California Democrats wouldn’t let a new mom vote from home, so she brought her baby to the Capitol

California Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks had a choice Monday night in the late hours of the Legislature’s final day of the 2020 session.

The Oakland Democrat could stay home with her newborn baby, Elly, or bring the still-nursing infant to the Capitol and vote in the midst of the state’s coronavirus outbreak.

“What do I do, stay home or not vote on (bills) when they’re going to be tight, or go up and bring my daughter with me,” Wicks said.

She showed up, and in a memorable moment, took the baby to the Assembly floor when she made a late-night appeal for a housing production bill.

“I was in the middle of feeding my daughter when this bill came up,” Wicks said, while holding a crying Elly. “We absolutely need to pass this bill. Please please please pass this bill. And I’m going to go finish feeding my daughter.”

Wicks faced that difficult choice because she did not qualify for the Assembly’s limited remote voting policy enacted this summer after two lawmakers tested positive for COVID-19.

After the Legislature had to lengthen by 14 days a July recess following the positive COVID-19 cases, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, said he limited proxy voting would be allowed during floor sessions for qualifying members who could not return to Sacramento during the final month of session.

Assembly members had to first have to get approval to stay home, then they’d submit their vote for a bill to the chief clerk’s office the night before it’s taken up. From there, only leadership — Rendon, Majority Leader Ian Calderon, Assembly Republican Leader Marie Waldron or Republican floor leader Assemblyman Heath Flora — could vote for the absent member.

The Senate also allowed remote voting for floor session, a policy that came in handy during the final week of session after a Republican senator tested positive for the virus. Because GOP caucus members had recently been around the infected senator, they were ordered to quarantine and had to participate via Zoom calls.

Rendon said Wicks requested the chance to proxy vote last week, but that the policy adopted applied only to members who were at “high risk of COVID.”

“We felt like it didn’t fit our house resolution that our members passed as a body and it would have put into jeopardy all of our bills, all of the bills we voted on,” Rendon told The Sacramento Bee.

According to the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most newborns who’ve tested positive for COVID-19 “had mild or no symptoms and have recovered fully.”

“However,” the CDC website includes, “there are a few reports of newborns with severe illness.indication,” and “infants under 1 year old and those with underlying medical conditions might be at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19 than other children.”

With little time to spare as the clock ticked toward midnight, when unfinished business had to be wiped clean from the legislative agenda, and a consequential measure to spur construction of housing in California by authorizing more duplexes came up for a vote, Wicks acted fast.

Wicks, a liberal Democrat who has written several housing and homelessness bills as an assemblywoman and worked on former President Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns, was elected to her house in 2018.

Clinton praised Wicks on Twitter Monday, saying Wicks brought her baby to the floor to weigh in on the housing bill after being “told that having recently given birth wasn’t sufficient excuse to cast a vote remotely.”

The housing measure that Wicks rushed to vote on passed the Assembly, but the midnight deadline to approve bills struck before the Senate could ultimately finalize Senate Bill 1120 and send it to the governor.

The measure was one of a handful of bills Wicks said she traveled to the Capitol to vote on. A plastics ban she co-wrote failed to pass, though a paid family leave expansion proposal is now on Newsom’s desk. The governor also signed an eviction relief law that Wicks supported.

She said she hopes when the 2021 session begins, more members will qualify for proxy voting, including for pregnant representatives and lawmakers who help take care of vulnerable family members.

Wicks said she hopes her voting serves as an example for Elly and her 2-year-old daughter that women can have a say in crafting policies.

“There are women who are making decisions,” Wicks said, “and voting their conscience on these really important issues.”

This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 12:29 PM.