New York’s Junior US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was the latest to throw her hat in the 2020 presidential test pool this week with her announcement that she had formed a presidential exploratory committee. More importantly to small business interests, in her late night TV show announcement, she highlighted paid family leave among a host of worker issues as mainstays in her presidential platform. She becomes the sixth announced democrat to be “exploring” a run. We can absolutely expect more advocacy for additional paid leave options over the coming months – and at the federal and state levels. As a case in point, Maine Speaker of the House Sara Gideon has filed legislation mandating up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for Maine workers and funding the benefit with a new 0.5% tax on employee earnings. Current federal law requires most employers to provide employees with unpaid family or medical leave of up to 12 weeks, while the Gideon proposal would pay workers anywhere from 67% to 90% of their regular pay, capped at $800 per week. If passed into law, Maine (now a democratic trifecta state after 8 years with a republican governor) would join California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York, Washington, Washington DC and Massachusetts with paid leave mandated.