On the recordOctober 29, 2019
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. {time} 1615 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.…
