{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://roby.house.gov/roby-news/capitol-hill-mom-caucus-growing", "On Capitol Hill, the Mom Caucus Is Growing", "2013-11-21", "2013", "2013-11", "Republican", "House", "AL", "Martha Roby", "R000591", "roby.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "At a press conference last year, Luke Russert asked House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi why, at 72, she didn\u2019t pass the torch to a younger Democrat. He then received a televised schooling in man years and woman years. While the other Democratic women of the House booed Russert, Pelosi explained that her male colleagues had gotten a jump-start on her, since she waited until her youngest child was headed to college to run for office. \u201cYou gotta take off 14 years off [my age] because I was home raising a family,\u201d she said, adding that she had worked throughout her career to bring younger candidates \u2014 and especially younger women \u2014 into the fold. To a certain extent, she\u2019s succeeded. Where the previous generation of women arrived on Capitol Hill empty-nesters (Dianne Feinstein) or child-free (Barbara Mikulski), the rising class includes a number of younger women with school-age children. Legislators like Kirsten Gillibrand, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and Kelly Ayotte are in the throes of motherhood\u2019s most hectic years \u2014 the days of sleepovers and permission slips, memorably detailed by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the New York Times\u2019 Motherlode blog last year. And that cohort may soon be joined by more moms. Stephanie Schriock, president of the Democratic women\u2019s recruitment and fundraising group EMILY\u2019s List, called the 2014 slate a \u201csea change\u201d for women. \u201cWe\u2019ll see more moms of young children run and we\u2019ll elect more moms of young children and we\u2019ll have more policy outcomes that are reflective of women and families,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a set of voices we desperately need.\u201d In Georgia, there\u2019s Michelle Nunn: After announcing her bid for retiring Senator Saxby Chambliss\u2019s seat, she traveled around the state in her minivan with her husband and her sons, ages 8 and 10. In Iowa, former State Senator Staci Appel, a mother of six famous for campaigning pregnant, will make a run for the House. West Virginia\u2019s Secretary of State Natalie Tennant \u2014 mom to Delaney \u2014 will run for senator. Wyoming hopeful Liz Cheney has two children under the age of ten, among more vocal family members. These women stand to close the fourteen-year baby detour that has kept women from ascending to leadership positions until they\u2019re old enough to elicit Luke Russert\u2019s shade. \u201cThe more compressed your career is, the harder it is to reach a position of power,\u201d said Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The Democratic National Committee chair is still grateful she had the guts to run for the state house at 26, against the recommendation of the \u201cgood old boys\u201d who told her it wasn\u2019t her turn. \u201cIt gave me the opportunity to have a much longer ramp than women generations before me, who typically made those decisions when their kids were older and less dependent on mom,\u201d she said. Mothers of young children are just one segment of the gradually diversifying legislature, but their early and sustained presence has the potential for long-term consequences. Democratic New York Representative Grace Meng, whose sons are 5 and 4, first assumed being the mom who couldn\u2019t go to weekend conferences would put her at a competitive disadvantage. Now, though, she thinks it gives her a valuable political perspective. \u201cPeople like to talk about children, but it\u2019s hard to get at the substantive issues,\u201d she said. \u201cKids don\u2019t have an advocate or a lobbyist helping them.\u201d The influence of those with immediate firsthand knowledge of children spans from straightforward practical matters (like bills banning expired baby formula and drop-side cribs) to high-profile legislative battles, like sequestration cuts that directly affect children in WIC and Head Start programs, Meng explained. Republican moms \u2014 though less numerous than Democrats \u2014 show how a maternal perspective can be marshaled for conservative politics, too. Last spring, Alabama Representative Martha Roby proposed the Working Families Flexibility Act, a bill that would allow private employers to pay employees for overtime hours in comp time instead of time-and-a-half \u2014 and opened up a Congressional theater in the mommy wars. Republicans said that Democrats who opposed the bill didn't care about working mothers in ads on mommy blogs; Democrats called the bill a \u201cdeplorable,\u201d \u201cshameful,\u201d \u201cappalling\u201d Mother\u2019s Day gift that would weaken labor laws. As for Roby, she said the bill stems from her personal experience with the push and pull of being a working mom. \u201cI understand that time is far more valuable than the cash dollars for overtime,\u201d she said. Like any career, legislative success depends on finding a roadmap to navigate the logistics of Congressional motherhood. Wasserman Schultz\u2019s youngest was 1 when she was sworn in as a U.S. Representative in 2005, and since then she\u2019s become House Democrats\u2019 unofficial mom adviser, sought by Congressional hopefuls (including a pre-Senate appointment Kirsten Gillibrand) and dispatched by EMILY\u2019s List to assuage recruits. \u201cMoms have a whole lot of questions about how you make it work, particularly when they\u2019re the primary caretaker, as most women are,\u201d she said. As a strain of work-life balance, holding federal legislative office presents unique challenges. The late-night votes and cross-country commutes preclude the Sheryl Sandberg method of ducking out at 5:30 for homework help and dinner before logging back on remotely after bedtime. And nor is electoral politics \u2014 with the constant pressures of fundraising and re-election \u2014 fit for the fluid \u201csee-saw marriages\u201d prescribed by Hanna Rosin, in which partners trade off years as caretaker and breadwinner. (Unless you\u2019re a Clinton.) The first thing, Wasserman Schultz says, is to make sure the candidate\u2019s spouse, partner, parents, and in-laws are wholly on board. \u201cThe last thing you want is to come home on the weekend and have to deal with stress raining down from your family because they haven\u2019t bought into your decision to make this career move,\u201d she said. Then there\u2019s the question of where to live. For some parents of young children, like Roby, keeping their families in their home district is a way of drawing a line between work time and family time. \u201cIf they were here I would feel so pulled away from them during the week,\u201d Roby said of her daughter and son, ages 8 and 4, who live in Alabama with her husband, the babysitter, and plenty of grandparents. Rather than feel conflicted about each working dinner or nighttime speech, she can fly home on Fridays in full mom-mode. Some of the challenges, finally, are devilishly mundane. Wasserman Schultz says parents must train their young, childless staffers to respect family responsibilities, like the fax- and iPad-enabled homework review time she had put on her daily schedule. Roby lives in weeklong crusades, using weekends to strategize. \u201cI go to the grocery store on the weekends, and I cook for the week \u2014 just fill the refrigerator \u2014 so it\u2019s one less thing my husband has to worry about,\u201d she said. Meng takes the opposite tack. From fellow delegation moms Sen. Gillibrand and Rep. Carolyn Maloney she gets practical tips \u2014 \u201cteaching your husband to cook more, for example\u201d \u2014 and big-picture encouragement. When she misses her kids, which is more often now that they\u2019re talking, she says, \u201cThey remind me that I\u2019m making a long-term investment in our country.\u201d\nTo read this article on the publication's website, click here.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://roby.house.gov/roby-news/capitol-hill-mom-caucus-growing"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.7911709621548653, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}