As more and more women enter the field of electoral politics and become candidates for federal and state office, they will continue to bring their unique perspectives to the myriad of policy questions and challenges of governing. The increased number of women in electoral politics will indelibly reshape our nation’s laws. To that end, and quite fittingly, before a new generation of female lawmakers reshape our halls of legislation in both state capitals and in Washington D.C., they are first changing the ways in which they arrive in those very halls.
To do so, women are taking on the herculean task of running for office while often times balancing the day-to-day necessities of raising a family. As of now, the Federal Elections Commission (“FEC”) interprets the Federal Elections Campaign Act (“FECA”) to allow for candidates to pay for child care for their children using campaign funds. The problem is that the FEC’s current position, arrived at after a series of individual adjudications starting in 1995, runs exactly opposite to the black letter of the controlling statute. This creates a risk that a future FEC, composed of less agreeable commissioners, could slowly chip away at the current status quo. While such action would be contrary to progress and election accessibility, it would be more in line with FECA itself. This can be avoided by passing the Help America Run Act and replicating that bill’s provisions in state capitals and election-controlling bodies around the country. Success in passing this bill at the federal level would mean that Congress has effectively changed FECA to affirmatively allow for care-related expenditures in all races for federal office to be paid for by campaign funds.
This Article explores how the FEC, over three decades, arrived at this positive, albeit unexpected and tenuous, legal outcome. Before that, however, this Article will explore what the academic literature says about women in politics; how they come to enter politics, and what often holds them back; how they get recruited, and how they do not; and how women from different generations managed their entry into the public arena. Next, the Article examines the foundation for this entire discussion, the Federal Elections Campaign Act, with special interest paid to the little-known, yet critical, “Irrespective Test.” Following that, the Article surveys and analyzes three important FEC decisions that brought us to the current understanding of if, and when, parents running for federal office can legally use their campaign funds to pay for child care. Following section IV, this Article discusses the current efforts at the federal level to codify the FEC’s stand-alone rulings, and the current status of state legislative and administrative decisions seeking to do the same at the state level. Lastly, Minnesota receives honorable mention as one of the states that currently allows for campaign funds to be used for care-related expenses. While better than many, Minnesota stands as an example of a state whose current approach lags behind the FEC’s current position.