Why moms love Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: CHIP, food safety, autism support...

MOMocrats is happy to once again host Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, with a highlight of the special programs, action and legislation she has taken that benefits families and children. Like me, Kirsten Gillibrand is a mom of young children. Like me, being a mom has influenced her actions, and affected her priorities. She is a prime example of why women, and women who are mothers, are such a political benefit to families. It's why we like her...how about you?

Kirsten Gillibrand is a senator and a mother:

• Kirsten drops off her two boys, Theo (6) and Henry (1), every morning and tries to have dinner with them each night. Kirsten tweeted about Theo and Henry's Halloween costumes and took them on a road trip to important cultural and historical sites around Western NY last summer.

• Kirsten is fighting every day to keep our children safe from BPA in food containers, from tainted beef on the kitchen table and at school, and from pharmaceuticals in our drinking water. Her son Theo has asthma, so her fight for asthma funding is personal and Kirsten is working to make autism treatment affordable and accessible to all kids who need it. 

• Kirsten, aka the "gentle mom from New York", understands what it's like to balance home life and work life and has had to lose her baby weight under the media glare.

• Kirsten believes that we all deserve access to affordable health care. One of Kirsten's first votes as Senator was to expand the CHIP program to more children. She has been a strong supporter of the President's health care plan, which, once signed, will immediately cover all preventive care for kids and allows our kids to stay on our insurance until age 26.

• Kirsten also understands that health care is not just about going to the doctor, it's about making our children healthier at home and at school. She even went on The Biggest Loser to highlight the epidemic of childhood obesity.

• Kirsten wants to leave our kids a healthier planet. As a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Kirsten has been a strong supporter of the new energy bill. At the top of her list of priorities is to make sure that the EPA continues to have jurisdiction over coal emissions. Right now, in NY, those emissions are causing an epidemic of asthma in upstate NY and are leading to acid rain that seeps into NYers' drinking water. Kirsten has fought deregulation of this industry at every turn.

• Kirsten engages with Moms regularly on blogs such as this one. Kirsten held a conference call on health care with the Blogher community and wrote about the dangers of BPA for the blog. Kirsten had a Momversation about why Moms should care about healthcare, she answered our food safety questions at The Motherhood and she is an active blogger over at Moms Rising.

Right now, Kirsten is asking moms who support her to stand behind her. You can sign up for Moms For Kirsten and help us keep families a priority!

Watch this video about her autism plan: