Lyuba Gretchen Shirley was raising two children when she decided to run for parliament in 2018.
During the day, she gave speeches and knocked on doors, holding her baby to her chest and her toddler by her side. In the afternoon, he relied on his mother to take care of him. Her mother came to watch over the children while she went out on a campaign trail.
“Honestly, six months into the campaign, it’s become very clear to me why we don’t have more mothers of young children in office,” Gretchen Shirley said. “It really wasn’t sustainable.”
Gretchen Shirley lost her race to incumbent Peter King, who continued to represent New York’s 2nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives until 2021. But during the campaign, he won a Federal Election Commission vote that set a precedent for allowing candidates for federal office to use campaign funds for child care. She launched the Vote Mama Foundation, a research organization that tracks mothers’ political participation, sparked a movement, and began the next chapter of her career.
“I’m definitely going to run for office again. I don’t know when,” Gretchen Shirley recently told USA TODAY. “Honestly, I feel like I can make a much bigger difference right now by building Vote Moms than I can with one vote in Congress, because I’m working to change political systems across the country.”
In addition to the federal committee vote, 19 states have enacted laws allowing candidates running at the state and local level to use donated funds for child care, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Twenty-one other states and Washington, D.C., have approved the use of campaign funds for child care through ethics rulings or other opinions. Some states have begun expanding these provisions to allow candidates to use campaign funds to care for other dependents, such as elderly care.
Georgia Democratic Congresswoman Nikema Williams ran a successful campaign in the summer of 2020 while working full time. Meanwhile, her then 4-year-old son’s daycare center was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and he started virtual kindergarten. She said it felt impossible to do it all. After meeting Gretchen Shirley and learning that she could use her campaign funds for childcare, she hired her son’s daycare worker as a nanny, but it wasn’t without opposition, even from members of her own campaign.
“I have no regrets,” Williams said, adding that he encourages both mothers and fathers to use their campaign funds to raise their children. “Because I think we have to change the idea that only women have to take care of children.”
The fight to get more mothers in office
Gretchen Shirley said the four male candidates had previously asked for one-time permission to use campaign funds for childcare when their spouses accompanied them to events. But she was the first to ask the Federal Election Commission to establish child care as a formal use of future campaign funds.
When Gretchen Shirley filed her request, she said her campaign manager was her only supporter and that some of her colleagues told her she would be “attacked because she is a woman and a mother.”
But other major supporters gradually emerged, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose team wrote a three-page letter of support. The committee unanimously approved her request in May 2018, and Gretchen Shirley immediately hired a nanny to work on her campaign staff.
“This has really, really changed the way people run for office,” Gretchen Shirley said. “It could completely change the political landscape.”
Since then, parents running for Congress have spent more than $1 million in campaign funds on child care, and parents running for state and local office have spent more than $700,000, according to Vote Moms. This includes more than 200 mothers and fathers, Democrats and Republicans.
By establishing child care as a valid use of campaign funds, Gretchen Shirley said the question is no longer about who can afford to run for office, but rather who truly wants to contribute to the community. She hopes that with more women and parents in office, more family-friendly policies like paid family leave and affordable child care will come to the fore. This is because “Members of Congress legislate based on their lived experience.”
“We all deserve representation.”
Gretchen Shirley said it’s not just difficult for women to run for office right now. For some mothers, even participating in the political process feels impossible.
“You have City Hall. It’s 7 o’clock at night, during bedtime,” Gretchen Shirley said. “If you bring your child, the baby might cry while you’re trying to ask questions, so you’re going to get looked at and get dirty looks.”
That’s why it’s so important to have more mothers in public office to promote policies and systems that make it easier for families to lead everyday lives, Williams said.
“As a woman of color born and raised in the South, as a mother, and as a Christian, I know we all deserve to be represented,” she said. “And I have a right to raise my children and a life in which my young son understands that anything a man can accomplish in this society, a woman can accomplish.”
Madeline Mitchell’s role covering women and the care economy for USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Contact Madeline at: memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_ With X.
