ASHINGTON - Saying that national family policy needs to focus more on fathers, Al Gore yesterday expanded on ideas to help ''dead broke'' dads find work and pay child support - proposals that make some feminist allies nervous.
To accommodate those concerns, the Democratic presidential candidate added a domestic-violence-prevention component to his ''pro-fatherhood'' initiative.
He also promoted his plan, which Republicans called ''lip service,'' to alleviate the tax code's marriage penalty.
''The challenge of working mothers is one that's focused on all the time and too often there is not nearly enough attention and support given to the role of fatherhood,'' Gore told the National Summit on Fatherhood.
Republican rival George W. Bush, the Texas governor, also addressed the meeting in a taped speech, highlighting programs in his home state.
''We're working to mobilize every sector of society - community leaders and faith-based groups, educators, and the media - to increase public awareness of the consequences to children when fathers are absent,'' Bush said.
The Texas governor also made a brief appearance at a meeting in Sacramento, with fellow US-Mexico border governors. At a 90-minute meeting at the capitol, Bush took part in a session on border issues including education, the environment and the economy. The meeting was closed to the press.
Gore said, ''The father can no longer be cropped out of the family photograph when we're talking about policies related to families.''
Currently, noncustodial parents - mostly fathers - of children on welfare write their child-support checks to the state, which keeps the money to offset its welfare payments to the parent who has custody of the child.
Under the vice president's proposal, states would be encouraged to let $50 pass directly to the family each month, with the balance accrued to ''parental responsibility accounts'' that would be available to the child in a lump sum or monthly payments once his or her mother moves off welfare.
Some experts say handing child support over to the state discourages many parents from making the payments at all.
Gore said his proposal ''will give the father a new incentive to pay child support and it gives the mother a new incentive to leave welfare.''
With the federal government making up to states what they lose, these pass-through and ''responsibility accounts'' would represent the bulk of the $2.9 billion, 10-year cost of Gore's family package.
When Gore first sketched the outlines of this initiative last fall, at a time when conservative Republicans were pushing similar-sounding themes, the National Organization for Women and its sister organization, the NOW Legal Defense Fund, protested.
Feminists expressed concern that money under new programs for noncustodial fathers would go to conservative men's-rights groups at the expense of custodial mothers and that marriage incentives could trap battered women in abusive relationships.
In his final package, Gore requires any group receiving this federal grant money to include some sort of domestic-violence-prevention component in its programming.
''I will make sure that, as we encourage responsible fatherhood, we address the critical issue of domestic violence, which is one of the biggest obstacles for creating a safe and secure home for children,'' Gore said.
Gore also reiterated his proposal to make sure married ''joint filers get the same standard deduction as two individual filers combined.''
