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UPDATED: Childcare - a legitimate campaign expense?
Posted By katie allison granju
Some local Republicans are talking today about certain expenditures listed in County Commission candidate Amy Broyles’ January 28 campaign disclosure statement.
(Many local candidates’ campaign disclosures can be perused at the blog PoliticalKnoxville.com.)
Broyles lists $860 paid in childcare as a campaign expense.
I suspect many working women would argue that childcare is a necessary and legitimate expense of supporting a female candidate’s campaign. What do you think? And what do you find interesting or noteworthy in other local candidates’ recent disclosure statements?
UPDATE: A.C. Kleinheider weighs in:
Our leaders are comprised mostly of the legal community and the independently wealthy and it is the very process by which we choose our leaders that ensures this is so.
When paying your mortgage out of your campaign account or defraying the cost your children’s daycare out you warchest becomes scandalous, why are we surprised when we have leaders disconnected from us, from how we live our day-to-day?
Clearly we want leaders we can identify with. This was, after all, part of the appeal of George W. Bush. He was just a good solid American like so many of his voters. He loved to speak in idioms, loved his ranch, and went to church. But the fact that he attended Yale and Andover and traded on inherited wealth and connections to make his bones should be instructive to us.
If we want different kinds of leaders we need a different kind of process to elect them. There are probably a lot of folks who would love to take on Lamar Alexander for U.S. Senate but why stand for office, why quit your job and go toe to toe with an incumbent, when at the end of the line the likelihood is that the only thing waiting for you will be a mountain of unpaid bills.
If we want regular people to run for office we must expect that they will have regular needs, like a salary, like childcare. If it is unseemly for a candidate to try and make a living while he runs for office or attempts to pay for the care of her children with the money she raises for the cause of public service, can we complain that our leadership is out of touch and disconnected?
Feb 15th, 2008
I cannot imagine how difficult it must be for a mother with 3 children, one just a toddler, to run for public office. I voted for Amy because she is a REAL person with real experience, including being a working mother. Of course childcare should be a covered campaign expense if it was needed while she was conducting her campaign. I know she was out knocking on doors and at many meetings and events. I also know that having a small business means working after hours and weekends, so she and her husband were trying to accomplish a lot.
Would this be an issue with any man running for public office?