Measure to allow campaign funds for child care expenses glides through first committee hearing

by Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix
February 18, 2025

A proposal to let candidates spend campaign funds used for campaign-related childcare expenses if the expense derives from the candidates’ campaigns advanced unanimously on Tuesday in its first hearing before a legislative committee in Tallahassee.

Existing state law prohibits a candidate or spouse of a candidate from using campaign funds to defray living expenses for them or their family other than for transportation, meals, and lodging for the candidate or family member during a campaign.

A 2018 advisory opinion from the Federal Election Commission declared that campaign funds may be used to pay for a candidate’s childcare expenses incurred directly from campaign activity. Since then, 13 states have enacted their own laws allowing candidates running in state and local contests to use financial contributions for campaign-related child-care expenses.

“The campaign’s funds cannot be used for general family living. They have to be directly tied to a campaign-related event, and they can’t cover just routine childcare,” said South Florida Democratic state Sen. Lori Berman in describing the legislation (SB 72) before the Senate Ethics & Elections Committee.

“I think that this is a great bill because we’re going to encourage more working families, more working parents, to be able to run for office,” she added. “And they certainly bring a different perspective because they are part of the workforce.”

Only about 8% of state legislators around the country are mothers with children under 18, according to a recently released report by the Vote Mama Foundation. That means that they’re represented in state legislatures at less than half the rate they appear in the general population.

A companion to the bill in the House (HB 61) is being sponsored by Sarasota Republican Fiona McFarland & Palm Beach Democrat Kelly Skidmore.

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