Does Your Member Of Congress Offer Paid Maternity And Paternity Leave?

WASHINGTON -- Continuing a push that began with the president's State of the Union address, Democratic members of Congress put forth a bill earlier this week that would extend six weeks of paid leave to federal workers after the birth of a child. The legislation would guarantee maternity and paternity leave with pay not just for employees at federal agencies, but also for staffers inside the halls of Congress.

Though it may surprise many Americans, each congressional office currently acts as its own fiefdom when it comes to paid leave for employees. The Family and Medical Leave Act guarantees congressional staffers 12 weeks of unpaid leave with a new child, but the members themselves get to decide how much paid time off their staffers receive. The generosity inevitably varies from office to office.

After the State of the Union address, The Huffington Post began asking lawmakers for their offices' policies on maternity and paternity leave. We weren't the only curious ones. Roll Call's Rebecca Gale has been reporting on the discrepancies in policy between congressional offices, and author Jennifer Senior made inquiries to the 100 Senate offices and wrote about the results in The New York Times. Senior heard back from just 26 offices, "virtually all" of whom offered some amount of paid leave.

Our rate of return on the full Congress hasn't been much better. So far, 26 Senate offices and 60 House offices have disclosed their paid leave policies to us. Of those who responded, nearly all of them give their workers at least some paid maternity or paternity leave. That's consistent with the most recent survey on paid leave within the House, which showed that roughly 90 percent of offices provided it as of 2010.

Democrats were more likely to share their policies than Republicans . That should come as no surprise. Democrats, by and large, support expanding paid leave not just to government employees but to Americans in general, while most Republicans do not support expanding paid leave in the workforce through federal law.

In past sessions, Democrats have introduced a bill that would create a social insurance program for paid leave funded through a payroll tax on workers and employers. On the GOP side, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) has proposed extending a tax credit to businesses that provide paid maternity and paternity leave to encourage more to participate, but Republicans in general have balked at broadening leave through either taxes or a mandate on employers.

Some Democrats jumped at the opportunity to discuss their policies. The office of Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) sent us a photo of the congressman holding the baby of his chief of staff, Kate Keating. Crowley offers 12 weeks paid maternity and paternity leave. The office of Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) put us in touch with its district director, Christian LoBue, who was hired while six months pregnant. LoBue was offered 12 weeks of paid leave not long after she started.

Even if many Republicans don't think businesses should be forced to provide paid leave, most of the GOP members who responded to our queries believe their own staffers should receive some. They include Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Thad Cochran (Miss.), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and David Vitter (La.).

The responses show that members of both parties tend to be more generous with maternity leave than with paternity leave. Though male staffers in most offices are offered at least some paid leave, they often get fewer weeks than women do. And yet there's a growing consensus that paternity leave is as important to women as to men .

A few offices told us their policies aren't the public's business, even though they're funded by taxpayer dollars.

"We don't discuss our office policies with the press," a spokesman for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said.

As Congress itself weighs the costs and benefits of paid leave for all Americans, HuffPost wants to make public the paid leave policies of as many congressional offices as possible. Working alongside Roll Call, we'll be maintaining a continually updated list of the policies.

The list published below shows what members of Congress offer their staffs. (If the paid leave offered is fewer than the 12 unpaid weeks guaranteed by the FMLA, workers are entitled to take the balance in unpaid time.) If you don't see a member's name, that means we haven't figured out that office's policy yet. Help us do that.

Some of our inquiries may not have reached the right people, especially since it's the start of a new session of Congress. We hope more offices will reach out to us to explain their policies. We also invite current or former staffers to provide tips, which we're happy to treat anonymously. Email us here.

Senate

• Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.): Twelve weeks paid maternity leave. Paternity leave is case by case.

House

• Rep. Donald Beyer (D-Va.): Eight weeks paid maternity or paternity leave.

This list will be updated as we get responses from members of Congress.