Georgia
Candidates can use campaign funds for child care in Georgia and most other states, but few do
“So much of me needing child care is about being able to do my job, which is to be with the people,” Jackson said. “These funds make that easier.”
Two-thirds of states now 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. While women with young children say its monumental to their campaigns and usage is growing, the number of candidates taking advantage of the policies remains relatively low and numerous complex barriers keeping mothers from running for office persist.
Despite making up half of the population, women hold about 32.8% of all statehouse seats, according to the Center for American Women in Politics. Advocates for allowing campaign funds for child care say it is one avenue to reach more equal representation in government and including mothers at the table is crucial for their perspective on policy ranging from the economy to parental leave.
Since 2018, more states have adopted policies permitting candidates to use campaign funds for child care, with 33 states now allowing it. Hawaii is the most recent, according to Vote Mama, a foundation that tracks the usage. Its political action committee arm supports left-leaning candidates.
CEO and founder of Vote Mama Liuba Grechen Shirley said legislation garners bipartisan support and she sees all 50 states approving the usage in the next five years.
Exact guidelines vary from state to state but most define qualified usage to cover expenses that are the direct result of campaign activities. Candidates use funds to pay for babysitters, daycare and preschool.
“This is how we get working people into office,” Grechen Shirley said.
But from 2018 to 2022, only 87 candidates used the funds in state and local races, Vote Mama found. The group does not have data yet for the current election cycle.
Grechen Shirley noted use grew each year. In 2018, about $10,000 of campaign funds were reportedly spent on child care, a number that grew to $225,567 in 2022. More women than men use the funds.
Only about 5% of state lawmakers are mothers to children under 18, according to the group.
Candidates of color spent 70% of the total funds reported in the four-year period. Democratic candidates have overwhelmingly spent the most, with Republicans spending just 11% of the total reported, Vote Mama found.
Some attribute limited usage to a lack of education on the topic. The more candidates use it, the more normalized it becomes, said Grechen Shirley, who originally asked the FEC for permission as a congressional candidate.
In West Virginia, Secretary of State spokesperson Mike Queen said his office isn’t aware of anybody taking advantage of a law allowing the usage since it passed in 2021. Queen said staff have made a concerted effort to educate candidates, county clerks and organizations like rotary clubs about the policy.
“This is just one way to reach out to men and women with children to say, ‘Hey listen, your input is important,’” he said.
The law’s lead sponsor, Democratic lawmaker Kayla Young, said the aging state needs the voices of parents when making policies, “particularly moms who in our society bear most of the child care load.”
Grechen Shirely said campaign managers have at times advised women not to use campaign funds for child care to avoid political attacks, similar to how candidates who take a salary from their campaigns might be criticized.
“Women were always told not to talk about their motherhood and that’s not just in politics but, frankly, in every field,” she said.
In years past, Texas legislators have made it a point to use campaign funds on child care to destigmatize it, “but none of us felt comfortable just digging all the way in,” said Democratic state Rep. Erin Zwiener. Uncertainty about the guidelines and fear of being reprimanded are why she thinks some parents just avoid the hassle.
Zwiener ran for office in 2018 while pregnant with her now 6-year-old daughter. She’s not using funds this year because her daughter is older and in school, but she used campaign funds for babysitting during the 2020 election cycle.
Candidates who do use campaign funds to pay for child care expenses, though relatively small in number, say it’s extraordinarily helpful to cover costs that easily pile up over time.
Rep. Cara Pavalock-D’Amato, a five-term Republican in the Connecticut House of Representatives, said it was relatively easy campaigning with her infant son in 2018. But during the 2022 election, he was 4.
“Now that he’s gotten older and they want to go outside and do all that stuff, it does become definitely harder,” she said.
Pavalock-D’Amato said she probably won’t use the funds this year because she’s running unopposed. But during 2022, she relied on campaign funds to cover child care on weekends when she was door-to-door campaigning, spending about $500 to $1,000. She supported authorizing the use when it passed in 2021.
“I know there’s some people who voted against it, and I said, ‘You guys must not have kids,’” she said.
Pushback and progress have taken many forms. In Connecticut, Caitlin Clarkson Pereira ran for state representative in 2018 when her daughter was 3, but her request to use campaign funds for child care was denied by an all-male commission that argued it was a personal expense. Pereira appealed the decision and later won in 2020, though she did not win her election.
Georgia Democratic Sen. Nabilah Islam gave birth in July, four weeks early, and is considering using campaign funds to care for the newborn starting around October as she runs for reelection in suburban Atlanta. Islam said the state should have implemented the policy passed last year “decades ago.”
Challenges for mothers seeking public office don’t stop once elected. Legislating often requires commutes across big states and working obscure hours. Few make full-time salaries.
Michigan Sen. Mallory McMorrow was the second woman to give birth while serving in the Senate. The state doesn’t allow the use of campaign funds for child care and the Senate does not have a parental leave policy, but McMorrow decided to take a leave after giving birth to her daughter shortly after the start of the legislative session.
“It was a calculated political risk,” McMorrow, a Democrat, said.
McMorrow navigated breastfeeding and postpartum depression while attending session. McMorrow said she would support using campaign funds while in office to pay for child care, which could be tracked along with other financial records kept by public officials. Twelve states have authorized such use, according to Vote Mama.
“It’s not like your child goes away when you get elected,” McMorrow said.
Associated Press writers Charlotte Kramon in Atlanta, Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, Leah Willingham Charleston, West Virginia, and Nadia Lathan in Austin contributed to this report.
The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. 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.
NAHUNTA, Ga. — Huge plumes of smoke blanketed swaths of the Southeast on Wednesday as crews battled rapidly growing wildfires that destroyed more than 50 homes in Georgia and forced hundreds to flee the drought- and wind-fueled flames.
Some of the biggest blazes were near Georgia’s coast, while others were popping up in northern Florida, a state facing one of its worst fire seasons in decades.
It was not yet clear how the wildfires started, but the bottom half of Georgia is perilously dry and the conditions prompted the state’s forestry commission to issue a burn ban for the first time in its history. Southeastern Georgia has seen just 11 inches of rain since the beginning of September — almost 15 inches below normal, the National Weather Service said.
The fires spread so quickly in that area that residents received no warnings or alerts.
“I wish that I had knew something more,” said Brianna Elliott, who left home Tuesday only to find her route back blocked by the fires 90 minutes later. “I would have turned around in that moment and gone home and got my animals before anything.”
She now fears that her home and her dogs are gone.
Georgia’s two biggest wildfires together have burned more than 33 square miles, and at least four other smaller fires have been reported in the state.
Dry timber feeds Georgia fires
The fast-moving Brantley County fire threatened roughly 1,000 homes Wednesday after destroying dozens a day earlier.
That fire grew by roughly six times in just a half day Tuesday, said Joey Cason, the county manager. There were fires erupting “in the backyard and people taking off in the front yard,” he said Wednesday.
So far, no major injuries have been reported, Cason said.
The rural county is roughly midway between Georgia’s coastal beaches and the Okefenokee Swamp, dotted with livestock and fruit farms, as well as thick stands of planted pines grown for timber.
Crews worked to create fire breaks and stop the flames from reaching populated areas. The biggest concern was gusting winds that could easily spread embers.
Authorities said rain is desperately needed. The area with the worst fires was in exceptional or extreme drought, the most dire levels, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“If you could start praying for that right now, we’d be grateful,” Cason said.
Pine and hardwood forests in the region are helping charge the fires, said Seth Hawkins, a spokesperson for the Georgia Forestry Commission, and swampy lowlands with thick layers of leaves and woody debris are “super flammable” when they dry out.
The commission’s 30-day burn ban is for the southern part of the state.
FEMA announced the approval of grants for Georgia and Florida to battle the blazes.
More residents told to evacuate
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency for more than half of the state’s counties.
More people were told to evacuate from Brantley County on Wednesday afternoon, on top of the 800 evacuations previously. Another large fire that started in nearby Clinch County also prompted evacuations.
Mike Reardon and his wife packed family photos and their dog, Molly Rose, along with new e-bikes before leaving their Brantley County home.
The fire was about a mile away, and a shift in the wind would put flames “in our backyard in a matter of minutes,” he said.
The couple just built the home two years ago.
“It’s more than our house. It’s land that my dad bought years ago,” Liz Reardon said, fighting back tears. “It’s the most beautiful place in the world to me.”
Florida sees its worst wildfire season in decades
In Florida, firefighters battled more than 130 wildfires that burned 39 square miles, mostly in the state’s northern half.
“Florida has got one of the worst fire seasons in maybe the last 30 or 40 years, or it’s turning out to be that way,” state Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson said. “We’ve been in drought for 18 months now all across the state.”
Smoke blows into Atlanta and Jacksonville
The National Weather Service said a dangerous combination of low humidity and breezy winds would keep the fire danger elevated Wednesday.
Smoke drifted to Atlanta; Savannah, Georgia; and Jacksonville, Florida. The air quality in parts of south Georgia declined to the unhealthy category, meaning all people there might feel health effects.
Smoky conditions were expected to linger throughout the Atlanta area, according to the Atlanta-Fulton County Emergency Management Agency. The worst fires were more than 200 miles southeast of the city.
Smoke from Georgia fires also spread into South Carolina, according to its forestry commission.
The high fire risk was expected to continue each afternoon through Friday due to the very dry conditions, the weather service said.
Wildfires burning across the south-eastern US intensified on Wednesday across parts of south-east Georgia, where 50 homes were destroyed, and across north-east Florida, forcing evacuations and school closures in some communities.
The Georgia forestry commission issued its first mandatory burn ban in the state’s history, effective across 91 counties in the lower half of the state, due to worsening drought conditions and rising wildfire activity.
“My office and I are working closely with the Georgia Forestry Commission to respond to the increasing threat of wildfires in South Georgia,” Governor Brian Kemp wrote on X. ”If you are in a directly affected area, please adhere to guidance from your local officials to keep you and your family safe.”
Smoke from the fires drifted to Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia, as well as Jacksonville, Florida, while air quality in parts of south Georgia declined to the unhealthy category.
Smoky conditions were expected to linger in the Atlanta area throughout the day, according to the Atlanta-Fulton county emergency management agency, as the worst blazes burned more than 200 miles from the city.
Some of the biggest blazes are reported to be along Georgia’s coast and around Jacksonville, Florida. They have been exacerbated by a long drought, low humidity and strong winds in the area.
Georgia’s two biggest wildfires together have burned more than 31 sq miles, and at least four other smaller fires have been reported.
Drought in the contiguous US has reached record levels for this time of year. More than 61% of the lower 48 states are in moderate to exceptional drought – including 97% of the south-east and two-thirds of the west – according to the US Drought Monitor. It’s the highest level of drought for this time of year since the drought monitor began in 2000.
Florida, the area where the worst fires are burning, is in exceptional or extreme drought, according to the monitor. Firefighters are battling 131 wildfires that had burned 34 sq miles, mostly in the state’s northern half.
Firefighting equipment was being staged across the state so resources are closer to the fires, the Florida commissioner of agriculture, Wilton Simpson, said.
“Florida has got one of the worst fire seasons in maybe the last 30 or 40 years or it’s turning out to be that way,” Simpson said. “We’ve been in drought for 18 months now all across the state.”
The fast-moving Brantley county fire in south-east Georgia is threatening more homes on Wednesday after destroying 47 a day earlier, according to the county manager, Joey Cason, who said the fire grew roughly six times in size over a half day. Nearly two dozen fire agencies called in to help fight the blaze, Cason said at a news conference. At least 800 evacuations have taken place in the county and five shelters have opened, as the fire threatens 300 more homes, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said.
The Brantley county sheriff, Len Davis, warned residents to be ready to evacuate, noting that the winds could shift rapidly and unexpectedly.
Another large fire that started in Clinch county had also forced evacuations, which were underway in multiple communities, the Georgia forestry association said.
“This is a serious and evolving situation,” said Tim Lowrimore, president & CEO of the association.
(WSAV) — The man accused of shooting and killing three people in Dekalb County April 13 was found dead in his jail cell, officials confirmed Monday night.
Olaolukitan Adon-Abel was found unresponsive in his jail cell at 6:48 p.m., a Dekalb County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said. Life-saving measures were performed, according to officials.
He was pronounced dead at 7:17 p.m.
Adon-Abel was charged with malice murder, aggravated assault and firearms counts in connection to the shooting deaths of Prianna Weathers, Tony Mathews and Lauren Bullis.
In 2025, Adon-Abel plead guilty in Chatham County Recorder’s Court to multiple misdemeanor counts of sexual battery for groping women in Chatham County under the name Adon Olaolukitan.
According to court documents, he was banned from Savannah for four years and ordered to undergo a psychosexual evaluation.
The official cause will be determined by the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office, and a standard internal review has been launched, according to officials.
At this time, the sheriff’s office said there are no indications of foul play. No additional details were released.
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