Is paid family leave conservative?

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...