Judge: Candidates can use election grants for child care – Quad-Cities Online

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut politician has won a court battle that will allow candidates for elected office in the state to use public campaign funds to pay for child care while they are on the campaign trail.

The ruling comes in the case of Caitlin Clarkson Pereira, of Fairfield, a Democrat and mother of three young children who ran for state representative in 2018.

The state’s Elections Enforcement Commission had previously ruled that she could not use public election grants to pay babysitters for her children while she campaigned.

The grants are commonly used to pay for campaign travel and other expenses.

State Superior Court Judge John Cordani, in a ruling released Thursday, found that child care also is a proper use for that money and “serves the public policy embedded in the foregoing statutes of encouraging all types of people, including those with small children, to run for public office to ensure that all segments of our population are represented in our government.”

Clarkson Pereira told Hearst Connecticut Media that she was elated by the ruling.

“We have gone multiple election cycles without knowing the final verdict, keeping countless candidates from entering races because the expense of child care would be such a burden,” she said. “I have always been confident this was the answer we should have received from the beginning, and it’s past time Connecticut officially joins all the other states that allow such an expense.”

The state commission had allowed candidates financing their campaigns through privately raised funds to use those monies to cover child care, and the Federal Election Commission allows congressional candidates to use campaign funds to pay for child care.