Lawmakers Hustle to Catch Wave of Baby-Friendly Bills

WASHINGTON — Since time immemorial, politicians have seen babies as great campaign props. But when it comes time for serious legislative business, even the most engaging tot is typically returned to its parents with a swiftness suggesting an impending diaper explosion.

No more. The nation’s capital is in the grips of baby fever, and makers of policy and law are rhapsodizing almost daily about the crucial first few years of life. Politicians who once merely bussed babies now are embracing legislation designed to enhance their cognitive functions, stimulate their emotional growth and provide more nurturing environments.

Or at least convince voters that they will.

This week, for instance, Senate Democrats and Republicans will go head to head over a proposal that, according to its GOP authors, would allow working parents to spend more time with their children. The Republicans call their compensatory-time bill the “Family Friendly Workplace Act,” and have made it the centerpiece of their efforts to portray themselves as champions of today’s children.

Democrats scoff at the suggestion that the bill helps children or their families. They have countered with a raft of proposals that would increase federal funding and community control over programs that would intervene early in the lives of poor and disadvantaged children.

The proposals, to be debated this week, are just the latest in a tidal wave of initiatives aimed at improving the lives of and prospects for the youngest Americans. In recent weeks, lawmakers across the political spectrum have sought to outbid each other in making child-friendly policy.

Since early May:

* A band of Senate Democrats has introduced legislation expanding everything from day-care quality and access to anti-hunger programs for women, infants and children to community-designed early-intervention programs.

* Lawmakers in both houses of Congress, prompted by a White House proposal, are offering several measures aimed at expanding health coverage for the children of the nation’s unemployed and working poor.

* A Democratic freshman congressman from Texas, Rep. Nick Lampson, has launched a bipartisan caucus devoted to the cause of missing and exploited children.

* Rep. Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.) has introduced legislation designed to combat child abuse and neglect.

* Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.) has drafted and proposed the “Early Learning Act of 1997,” and House Democrats have rallied around a related package of proposals they call the “Children’s National Security Act.”

In the midst of the flurry, House Republican leaders recently called a press conference to tout their concern for children and their families. As evidence of accomplishments, they offered their support for a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, a ban on a controversial late-term abortion procedure and a bill allowing employers to offer workers paid time off in lieu of overtime pay. And they promised more to come.

“The rest of this Congress will be spent making life better and happier for the children,” said Molinari, herself the mother of a toddler and, though retiring this summer, a leader of GOP efforts in the area.

Added House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) to a balloon-waving group of students visiting the Capitol from Troy, Ohio: “We’re working for you!”

These initiatives follow a recent White House summit convened by President Clinton to discuss the importance of the first three years of life. That session focused unprecedented attention on a growing portfolio of scientific evidence demonstrating the profound long-term effects of a child’s first several years.

In a way, say child advocates, politicians are just beginning to tune in to the concerns of baby boomer parents who spawned the “baby boomlet” of the late 1980s. As the children of that mini-population explosion crowd into soccer leagues, Scout troops and elementary schools, their politically active parents have become increasingly vocal in demanding that politicians address their needs.

And in Washington, those demands are beginning to resonate.

“Children’s issues are poised to become the new third rail of American politics, along with traditional issues concerning seniors, such as Social Security and Medicare,” said Wendy Lazarus, co-director of the Santa Monica-based Children’s Partnership, a consortium of groups that recently sponsored a survey on the issue.

According to the Children’s Partnership poll, 84% of respondents said children’s issues were an important factor in their vote for president last November, and 53% called them very important. Nearly two-thirds said the government should play a large role in solving problems facing children. Moreover, substantial majorities said they are willing to spend additional tax dollars on children’s issues, even if it increases their taxes or slows down deficit reduction.

Two things in particular appear to have grabbed the attention of politicians and those responsible for marketing them to the public: Three-quarters of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports increased spending for children’s programs. And among those most likely to vote against a candidate who disagreed with them on children’s issues are some of the most hotly pursued groups in American politics: parents, homemakers, college-educated women and African Americans.

The 1996 election, says Lazarus, marked the coming of age of children as a potent political issue. Politicians in Washington, she adds, are just now beginning to see both the risk and the possibilities in these issues.

“Clearly,” she said, “the opportunity to electrify voters with children’s issues offers candidates a new platform.”

Public opinion and political rhetoric notwithstanding, carving out more money for children’s programs remains an uphill battle on Capitol Hill. On May 22, for example, the Senate narrowly defeated a bipartisan proposal to raise the tax on cigarettes and spend the resulting revenue to expand health care coverage for low-income children.

But Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), author of a separate, far-reaching Senate proposal, says the kind of children’s programs he supports should win the votes of budget-minded and tax-conscious lawmakers. While many early-childhood intervention programs require upfront expenditures, there is growing evidence that they can save taxpayers money down the road by reducing violent crime, drug use and early and single parenthood.

Kerry says he is exasperated by the amount of time, money and effort spent on dealing with teens and adults after they have lost their way. “We need to avoid mitigation altogether,” he said. “We spend $35 billion a year combined on justice and intervention programs aimed at kids in their teens.”

Today, one in four American children--or 2.8 million babies under the age of 3--lives in poverty, and poverty is widely thought to be the single most powerful factor hindering a child’s brain development.

The nation, says Kerry, could be spending much less on children at a much earlier point in their lives and save itself the cost and heartache of coping with troubled teens and adults later on.