Holly Mitchell Drops Bid to Restore Child Welfare Cuts

According to a Sacramento Bee story published today, California State Senator Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) has dropped her campaign to pass  Senate Bill 23, which would have repealed the Maximum Family Grant rule, a 20-year-old law that blocked state welfare services for children born to mothers who receive welfare.  The Bee’s Capitol Alert story reported,

Mitchell’s bill is currently awaiting a vote on the Assembly floor, and she said she would instead push to get the policy into next year’s budget.

“How would we pay for it?” Mitchell said. “Because of the huge price tag, I’m going to continue working with the administration during the interim.”

Writing in Capital & Main, Judith Lewis Mernit recently described the Maximum Family Grant rule as “a relic of a 1990s-era conservative belief that women were deliberately having more babies just to rake in more benefits, anointing themselves ‘welfare queens.’”