As part of her flailing presidential run, New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand has been touting her FAMILY Act, a piece of legislation that would guarantee twelve weeks of paid family leave for new parents and other caregivers. Every senator competing for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination has signed on as a co-sponsor.

Republicans, meanwhile, have yet to coalesce around a paid-family-leave plan — or even to agree on whether paid family leave is a conservative idea in the first place. These issues were the focus of an event on Capitol Hill this week hosted by the Ethics and Public Policy Center: “Is Paid Family Leave Compatible with Conservative Principles?”

The event’s first panel featured a debate on the title question. Arguing in favor of paid leave were Aparna Mathur, a scholar in economic policy at the American Enterprise Institute who directs the AEI–Brookings working group on paid family and medical leave, and Kristin Shapiro of the Independent Women’s Forum, who authored the initial policy paper from which GOP politicians have drawn inspiration in crafting their paid-leave bills.