WASHINGTON – California Democrats are trying to reverse a decades-old state law that bars families from getting extra welfare money for having an additional child, describing the law as "sexist" and "classist" -- despite concerns that repealing it could compound the state's money woes.
The so-called "welfare queen" law was passed two decades ago during the heyday of welfare reform. At the time, Democrats were in charge of the state legislature and Republican Pete Wilson was governor.
Today, Democrats are still in charge, but the base of support for the law is fading.
State Sen. Holly Mitchell recently introduced a bill that would repeal the policy, which she says was initially engineered to discourage welfare recipients from having additional children. The problem, she argues, is that it didn’t work.
In fact, with the cap in place, California’s childhood poverty rate has climbed to the highest in the nation. For Mitchell, this is her third attempt at abolishing the “welfare queen” law.
“It is a classist, sexist, anti-democratic, anti-child, anti-family policy whose premise did not come to fruition,” Mitchell said in a written statement. “It did not accomplish what it set out to accomplish. So it’s appropriate to take it off the books.”
But Republican strategist Bradley Blakeman warned there could be repercussions to nixing the policy.
“California is in serious financial difficulty,” Blakeman told FoxNews.com’s “Strategy Room.” “The law should stay as it is. It makes sense. It’s a good deterrent for parents to be responsible and not bring children into a world they cannot care for.”
Repealing the law indeed would cost California taxpayers. One analysis estimates that overturning it would cost an already cash-starved state close to $205 million just in the first year.
Coined in the 1970s when then-presidential candidate Ronald Reagan described the case of a Chicago welfare fraudster, the term “welfare queen” has evolved into shorthand for a poor woman with children she can’t support without government checks.
Nationally, President Clinton signed sweeping welfare reform legislation into law in 1996. The next year, then-California Gov. Wilson and state lawmakers collaborated on a program called CalWORKs which set grant levels, work requirements and other standards for people eligible for financial assistance.
The family cap idea was pitched as a way to cut down on government dependency. But Mary Theroux, senior vice president of The Independent Institute, told FoxNews.com that the data doesn’t add up.
She said the current policy "isn’t even a Band-Aid," and, “They are dealing with symptoms, not causes.”
Theroux isn't pushing for repeal, but rather, believes a better way to reduce the poverty rate is to tear down economic and educational barriers.
California is among 24 states that have put family cap policies in place over the past two decades, according to the California Berkeley Law Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice. There are currently 15 states that have family cap policies, including Arizona, Mississippi and Virginia.
Under California’s law, welfare assistance is denied for any child born into a family in which any parent or child was receiving aid 10 months prior to the birth.
California, though, is the only state that grants exemptions based on the failure of three specific forms of contraceptives: IUD, Norplant and sterilization. The law says families that want to challenge the restriction must provide proof that their birth control failed. There are also exemptions in place for children born from rape or incest.
Some anti-poverty advocates like the California Latinas for Reproductive Justice say the government is “using the threat of deeper poverty” if recipients don’t use contraception.
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