Shelley Berkley on Families & Children Democratic Representative (NV-1)

Voted YES on four weeks of paid parental leave for federal employees.

Proponent's argument to vote Yes:

Rep. STEVE LYNCH (D, MA-9): This bill takes an important step toward improving the Federal Government's ability to recruit and retain a highly qualified workforce by providing paid parental leave to Federal and Congressional employees for the birth, adoption or placement of a child for foster care, which is a benefit that is extended to many in the private sector in other industrialized countries.

Opponent's argument to vote No:Rep. DARRELL ISSA (R, CA-49): This bill sends the wrong message at the wrong time to working American taxpayers and families that are struggling in difficult times. Our economy is in crisis, and deficits are already soaring. This bill does not have one provision to say if you make $170,000 a year, why do we have to give you this benefit, because you have to choose between feeding your children and being with your children? Certainly not. There are no protections against, in fact, those who do not need this special benefit getting it. There are no safeguards at all. As a matter of fact, this bill envisions the $1 billion over 5 years, swelling to $4 billion over 10 years or more because, in fact, they believe it should be 8 weeks of special leave. Federal employees enjoy one of the highest levels of job security, without a doubt, anywhere in the United States. I would venture to say many of them the highest. More importantly, in good times and bad, they keep their jobs.

Voted YES on establishing nationwide AMBER alert system for missing kids.

Voted YES on reducing Marriage Tax by $399B over 10 years.

Give parents tools to balance work and family.

Strengthen America’s Families
While the steady reduction in the number of two-parent families of the last 40 years has slowed, more than one-third of our children still live in one- or no-parent families. There is a high correlation between a childhood spent with inadequate parental support and an adulthood spent in poverty or in prison.

To strengthen families, we must redouble efforts to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies, make work pay, eliminate tax policies that inadvertently penalize marriage, and require absent fathers to pay child support while offering them new opportunities to find work. Because every child needs the attention of at least one caring and competent adult, we should create an “extended family” of adult volunteer mentors.

Family breakdown is not the only challenge we face. As two-worker families have become the norm, harried parents have less time to spend on their most important job: raising their children. Moreover, parents and schools often find themselves contending with sex- and violence-saturated messages coming from an all-pervasive mass entertainment media.

We should continue public efforts to give parents tools to balance work and family and shield their children from harmful outside influences. For example, we should encourage employers to adopt family-friendly policies and practices such as parental leave, flex-time, and telecommuting. Public officials should speak out about violence in our culture and should press the entertainment media to adopt self-policing codes aimed at protecting children.

Goals for 2010
• Cut the rate of out-of-wedlock births in half.
• Recruit a million mentors for disadvantaged children without two parents.
• Provide affordable after-school programs at every public school.
• Make every workplace “family-friendly.”
• Promote policies that help parents shield their children from violence and sex in entertainment products.

Rated 10% by the Christian Coalition: an anti-Family-Value voting record.

The Christian Coalition was founded in 1989 by Dr. Pat Robertson to give Christians a voice in government. We represent millions of people of faith and enable them to have a strong, unified voice in the conversation we call democracy.

Our Five-Fold Mission:
1. Represent the pro-family point of view before local councils, school boards, state legislatures, and Congress
2. Speak out in the public arena and in the media
3. Train leaders for effective social and political action
4. Inform pro-family voters about timely issues and legislation
5. Protest anti-Christian bigotry and defend the rights of people of faith.

Sex Ed including both abstinence and contraception.

Authorizes grants to states for sex education programs, including education on abstinence and contraception, to prevent teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Expresses the sense of Congress that states are encouraged, although not required, to provide matching funds to receive such grants.

Requires the Secretary to provide for a national evaluation of a representative sample of such programs for effectiveness in delaying the initiation of sexual intercourse and other high-risk behaviors, preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease, and increasing contraceptive knowledge and behavior. Requires states receiving such grants to provide for an individual evaluation of the state's program by an external, independent entity.

Supported funding child care, child health, & child housing.

The teams of the Women’s Caucus are charged with advancing action on their designated issues in a bipartisan manner. Legislation from Team 6. CHILDREN’S ISSUES AND CHILD CARE:
• HR206—A bill to provide for greater access to child care services for Federal employees (Morella) [STATUS: enacted as part of the FY2000 Treasury-Postal Appropriations bill]
• HR1112—Kiddie Mac—A bill to authorize the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to insure mortgages for the acquisition, construction, or substantial rehabilitation of child care and development facilities and to establish the Children’s Development Commission to certify such facilities for such insurance, and for other purposes. (Maloney/Baker) STATUS: Hearing held, October 8, 1999
• (bipartisan portions of) HR1139, the ACCESS Act on Child Care Affordability (Tauscher)—A bill to expand the dependent care tax credit, to provide grants to business consortia, and to establish a new Model State’s Early Learning Fund to support programs to improve early learning and the quality and safety of child care for children ages 0-5. (Tauscher)
• HR2486—Infant Crib Safety Act—A bill to provide for infant crib safety. (Tauscher/Greenwood)
• HR___ (not yet introduced)—Give a Child a Chance Omnibus Mental Health Bill—A bill to place more mental health and student service personnel (school counselors, social workers, or psychologists, and a school nurse) in the schools. The bill also specifies which academic qualifications are necessary for such professionals to be hired. The mental health personnel in the schools would provide assessment for mental health disorders that may be exhibited by a student. For a student that might require more in-depth treatment for serious disorders, the mental health professional would refer those students to an outside professional, with the permission of a parent or guardian. (Jackson-Lee)