CHILDREN’S DEFENSE FUND

CHILDREN’S DEFENSE FUND

The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) is a national organization that is committed to the social WELFARE of children. Founded in 1973, the nonprofit group uses its annual $9 million budget to lobby legislators and to speak out publicly on a broad array of issues on the law, the family, and society. It is involved in the welfare debate: The CDF has consistently fought for federal welfare programs that directly help poor children, a cause that has enjoyed significant success in Washington, D.C. In the 1980s, its intensive LOBBYING efforts saved billions of dollars in proposed funding cuts, and in the early 1990s, close ties with the administration of President BILL CLINTON increased its influence, leading to new federal legislation. Besides its work on Capitol Hill, the organization issues reports on the health and the economic and social well-being of U.S. children. The organization owes much of its effectiveness to the work of its founder and director, CIVIL RIGHTS attorney MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN.

The first black woman to pass the bar exam in Mississippi, Edelman fought RACIAL DISCRIMINATION in the 1960s. She initially came to national attention by stopping efforts in Mississippi to deny African Americans money from the federal Head Start program. By the end of the 1960s, she ran an advocacy group called the Washington Research Project, whose chief focus was antidiscrimination law. The group acquired powerful allies—one staff attorney was Hillary Rodham, who would become First Lady. Edelman lobbied extensively for federal HEALTH CARE and CHILD CARE, but to little avail. By 1973, she realized that “the country was tired of the concerns of the sixties. When you talked about poor people or black people, you faced a shrinking audience. I got the idea that children might be a very effective way to broaden the base for change.” She renamed her organization, made children’s issues its primary focus, and began building the corporate sponsorship that has grown to include such major donors as American Express and Coca-Cola.

The CDF has taken a stand against cutting
federal programs that benefit poor children. Leading its list are the Head Start and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition programs.
Although viewed as a liberal organization,
it has blasted presidential administrations
from Jimmy Carter’s to George H.W. Bush’s
whenever budgets have been threatened. It has
attacked social spending cuts as “callous” and
motivated by “greed,” arguing that welfare is
properly seen as a children’s issue. In a display of
its influence during the Reagan era, the CDF
convinced Congress to spare approximately $2.5
billion in cuts. In addition to supporting existing
programs, the CDF has argued in favor of
greater federal support for underprivileged families
in the areas of housing, day care, child
immunization, so-called family preservation
programs, and employment training.

The organization’s research and recommendations
are often the catalyst for debate. For
example, its 1991 study Bright Futures or Broken
Dreams: The Status of the Children of the District
of Columbia and an Investment Agenda for the
1990s—noting items such as infant mortality,
teenage pregnancy and murder, and child
abuse—concluded that “across almost every
indicator of health, income, and social wellbeing,
the status of children in the District is
abysmal.” Edelman opened the CDF’s first local
office in the District of Columbia. She called
society’s failure to save children’s lives unforgivable
and blamed it on local and federal governments.
Such conclusions sit well with traditional
liberals but not with conservatives. Nationally
syndicated columnist Mona Charen, for example,
attacked the CDF for wanting “a bigger and
bigger welfare state, with less and less emphasis
on personal responsibility and self control.”
Even neoliberals such as author Mickey Kaus
found the CDF’s social analysis to be outdated
and its answers impractical. “Are American taxpayers
more likely to open their wallets for
someone with an unvarnished analysis of the
underclass problem,” Kaus wrote in the New
Republic, “or someone who tries to overwhelm
analysis with emotionalism about children?”

Despite such criticism, the organization’s
agenda flourished during the Clinton administration,
in part due to long-established personal
and political ties between the Clintons and Edelman:
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON was CDF
chair from 1986 to 1992. The president promoted
several of the CDF’s positions in his legislative
goals: He signed family-leave legislation
and stepped up enforcement of CHILD SUPPORT
payments with the help of the INTERNAL REVENUE
SERVICE. He also proposed budgets that
would fully fund or expand Head Start and
WIC; advocated a comprehensive federal immunization
program for children; and supported
health care reform that would ensure care for
children and pregnant women.

The CDF has been critical of the administration
of GEORGE W. BUSH with respect to federal
support for poor children. Edelman and the
organization have embarked upon a mission
called Leave No Child Behind, calling for comprehensive
legislation to provide federal support
for the health, safety, and education of all children.
The mission is named similarly to an initiative
by Bush that resulted in the No Child Left
Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-110, 115
Stat. 1425 (20 U.S.C.A. §§ 6301 et seq.), which
was primarily an educational bill. Edelman and
other CDF supporters have disapproved of several
of Bush’s initiatives relating to children’s
programs.

FURTHER READINGS
Children’s Defense Fund. Available online at www.childrensdefense.org/> (accessed November 12, 2003).

CROSS-REFERENCES
Family Law.