OLYMPIA -- A key issue up for discussion at the state Legislature is the family leave insurance program. It's ready to go, but lawmakers still haven't figured out where the money is going to come from.

Legislators got hit with an unusual lobby tactic on Friday. Each one was visited by a troupe of 1, 2 and 3-year-old children. Every legislator got a fortune cookie and inside, there was advice on how to vote and what the future will bring.

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, majority leader greeted a tiny tot.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Ruby," the little one answered. The little guys came bearing gifts.

Sen. Brown read her fortune.

"'Voting for fully funding family leave makes your constituents happy,'" she read. "Hahaha! And it makes me very happy. That's right, that's what we've got to do."

The family leave insurance program gives parents of newborns or adopted children up to five weeks of paid time off at $250 a week.

"It's crucial," said Mary Oemig of the Web site momsrising.org. "The first eight weeks alone with a child at home is just the most important time with a newborn."

One fortune said "you will be a part of the solution by fully funding family leave insurance." But what it doesn't say is how to fund it.

Some ideas being floated are a 2-cents-an-hour tax on wages or a tax on candy and gum.

Despite Friday's sugar-coated presentation, some lawmakers don't like how this family leave issue is being handled.

"To me, to pass legislation without a funding source is irresponsible," Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee. "We have to keep the discussion holistic and look at it in that way, and unfortunately I don't think that's happened."

So the young lobbyists will stay at it. They have an uncanny way of cutting through the stiffness of the Legislature.

"May I have a hug?" Sen. Rosa Franklin, D-Tacoma, asked a child.

Supporters are here to lobby for $6 million for start-up costs. Then, if lawmakers can agree on where to get the money to pay for family leave, it's set to start in October of 2009.