sections of Cambridge and Somerville. Today, he said, Massachusetts is not a leader on the issue but a laggard, with more than 30 states now allowing campaign funds to be used for child care costs and the Federal Election Commission making a similar ruling for candidates for federal office.

“Our entire campaign finance law is organized around the concept of spending that enhances a candidate’s political future,” said Connolly. “This fits well within that because obviously ensuring access to child care will enable a broader group of people, particularly women and parents in working families to more fully participate in the political process.”

Scrambling to pay for child care on her own, Palmer won her race for school committee nine years ago and went on to serve two terms in office. She’s hopeful that the campaign path may be a bit easier for others going forward. “I”m really excited to hear there now seems to be the momentum to get this important bill passed,” she said.

The demands of political office, starting with the day and night hours of campaigning to win a seat, have long been challenging for those raising young children, responsibilities that disproportionately fall on women. Jehlen said it’s no accident that women tend to enter the Legislature at older ages than men. She said the bill represents a small, but tangible, step to even the playing field and make running for office more possible for all.

Jehlen said the legislation falls into a category of eminently sensible bills that don’t actually have any opposition, but sometimes have a hard time breaking through during the frenzied final weeks of a session when sweeping omnibus pieces of legislation can suck up all the oxygen.

“I think often things that are perceived as little bills get lost,” she said. “So we have to elevate it a bit.”

This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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