Michela Alioto-Pier and her family are proud to announce that the supervisor for District 2 gave birth to their third child, a healthy baby girl, last night. They don't have a name picked out yet because they thought the baby was going to be a boy. She's seven pounds 11 oz., 20 inches long, born at 11:24 p.m. at Cal Pacific. Congratulations to the Alioto-Piers!

....and welcome back to work, Ms. Alioto-Pier! Neither the state nor local laws have any provisions granting elected women officials any time for maternity leave. And Alioto-Pier can't just call in sick for the next three months, either -- under the law, she must be physically present in order to vote. With laws like that, it's unsurprising that Alioto-Pier is the first elected San Franciscan to ever give birth while in office.

Alioto-Pier has sponsored a charter amendment (.pdf) that would allow supervisors to vote by telephone if they're on pregnancy-related bed rest. (Guess you can't vote by telephone if you're just on a self-prescribed bed rest binge.) Voters will be asked to approve it for the Nov. 2006 election. One question, though: why didn't Alioto-Pier ask us to approve maternity leave for supervisor-moms in that bill too?

Picture of Alioto-Pier and Newsom from the 2004 District 2 Town Hall Meeting.