Candidates running for office in Connecticut will be allowed to use campaign funds for child care reimbursements, the courts have ruled.

A former state House candidate from Fairfield, Caitlin Clarkson Pereira, filed a lawsuit against the state in 2018, after the State Elections Enforcement Commission rejected her bid to use public campaign dollars for child care.

 

The all-male commission ruled that baby-sitting is a "personal" expense and that only 100% privately financed campaigns can pay for it. The SEEC ruled that state law only allows candidates receiving money from the publicly financed Citizens Election Program to use it on direct campaign expenses.

However, on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020, Clarkson Pereira received the answer she had been waiting for since initially asking the question. "I am elated that the court ruled in our favor. We have gone multiple election cycles without knowing the final verdict, keeping countless candidates from entering races because the expense of child care would be such a burden. I have always been confident this was the answer we should have received from the beginning, and it's past time Connecticut officially joins all the other states that allow such an Expense," Clarkson Pereira says.