CHILD’S PLAY: Forget polished lobbyists and international labor icons. California lawmakers are turning to a fresh class of champions to push their legislative agendas forward: their kids. When Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo’s homework bill had hearings this summer, she brought in her daughter to talk about her workload. When Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal forwarded an anti-cyberbullying bill, he enlisted the help of one of his daughters. It’s not uncommon for legislators to employ the help of children and teens who would be affected by bills pending in Sacramento. What’s rarer is bringing young family members into the fold. The practice hasn’t only provided the lawmakers with loyal advocates whom they could ground for going off-message. It’s a reminder of how term limits, instituted in California in the 1990s, have produced legislatures filled with parents of school-age children, a sharp contrast to the U.S. Congress with its surplus of octogenarians. “My colleagues now: A lot of them are parents,” Schiavo said in a phone interview, on her way to a frozen yogurt shop in her district with her daughter in tow. “Including parents who have kids of all different ages.” Schiavo credits her time working for a Head Start program as well as her daughter for prompting her to take up such a kitchen-table legislative issue. Her bill, before it was watered down last week, aimed to limit student workloads by requiring schools to develop uniform homework policies. “When I was running for office, my daughter was asking, ‘What are you going to be able to do if you get elected?’” Schiavo recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, I get to make laws.’” “And she said, ‘Well, can you ban homework?”’ The answer — politically and practically — was “no.” But Schiavo’s approach still earned public plaudits from her daughter, a sixth grader who overcame jitters and advocated for the bill at the witness table in the Assembly Education Committee and elsewhere. Lowenthal’s legislation on cyberbullying was spurred by antisemitic harassment of all three of his kids. Each has received swastika imagery from classmates on social media in the months since Oct. 7, he said. “In that moment, it makes me want to be somewhere else,” one of his daughters told the Assembly Judiciary Committee of her experiences being harassed for her religion. “In that moment, it makes me want to be someone else.” Lowenthal’s bill would have authorized schools to suspend or expel students for misconduct outside of school hours — though he held it during the spring while awaiting a legal opinion from legislative counsel. Lowenthal is the son of two former assemblymembers, making his kids the third consecutive generation to leave fingerprints on California policymaking. He cites his children’s experiences for several of his legislative efforts, on topics including body shaming and social media. “We all need to do a better job of listening to our kids. You know, the reality that they're going through now is far different than the ones that we grew up in,” Lowenthal told Playbook. “It's important that we hear them and give them the microphone.” IT’S WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. This is California Playbook PM, a POLITICO newsletter that serves as an afternoon temperature check on California politics and a look at what our policy reporters are watching. Got tips or suggestions? Shoot an email to lholden@politico.com.
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