Child care in the Capitol: As more women run for office, some are bringing their kids

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — When Florida state Rep. Fiona McFarland's infant daughter, Grace Melton, crawled for the first time, the mom of four was right next door, hard at work with her legislative policy staff in the state Capitol.

Thanks to the on-site child care available in the statehouse, McFarland didn't miss that magical first milestone in her 7-month-old's young life.

“The sitter I had with her just grabbed me out of my meeting right next door and I came over and got to witness it,” McFarland recalled.

As more women and young people run for public office, they're bringing more than fresh policy ideas to statehouses — some are bringing their kids.

Like working parents across the country, some lawmakers are scrambling to find child care that fits their often unpredictable schedules, at a price they can afford. Rushing back and forth from their districts, they juggle meetings with constituents and coordinate their children's drop-offs, power through late-night floor sessions and step out to pump breast milk between votes, hoping to make it home for their kids' bedtime.

“Looking back, I'm like, ‘How did I do that?'" Michigan state Sen. Stephanie Chang said, recalling those frenzied years when she was a new legislator and a new mom.

The Democrat used to race across the state with her baby and freezer bags of milk in tow, leaving her daughter with family members so she could make her 9 a.m. committee meetings at the state Capitol in Lansing.

In one of the few industrialized countries that lacks universal paid family leave, Chang says America's child care crunch is keeping some parents from running for public office because they simply “cannot make it all work," ultimately leaving young families with fewer advocates to help decide "what we’re doing for the future of our children.”

Some state capitols, which were mostly built before women could vote, still lack enough accessible bathrooms, advocates say, let alone spaces to comfortably change a baby’s diaper or nurse an infant.

"Legislators legislate based on their lived experience," said Liuba Grechen Shirley, founder of the Vote Mama Foundation, which pushes to break barriers that moms face while running for office.

“We have terrible policies that fail women and children across the country because we don’t have enough moms serving at any level of government,” she said.

As of this year, 33% of state legislators were women, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Fewer than 8% of those lawmakers are moms of minor children, a Vote Mama analysis found.

Statehouses’ child care offerings largely lag behind other workplaces, but advocates say they're gaining some ground.

The Virginia House of Delegates now gives a child care stipend to members with young kids to help cover their expenses during session.

At least two-thirds of states allow candidates of any gender running for public office to use campaign funds to pay for child care expenses after the Federal Elections Commission approved the practice for federal candidates in 2018.

Inside the echoing halls of Florida's Capitol, amid the chattering of lobbyists and the clicking of high heels, the voices of children like Grace can be heard as they play inside two on-site child care spaces that were created just for the kids of legislators.

McFarland, whose four children are ages 5 and under, was elected for the first time in 2020, the year she also gave birth to her first child. Since then, her public service has been fueled by “caffeine and dry shampoo," she joked.

On early mornings before the Capitol's in-house day care opens up, McFarland plops Grace into a bouncy chair that sits on her desk in her legislative office, or holds the baby with one hand as she flips through briefing books with the other.

“Moms will always make it work,” said McFarland, a Republican.

While the House is in session or committee hearings are in swing, McFarland is able to drop her daughter off at the child care upstairs. The space isn't open every day and the hours vary, McFarland says, an experience many working parents can empathize with.

The staff working in the Capitol’s child care are paid out of campaign funds, spokespeople for the House speaker and Senate president said. The initiative grew out of the Legislature’s program for lawmakers’ spouses, many of whom travel to Tallahassee for session.

After the day care has closed for the afternoon, Grace comes back downstairs to nap and play in a nursery McFarland has set up in the room next door to her office. McFarland also hires sitters to take care of her baby when the child care space isn’t open, a cost she pays for herself.

Every working parent has to make trade-offs, McFarland said, but having child care in the Capitol means she doesn't have to make quite as many.

“That’s what makes Florida stronger, right? Is when we have good representatives and we have good parents — who are able to do both,” McFarland said.

Florida's Capitol child care is an “informal” approach, but could serve as a model for legislatures across the country, Grechen Shirley said.

It's a “first step” she said, that states should bolster with other supportive policies like allowing proxy voting, paying lawmakers a “livable wage” and letting candidates use campaign funds to cover child care expenses.

“If we want a legislature that actually reflects our society, we have to make it easier for young families to run for office and to stay in office," Grechen Shirley said.

Associated Press writers Olivia Diaz in Richmond, Virginia and Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan contributed to this report. Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Grace Melton, 7-month-old, is held by her mother, Florida Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, while she touches a binder on her desk, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

Florida Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, right, talks with state Rep. Kimberly Berfield, R-Clearwater, during the Education & Employment Committee, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

Florida Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, speaks during the Education & Employment Committee, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

Florida Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, left, enters the Education & Employment Committee, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

Florida Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, right, hands 7-month-old daughter Grace Melton to Mycah Moore, a childcare worker who helps McFarland, as she leaves her office for a committee hearing, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

Florida Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, reviews a bill before committee while holding her 7-month-old daughter Grace Melton, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

Florida Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, holds her 7-month-old daughter Grace Melton while working at her desk, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

Florida Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, reviews a bill before committee as her 7-month-old daughter Grace Melton, left, watches, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

Florida Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, lifts her 7-month-old daughter Grace Melton into a chair on her desk as she starts her work day at the state Capitol, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

Florida Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, adjusts the shoe of her 7-month-old daughter Grace Melton as she starts her work day at the state Capitol, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

Florida Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, talks to her 7-month-old daughter Grace Melton as she pushes her stroller down the hall to her state Capitol office, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Liberian man arrested over the weekend after heavily armed immigration agents used a battering ram to break through the front door of his Minneapolis home had been checking in regularly with federal authorities for years, his attorney said Tuesday.

The arrest of Garrison Gibson, 37 during a Minnesota immigration crackdown that the Department of Homeland Security has called its largest enforcement operation ever, was a “blatant constitutional violation,” since the agents did not have a proper warrant, said attorney Marc Prokosch.

The arrest Sunday came in a city increasingly on edge after an immigration agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good last week, setting off waves of angry protests and clashes between authorities and activists.

“This was an illegal search, absolutely,” said Prokosch, because agents had brought only an administrative warrant, which authorizes someone’s arrest but does not allow officers to forcibly enter private homes. Forced entry requires a criminal warrant signed by a judge.

Gibson, who fled the Liberian civil war as a child, had been ordered removed from the U.S., apparently because of a 2008 drug conviction that was later dismissed by the courts. But he had remained in the country legally under what’s known as an order of supervision, with the requirement that he meet regularly with immigration authorities.

Only days before his arrest, Gibson had checked in with immigration authorities at regional immigration offices — the same building where agents have been staging enforcement raids in recent weeks.

“He would have had another check-in in a couple of months,” Prokosch said. “So if he’s this dangerous person, then, why are they letting him walk around?

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, said earlier this week that Gibson has “a lengthy rap sheet (that) includes robbery, drug possession with intent to sell, possession of a deadly weapon, malicious destruction and theft.” She did not indicate if those were arrests, charges or convictions.

McLaughlin did not respond to questions about whether the agents’ use of force was justified.

But court records indicate Gibson’s legal history — dominated by a few traffic violations, minor drug arrests and an arrest for riding public transportation without paying the fare — shows only one felony, the 2008 conviction for third-degree narcotics sales that was later dismissed.

Prokosch said Gibson had been flown to Texas by immigration authorities in the hours after his arrest, then quickly flown back to Minnesota on a judge's order after the lawyer filed a habeas corpus petition, used by courts to determine if an imprisonment is legal. The courts have not yet ruled on the petition.

Gibson is currently being held at an immigration detention center in Albert Lea, Minnesota, after being held at a large camp on the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso, Texas. according to ICE’s detainee locator.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to an email from The Associated Press with follow-up questions about Gibson's case.

Gibson’s wife, Teyana Gibson Brown, a nurse who was inside the home with the couple's 9-year-old child during the raid, was deeply shaken by the arrest, Prokosch said.

During their conversations, she “was having a hard time just completing sentences because she’s just been so distraught,” he said.

Activists who had been keeping watch on the immigration agents before Gibson's arrest banged on drums, blew whistles and honked car horns in attempts to disrupt the operation and warn neighbors, some of whom poured into the streets.

Video taken at the scene by the AP shows agents pushing and pepper-spraying demonstrators.

The Twin Cities — the latest target in President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign — has been convulsed by the killing of Good, who was shot Jan. 7 during a confrontation with agents.

The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.

City and state officials have dismissed those explanations based on videos of the confrontation.

State and local authorities are urging the public to share video and any other evidence as they seek to investigate Good’s death after federal authorities insisted they would work on their own and not share information.

More than 2,000 immigration arrests have been made in Minnesota since the enforcement operation began at the beginning of December, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News over the weekend that the administration would send additional federal agents to the state to protect immigration officers and continue enforcement.

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AP correspondent Elliot Spagat contributed to this report from San Diego.

A family member, center, reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A woman gets into an altercation with a federal immigration officer as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Bystanders are treated after being pepper sprayed as federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A federal immigration officer deploys pepper spray as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A family member reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)