Maile Pearl Bowlsbey, all of ten days old, made a grand entrance to the U.S. Senate today with her mother, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who happens to work there.
From The Washington Post:
- Maile, born April 9, became the first child permitted on the floor of the Senate under a rules change that allows children up to age 1 to accompany their parents to votes.
- Duckworth (D-Ill.) and her colleagues had pushed for flexibility so that members of the upper chamber — particularly women — who have children while in office can remain close to them while they’re infants.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth's baby makes her big debut on the Senate floor.
Duckworth is the first sitting senator to give birth while in office, and the Senate unanimously passed a rule change to allow her to nurse her newborn on Senate floor. https://t.co/VeBjl9Jo1U pic.twitter.com/cRdWOVpXIO
— ABC News (@ABC) April 19, 2018
Allowing a baby on the Senate floor was more difficult than you think. From The New York Times:
- Maile’s arrival was the product of several months of behind-the-scenes negotiation in the hidebound Senate, whose rules until Wednesday barred children from coming onto the Senate floor.
- A few months after Ms. Duckworth announced she was pregnant, she asked Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the senior Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, to help her engineer a rule change, necessary because senators are required to vote in person.