On Early Learning: Senator Kerry introduced groundbreaking legislation dealing with early childhood development. His legislation helps empower local communities to provide essential help for young children and their families by providing additional funding to communities to expand early childhood development efforts and to form collaboratives of early childhood development stakeholders. At the end of 2000, a version of this bipartisan legislation, called the Early Learning Opportunities Act, was signed into law.

Child Tax Credit: President Bush proposed doubling the child tax credit from $500 to $1000 per child. But his proposal did not provide any benefit to the millions of families who do not qualify for the credit. Senator Kerry worked closely with both Republican and Democratic colleagues to modify President Bush's proposal by making the credit partially refundable so that the majority of low-income working families can also benefit from the doubling of the credit. Due to Senator Kerry's work, an additional 16 million families will now benefit from this change.

Child Care: Senator Kerry has worked to make child care more affordable and available to families, and will make increasing child care funding one of his top priorities in the upcoming reauthorization of the welfare reform bill. Senator Kerry is also a strong supporter of Head Start and Early Head Start and firmly believes that the programs should be expanded to reach all eligible children.

Gun Safety Locks: Greatly concerned by the numbers of children who are victims of handgun violence every day, Senator Kerry authored the Gun Lock Consumer Protection Act, which requires the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to formulate minimum safety standards for gun safety locks and to ensure that only such locks that meet the minimal standard are available for purchase by consumers. The use of gun safety locks is increasing in the United States, but despite the growing use of these locks, they are not subject to any minimal safety standards. The CPSC has participated in the voluntary recall of hundreds of thousands of locks over the past couple of years.