More Republicans back spending on child care, saying it's an economic issue

More Republican lawmakers in states around the U.S. are getting behind the idea of using taxpayer money to subsidize child care

Like a lot of mothers, North Dakota state Rep. Emily O'Brien struggled to find infant care when her daughter Lennon was born in 2019. So O'Brien, a Republican who represents the Grand Forks region, brought Lennon along to meetings with local leaders and constituents.

O'Brien had her second daughter, Jolene, in 2022, not long before legislators were due to meet. Wanting more time to bond before returning to work, O'Brien brought the newborn with her to Bismarck, where she snoozed through Gov. Doug Burgum's State of the State address on her mother's desk.

Not long after, O'Brien persuaded her colleagues to back a plan to invest $66 million in child care, an unprecedented sum for a state that had, like others with Republican leadership, long resisted such spending. But O'Brien argued it could help the state's workforce shortage by helping more parents go to work and attracting new families to the state.

“It was definitely not, you know, an easy sell, because this is probably somewhere where you don’t want the government to get involved,” O'Brien said. “But it’s a workforce solution. We have people that are willing and able to work, but finding child care was an obstacle.”

Republicans historically have been lukewarm about using taxpayer money for child care, even as they have embraced prekindergarten. But the pandemic, which left many child care providers in crisis, underscored how precarious the industry is and how many working parents rely on it.