Help America Run Act
Floor Speech
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Ms. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I am a single mom. When I ran for Congress last year, I spent thousands and thousands of dollars on childcare.
Running for Federal office requires 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100-hour workweeks, and I worked nearly every single day, including every single weekend. I also worked challenging hours, often starting at 5:30 a.m. and ending with campaign events stretching late into the evening. I juggled more than a dozen childcare providers for nearly 2 years, without whom I would have never made it to Congress.
I have three children. When I started my campaign, Betsy was 6, Paul was 9, and Luke was 11. Leaving them alone was not an option; and bringing them on the campaign trail was impossible or inappropriate.
For the past two centuries, Congress has written many, many laws about what women may or may not do. But until this year, women's representation in Congress was less than 20 percent. With the election of the historic class of 2018, we hit 23.4 percent, 102 women, and that number is still egregiously low.
There are even fewer moms in Congress and even fewer moms of young kids and even fewer single moms of young kids, as in just me.
A major barrier to women running for elected office is their inability to afford the amount or type of childcare needed in a campaign. That is why I introduced the Help America Run Act, which will explicitly allow candidates for Federal office to use campaign contributions to pay for childcare as well as other types of dependent care, such as eldercare.
Right now, candidates can use campaign funds for a whole gamut of expenses, from pizza for exhausted staff to cybersecurity for digital devices. But the law does not make it clear that childcare is among those allowed expenses.
Like so many laws, there is an assumption of a female caregiver behind every male elected official. In part because of that, moms who continue to shoulder the majority of childcare responsibilities also struggle to run for Congress.
Until women are fully and equally present in Congress, women's perspectives will continue to be underrepresented. The result is a weaker democracy for the people.
I am proud that this bill previously passed the House as part of H.R. 1, the For the People Act. Now, with the support of my congressional colleagues on both sides of the aisle, the House is taking this additional step to support women and candidates with families by passing the Help America Run Act.
Access to childcare services was a problem I faced like so many other single parents long before I decided to run for office. Every parent, not just those running for Congress, deserves to have access to quality, affordable childcare. The Help America Run Act should be only the beginning.
Today isn't just about passing legislation to open up the Halls of Congress for single moms or single dads. It is about creating pathways for every parent and every American, regardless of socioeconomic status, to be able to achieve their goals. We all deserve a Congress that reflects the diversity of families and households in our country.
This bill will help America run and, in the process, will help America's Congress run better.
Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois.
What an impassioned speech by our colleague.
This isn't just a problem for one gender running for Congress. It is a problem for all families. It is a problem that I faced when my kids were younger when I first ran for office a little over 6\1/2\ years ago. It is what to do with young children who can't go anywhere on their own at that time.
With twin boys aged 12, I don't necessarily know that I trusted them going somewhere on their own. I don't know if I trusted them at home alone, at the same time. It is, what do you do to make sure your family gets the supervision and the supervisory opportunities that you need?
This is an opportunity for us to show anybody who wants to follow in what our forefathers of this great Nation put forth in our Constitution creating the House of Representatives to be able to be a House for the people and by the people to represent this great United States. This is going to be an opportunity for anyone, no matter what their path is in life, if they have children at home, if they are a single mom, if they are a single dad, if they are a family with kids, if they are wondering how they take on this challenge, how they get a chance to serve this great country, how they get a chance to join us, this is going to be their opportunity to say: I am going to go out and spend a lot of time raising money because many of these campaigns--I can tell you how much mine cost. It cost millions upon millions of dollars and a lot of time. When you are gone, you are raising more money to run because campaigns are too expensive. We understand that. We get that. We agree on that.
This is a chance to say: I am going to get out there and get on the dance floor and take that chance. Too many people who may want to run for office won't do it because they are afraid to lose. I think everyone has to have the chance to take away any excuse to be able to step out and put their name on the ballot to have a chance to do what we do.
If I, the son of a high school dropout and a guy who graduated high school who walked into a fast-food restaurant in 1959 and had a dream to own his own one day, if I, who had no family ever in politics or government, can come and stand on this floor and work with colleagues like Chairperson Lofgren and Congresswoman Porter to help put good legislation like this through, anybody in this great country can do it.
It is a great opportunity to show the next generation that we care enough about them to be able to show them how to do exactly what we do.
Let's all come together. Let's make this happen today. It is a great opportunity for us to stand here on the floor and show the American people the Republicans and Democrats do agree on issues, and we do work together. I mean, maybe the news will cover it, maybe they won't. We might be able to debate Nickelback or something and get them to cover it today.
But do you know what? We know what happens here. We know we have opportunities. We know that we are able to put good policies like this together. We know that friendships do exist on both sides of the aisle in this institution.
This is a great bill. This is an opportunity. I thank all of my colleagues who are supporting this.
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Ms. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for his bipartisanship and his cooperation on this because democracy is not a partisan value. Democracy is about letting every voice in this country be heard. Those voices should reflect the diversity of this country, both socioeconomically and geographically, but also in terms of family status.
I think everyone in America should be grateful that my children were well supervised during the campaign, and I am grateful that I was able to piece together the childcare that I needed to run. But this bill is not about any one of us. It is about the benefits that every one of us here and every American will get from having a more diverse Congress, from having voices heard that sometimes are not heard.
There are millions and millions and millions of single parents, men and women, in this country, and there is one in the United States Congress. Whether that will change next year or in 10 years, I don't know, but I want every American who wants to serve in this body, who wants to come together to work for the good of the American people, to have the opportunity to make that happen and not to have to choose between being a parent and being a good parent and caring about your kids, and being a good American and being a good Congress Member.
Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Will the gentlewoman yield?
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Ms. PORTER. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I ask Ms. Porter this: Your legislation doesn't tell candidates they have to spend money on this, right?
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Ms. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, the legislation provides an opportunity and a choice for each candidate to decide, in their own campaign and from their own donors, whether or not they want to use these funds for childcare.
Many people will choose not to, just like many of us choose as candidates not to seek reimbursement for pizza or not to seek reimbursement for any number of allowable FEC expenses. But this bill is also going to stop the FEC from having to again and again and again--every time a parent of young children wants to run, from having to make that expensive and time-consuming appeal to the FEC and waste its resources when this simply should be a clear, straightforward policy.
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