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The Republican hoping to be the next speaker of Virginia’s House of Delegates announced Thursday that he supports changing state policy to give state employees 12 weeks of paid parental leave.

Del. M. Kirkland Cox, R-Colonial Heights, said he wants to start by offering 12 weeks of leave to full-time, benefited House employees within one year of the birth or adoption of a child.

“As a society, we have to do more to strengthen families and encourage women to remain in the workplace,” Cox, whom House Republicans named as “speaker-designee” earlier this year, said in a prepared statement.

The policy described by Cox would rank Virginia as one of the most generous states in the country when it comes to giving new mothers and fathers cost-free time off. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act only requires large employers to offer 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave.

Currently, state employees looking to take time off can use accrued personal leave, sick leave or short-term disability, a policy Cox called “inadequate.”

“No mother or father should have to use accrued benefits, which they may need at another point, to care for their child and live out the joys of parenthood,” Cox said.