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Delaware official rejects statehouse candidate’s request to use campaign funds for child care —


Earlier this month, State Election Commissioner Anthony Albence, the top official in Delaware tasked with addressing campaign spending issues, rejected a statehouse candidates' request to use campaign fund for child care. 
  • Candidates’ options for child care have changed considerably in recent years, after the Federal Election Commission ruled in 2018 that a candidate could utilize campaign funds for child care expenses incurred as a direct result of campaign activity.
  • But the ruling did not apply to state and local candidates, only federal. That limitation helped create what exists today: a patchwork of laws and administrative rules around the country for parents seeking elected state and local office. 
Eighteen states allow the use of campaign funds for child care, according to the latest tally by Vote Mama, an organization that works toward electing more mothers into all levels of office and pushes for universal child care. Six of those states (California, Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York and Utah) have settled the matter through statewide legislation. In the other states, candidates have searched for answers from election boards, commissions and other local officials.

Candidates, separated sometimes by just a few hundred miles, have wildly different experiences. Delaware code, as interpreted by Albence and his staff, does not allow child care as a campaign expense. Further north, New York changed its policy through state law in 2019.
  • Liuba Grechen Shirley, a former New York congressional candidate whose request to the FEC led to the 2018 ruling, called decisions like the one in Delaware “detrimental” to women candidates at a time when the pandemic has further complicated child care by limiting access to family and friends.
  • Women, who disproportionately handle child care needs for their families, today only make up 29 percent of all state legislators in America. They make up a little over 23 percent of Congress.
Read the full story by Barbara Rodriguez here.
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— On Wednesday night, Richard Grenell, former acting director of national intelligence and an out gay man, addressed the Republican National Convention. To the surprise of many, Grenell made no mention of LGBTQ+ issues. Grenell’s address, announced just hours before it aired, was promptly slammed by LGBTQ+ organizations as a last-ditch effort by the RNC to gloss over Trump’s policies. Earlier this month, Grenell released a video claiming that Trump was the most “pro-gay president in American history.”

— “This is gaslighting, and we won’t fall for it,” Vivian Topping, director of advocacy and civic engagement at the Equality Federation told The 19th in an email. “This administration has been violently dangerous for LGBTQ people.”

— Trump vowed in 2016 to be a friend to LGBTQ+ Americans. But the Trump administration has launched over a hundred attacks on the community, ranging from barring transgender people from serving openly in the military to arguing that LGBTQ+ people should not be protected from employment discrimination at the Supreme Court.

Read the full story by Kate Sosin here.

Health —

Pregnant in a pandemic: The ‘perfect storm for a crisis’
By Shefali Luthra

Between the virus and its economic fallout, the pandemic has added new risks to pregnancy in America. (Illustration by Clarice Bajkowski)


For Amanda Feltner, pregnancy was already risky. At 39, she’s at a higher risk of complications, and she has an autoimmune disorder that makes it harder to maintain a pregnancy. 

And now, Feltner, who is in her first trimester, has a pandemic to deal with. 

She’s a public school teacher in Jackson, Michigan, and her district is requiring teachers to work in person, while students choose between virtual and in-person learning. Feltner is trying to get a disability accommodation to teach remotely, citing her pregnancy and intense anxiety. She doesn’t know what she’ll do if she’s denied. 

Feltner is terrified. Her doctor has doubled her anxiety medication, she said. 

“I’m not sleeping. I’m not eating right. I go for days where my stomach is in so much turmoil, I have to force myself to even take a few bites of anything,” she said. “Which is not healthy in general, but definitely not healthy in early pregnancy.” 

It’s just one variation of a scenario playing out across the country as people struggle to navigate pregnancy during COVID-19. Between the virus and its economic fallout, the pandemic has added new risks to pregnancy in America: physical dangers, but also intense psychological strain in a nation whose maternal outcomes already lag well behind other developed countries. The full picture is only beginning to emerge, but experts warn it could amplify already-stark maternal health disparities.

Read the full story here.

19 minutes with The 19th—

Join us in conversation with our women and the economy reporter Chabeli Carrazana, who will answer your questions about America’s first female recession. 
 

LEARN MORE

What we’re reading—

Have something you think we should recommend? Tell us or tweet at us using #19thShares.
UNC housekeepers speak out: ‘They don’t give a damn about us’. UNC-Chapel Hill housekeepers say university leadership's lack of transparency has put them at risk of COVID-19. (Prism, August 27)
What the 19th amendment meant for Black women. One hundred years ago this month, suffragists celebrated the amendment’s adoption. For Black women, it wasn’t a culminating moment, but the start of a new fight to secure voting rights for all Americans. (POLITICO, August 26)
Life while Black, as told by one St. Petersburg couple. ‘All of the small things that build up can make you feel like you’re drowning.’ (Tampa Bay Times, August 27)
GOP women in Arizona could decide an unexpected 2020 battle. Led by a firebrand loyalist, the state party has lurched to the right under President Trump. That has turned off some Republicans, and Arizona suddenly appears in play for Democrats. (New York Times, August 26)
A message from this week's sponsor Aetna
Feeling sad, anxious or stressed? You’re not alone. We’re always here to help, and to remind you to make #TimeForCare. Learn more at Aetna.
What we’re streaming—
🎧 Listen: 'Say Her Name': The latest on Breonna Taylor's case. 1A examines Breonna Taylor's case as among those that stoked racial uprisings this summer, and weighs the attention she's received from celebrities and magazines with the fact that no arrests have been made for her death at the hands of Louisville police. (1A, August 26)
📺 Watch: The Vote. This two-part documentary tells the dramatic culmination story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote — a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the largest expansion of voting rights in U.S. history. The 19th amendment was adopted a hundred years ago this week. (PBS, July 7)
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