A word about our Speaker. Facts matter:
1) He has taken full responsibility for accepting a conservative & possibly flawed legal analysis about proxy voting and he has apologized profusely for it.

2) He has been one of the most pro-working parent/mom leaders I’ve ever seen. https://twitter.com/rendon63rd/status/1302461899775246336

All new parents, during his speakership, have been granted fully-paid, indefinite family leave. He has never denied a member leave for any family obligation. He has shown complete & total respect to members when they’re on leave, never requiring them to work (as it should be!)

He did not force, or even ask Assemblymember Wicks to come in that last day. (In all honesty, I was one of the members who did text her asking if she planned to come in as I had 2 tough bills - family leave & plastics.) She said she could. I thanked her profusely.

As one of the longest serving Moms of younger kids in the legislator, I can attest to how many changes this Speaker has made to help make this job more manageable for Parents. He delayed Monday start times so we could drop our kids off at school before coming to Sacramento.

He got rid of the rule stating you could only have 1 child on the floor at a time. Our trainings no longer suggest we can’t have kids in our office, doing homework or hanging out. We are allowed to always bring kids to work, events, etc.

He even established the first internal committee on Moms/ Parents in the Assembly. Totally inclusive. He wanted us to make suggestions for a more family friendly workplace. We all got busy and stopped meeting. That was on all of us, not him.

The image of Assemblymember Wicks has gained national attention, and it should. But that’s because so many women can relate to juggling it all. Another member was bouncing between votes and feeding her triplets all week! Another was pregnant.

Many members (including me) were trying to figure out how our kids would start distance learning on their first day of school as we were in session for some 14 hours. Others were trying to find childcare. Working moms get it. It’s really hard, and should be easier. Everywhere.

That’s what we should be focusing on. Because in reality, being able to take your 5 week old to work with you would be considered a gift for far too many working class women. And that is what’s really wrong. Assemblywoman Wicks represented all of us in that moment.

We have to do better as an institution to support working Moms. We really have to do better as a society to support working Moms. But that is something our Speaker has always been committed to doing, for legislators and for our constituents. Enough is right.