This. And flipping that around, her constituents, the people of Illinois, are entitled to her representation. If she’s able to show up, given that she’s recently given birth and is carrying a newborn around with her, there shouldn’t be an arbitrary barrier placed in her way.
And this.
As Atrios said yesterday, “The world’s greatest deliberative body does not actually ever deliberate. Someone should tell them.” Their time on the Senate floor nowadays is largely spent (a) voting, (b) being there for the procedural crap leading up to voting, or (c) speechifying to empty seats.
Sen. Duckworth doesn’t have to stick around for (c), and her bringing her newborn onto the Senate floor with her during (a) and (b) isn’t likely to be a problem - and to the extent that it’s a problem, it won’t be a problem for very much of any other Senator’s day, because (a) and (b) rarely involve much of their days.
As I understand workplace accommodations, the general idea is that the person affected does not get to choose what accommodation they wish.
I tend to agree with Stranger - setting up some childcare system would be at least as easy. This is being done for the optics and - I suspect - to influence other aspects of society.
Having to vote does not mean “must be present to win.” I forget the specific rules, but you are required to get to the floor to vote within a certain period of time. So a Congresscritter can be in their office and make it to the floor when something comes up for a vote - but they cannot make it back from their home district in time.
I understand - and disfavor - historical sexism in so many aspects of the workplace. I don’t know that a slippery slope is likely in this instance, but establishing the precedence makes it more likely. I haven’t seen the rules. Do they say only mothers can bring children? Are there age limits?
I presume there are always provisions where “disturbances” of any kind can be addressed. And I imagine senators are more sensitive than other employees about the prospect of having their kid running amok broadcast on C-SPAN. But if this is intended to have infants/children more accepted in other workplaces, I’m not sanguine that all other parents will be so circumspect.
When changes were made to generally allow service animals in most places (a good idea), who anticipated an emotional support peacock?
I don’t understand what you mean by “does not mean ‘must be present to win.’”
Senators must be present to cast their vote. If a senator has their child at work, it is not legal to leave the child in the office with a staffer watching them while the senator goes to vote; just like it is not legal for a senator to direct his staff to buy their groceries or perform various tasks like repairing one’s boat.
If a staffer had a child care issue, subject to the permission of their employer, I’d bet that they could take their kid into the workplace, so long as the kid is not disruptive. But the Senate Rules prohibited a senator from taking her kid into certain parts of her workplace.
ETA: not to mention that even if after hours child care was available, I would not find it surprising at all if Senator Duckworth would have to pay upwards of $900 a week in childcare costs, given a reasonable assumption that she may work 50+ hour weeks. Or she could take a very small child to the floor of the Senate a couple times a week. It frankly seems absurd and punitive to have someone pay thousands of dollars more per month for child care, rather than relax a rule that probably only makes a difference in maybe spending a couple hours per month, tops, on the floor of the Senate.
I only meant you do not need to be physically on the floor the moment a vote is called. You have time to make arrangements and get to the floor.
I don’t know Duckworth’s financial position. My impression is that most Senators are financially able to afford childcare. I don’t see, however, why each senator would have to pay the full freight of a “capital hill childcare system.” And it sucks as a society that the lion’s share of childcare is done by women. IMO, a portion of that blame lies with the parents themselves in deciding that childcare is “women’s work”. And I’m a strong advocate for breastfeeding.
Obviously I have different opinion than most others as to what is most reasonable. And my fallback position is generally that you deal with your own shit in a way that is least likely to inconvenience others.
That’s fine. Like I said, I really don’t care strongly as this applies to Senators. If it gets to the point where my co-workers are bringing their kids to work on a regular basis, I’ll re-consider whether or not I care.
Let’s see… we can allow an infant onto the floor of the Senate for brief periods of time which costs the taxpayers nothing or… we could put into place an elaborate infrastructure that will cost thousands.
Really, I don’t know why this is even a question.
IF the situation arises that there are so many babies so frequently on the Senate floor it becomes disruptive THEN we can revisit the Senate daycare question. Meanwhile, allowing a kid an occasional presences seems the more frugal and prudent solution to this problem.
Her net worth is around about $500k (cite), which is roughly in the 80th percentile in the United States. I think it’s fair to say that if she had to pay for child care and after-hours child care, we would be talking about an expense that is getting close to paying tuition at some private universities, only without financial aid.
Members of Congress haven’t had a cost of living adjustment since 2009. If you think that the public would be happy setting up a child care system with after-hours benefits that only the very, very richest of Americans would be able to afford on their own, then you and I have very different opinions of how the public views fringe benefits for politicians.
You asked earlier what the rule says, and I found it:
Senator Duckworth wouldn’t be able to bring her kid on the floor to make a speech.
I’d say the main reason is that proxy voting isn’t allowed in the US Senate. Also, it is currently divided 49-51, but one Senator is critically ill so it is even more closely divided. Votes can happen at any time. Also, Sen, Duckworth may wish to quickly respond to a point that is raised on the Senate floor. It’s not the job of her staff to care for a baby, and even if they’re able to, that takes away from their time doing the job they were hired to do.
My understanding is that the staff works for the office, not the office holder, and that it would be specifically against the rules for her to use taxpayer funded staff for personal use like babysitting and diaper changing.
The law of workplace accommodations isn’t relevant. Duckworth and her Senate colleagues are collectively their own boss. They are faced with a very different set of circumstances than an ordinary workplace.
You can bet that a CEO in a private company gets all kinds of accommodations not required by law.
Overall what’s way more important is the idea of removing limitations on what kind of person can effectively serve the public in a high office and whether there are any unnecessary constraints on effective representation by a person chosen by the public.
No, that would represent a gigantic unnecessary expenditure of public money and effort. Total overkill, at least to accommodate what Duckworth is actually asking for.
Would you like to elaborate?
From my point of view, there is a message being sent, and it’s one I welcome. What’s the message you object to?
And she is to use that time to do what? Hire a babysitter for 15 minutes? Set up a new Capitol Hill childcare infrastructure that isn’t needed for what Duckworth wants?
Maybe in the future some significant percent of elected officials will be men and women who need this accommodation such that such an infrastructure is necessary. That doesn’t mean that Duckworth should be denied today to do the small things she wants to do.
Has the peacock become an insurmountable problem? Theoretical and hypothetical unreasonability shouldn’t be a limitation on reasonable accommodations.
Agreed , and Duckworth while not wealthy, will probably have full time personal child care and not require the staff to be responsible for supervising her children while she goes through the business of being a working senator. However, while the Senate does have an “Employee Child Care Center”, it is notoriously underfunded and has a large waitlist (the same is true for the House), and so Congressional staffers often have to place children in outside care programs which is a problem that needs to be addressed. And of course, such programs do not care for infants or toddlers below the age limit. This concession is just a convenience for Duckworth to be able to attend meetings, debates, and votes on the Senate floor while tending to her daughter, and again, is a pretty common accomodation for new mothers in executive level positions in the corporate world where they cannot (or do not wish to) take off for several weeks of maternity leave.
That it is a novelty in the Senate is an indication of how unrepresentative the body is of the body politic, and Orrin Hatch’s whinging aside, may be the only time the entire Senate votes in unanimous agreement for anything other than to adjourn in this session. From a standpoint of getting Duckworth front and center in the national lens it was a brilliant political move, and plus it gave us all a fluffy positive news story instead of the usual tirade of depressing shit. I just hope Duckworth sticks a dirty diaper on Mitch McConnell’s seat while he isn’t looking just to fuck with him.
I remember when Marissa Mayer was returning to work at Yahoo, there were a bunch of articles about it. IIRC, they were building out offices for her personal daycare center, staffed by nannies - more than your assembly line Jane Schmo might expect!
The thinking behind that is that while a coder or line manager can take off several weeks for maternity leave and hand over her work to someone else, a C-level executive is indefensible to the daily operations of a company and that more than a few days away is unworkable. In retrospect, I’m not sure Marissa Mayer was the best icon for that, and with one of her first actions being to cut telecommuting and flexible hours for employees she didn’t garner much support from below.
Duckworth, on the other hand, has been pretty effective in several major metrics as a freshman senator, and this accommodation makes sense not only for her personally but for ensuring that her constituants are getting the best possible representation.
)