Legislative Action at a Glance

This week’s legislative activity included state action to improve child care affordability and to establish statewide paid family and medical leave. 

• Child Care: New Jersey legislators proposed a bill to establish a child care cost-sharing program. 

• PFML: Virginia Governor Spanberger signed statewide paid family leave legislation. 

Our policy analysts track legislative activity each week, following where states are taking action on the evidence-based policies in our Prenatal-to-3 State Policy Roadmap. 

• Louisiana S.B. 157 would provide 6 weeks of fully paid parental leave to public school teachers and employees. This bill passed the Senate.
• Oklahoma H.B. 3467 would extend eligibility for paid maternity leave for public school teachers and employees to include individuals who adopt a child under the age of 4. This bill was signed by the governor and enacted.
• Virginia Gov. Spanberger officially signed legislation to create a statewide paid family and medical leave program this week. 

• Colorado H.B. 1004 would extend the tax credit for taxpayers who make monetary contributions to support child care by 10 years—the credit is set to sunset in 2035. This bill passed both chambers.
• Michigan S.B. 946 would establish a child care payment program to provide financial assistance to early educators.
• New Jersey A.B. 4932 would establish a cost-share model in which the state, participating employers, and eligible employees share the cost of child care equally.
• Rhode Island S.B. 2126 would remove the requirement of child and medical support compliance for child care subsidy eligibility. This bill passed the Senate.

• Colorado H.B. 1223 would create a new refundable tax credit, the Family Affordability Credit, of varying value depending on child age, family income, and annual revenue forecasts. This bill passed both chambers.
• New Jersey S. 4211 would increase the value of the refundable state earned income tax credit (EITC) from 40% to 50% of the federal credit.
• New Jersey S. 4212 would increase the value of the state child tax credit (CTC) for children under age 6 from $1,000 to $2,000.

• Missouri H.B. 2372 contains multiple provisions related to health care including the Missouri Doula Reimbursement Act which would codify the existing Medicaid coverage of doula services. This bill passed the Senate. 
• New Jersey S. 4170/A. 4843 would appropriate $12 million to support community-led birthing justice and equity initiatives primarily serving families with low incomes in areas that are considered medically underserved or are experiencing a health professional shortage. Covered services of the selected initiatives can include doula services. 
• Vermont H. 611 would move the effective date for Medicaid coverage of doula services from July 2026 to July 2027, among other provisions. This bill passed the Senate. 

• Connecticut S.B. 327 would expand emergency Medicaid coverage to include additional conditions, including high-risk pregnancy, labor and delivery, and more.

• Illinois H.B. 5062/S.B. 3276 would create a SNAP Response Working Group to assess how federal changes will affect Illinois residents, including projected benefit losses, disparate impacts across populations, effects on the emergency food system, and the state cost of maintaining SNAP in Fiscal Year 2028. 
• Louisiana S.B. 415 would create a new food assistance program parallel to SNAP, allowing qualified nonprofits to issue donor-funded food purchase cards that can be used for SNAP-eligible foods. This bill passed the Senate.