Note that the rules have been changed to allow infants under 1 year old only. And it seems like a reasonable accommodation to the random nature of senate votes. They also had to change the rules so that the baby was not required to wear shoes or shirt and tie (or blouse and skirt), or wear a senate pin–whatever that is.
The senate pin identifies senators. It’s basically the pass card for senator-only locations
This will probably last as long as she’s breastfeeding, which I’m assuming she is and that’s why she wanted permission to take Maile onto the floor. After that, she can leave the baby with her husband or another child care provider.
Even if we grant that the benefits of this are minor, what’s the drawback? Why did we ever disallow infants on the Senate floor in the first place? If a kid’s being disruptive, they can be asked to leave, but then, that’s true for an adult, too.
Infants were probably never singled out, it was probably more like “no one under the age of X” being allowed on the floor, which just happens to include infants.
That’d be my guess, as well (I’m failing to find the actual rules with a quick search). And, this circumstance hasn’t ever come up before – Duckworth is the first Senator to give birth while in office.
OK, “no one under the age of X”, then. But I can still imagine a visitor to the Senate bringing their kid in, to show them Democracy in Action and to engage them in Civics and Patriotism, and all that. Sure, the kid would probably be bored, but it’s a noble goal.
Members of the public aren’t allowed on the Senate floor anyway, for the most part.
The public has access to the gallery, and I believe there are often young folks there, especially in school groups.
Yep. Very few women can expect their employer to construct a soundproof nursery suite adjacent to their office and staff it with nannies. That’s not gonna happen at all in the public sector (well, maybe when we have a POTUS give birth in office).
Gore Vidal was on the floor of the senate on a regular basis as a kid (shirtless and shoeless in that simpler time).
By his description, DC was a sleepy country town then. I wonder when and why the rule now being changed was introduced?
Big win for home birth 
We have a baby in the White House. Why not the Senate too?
The baby did obey the Senate dress code. Sen. Duckworth made sure she had on a blazer!
Can anyone link to that actual rule that banned children from the Senate floor? My Google Fu is failing me. Just curious more than anything else. All the articles I can find refer to “the longstanding rule banning children form the Senate floor”, but none of them says what the rule was. Wikipedia has a list of rules, but none of them appear to address children on the floor.
My coworker brought in his 4-month-old to the office one day last week due to some sort of childcare hiccup. All-day, every day might be a problem, but we’re far from that. This is so many kinds of not a big deal.
Like a nightclub, if your name ain’t on the list, you ain’t getting in.
Thanks. So it’s not like there was a rule that singled out children being banned, it’s just that “children” fall into the category of “not part of officialdom; just a member of the general public”. But perhaps this part could be a workaround:
“The officers and employees of the Senate in the discharge of their official duties”.
Make the kid an employee, with the duty of being the official pooper and vomiter, and they would be allowed on the floor to “discharge” their official duties.
Am i the only one who has a problem with a 10 day old baby going anywhere, let alone a large public building like that. It’s dangerous to the child which has a underdeveloped immune system and it shouldn’t be in public until at least 6 weeks.
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I think you’re wrong and I don’t have a problem with this. Millions of babies have been born throughout history and very few of them would have had the privilege of staying out of the public for 6 weeks.
Considering that this is a body that allows filibuster as a debate tactic, I can’t imagine that the presence of a physical infant is more disruptive than normal Senate proceedings ever are.