What our presidential candidates say about the ADA

If you know of others who made announcement related to the anniversary of the ADA - please feel free to add them. THANKS.

CLINTON: See previous post- I'm voting for Hillary

OBAMA:

CHICAGO, IL Senator Barack Obama today released the following
statement on the Seventeenth Anniversary of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA):

"On July 26, 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a law
that aimed to ensure that Americans with disabilities have equal
access to the American Dream, was signed into law. As a former
civil rights lawyer, I know firsthand the importance of strong
legal protections against discrimination and an abiding commitment
to equal opportunity. As we celebrate the ADA's anniversary today,
we must also re-commit ourselves to strengthening the law and
enforcing it more vigorously and effectively.

"The ADA declared that people with disabilities are welcome
throughout American society. The ADA assumed, rather than doubted,
that people with disabilities can be productive workers
contributing to our economy and the support of their families.
Perhaps most important, the ADA was a formal acknowledgment that
people with disabilities are American citizens with the same
rights as other Americans: a right to belong, a right to
participate fully in the American experience, and a right to have
dignity and respect in the workplace and beyond.

"This right is not just something to celebrate today, it's
something we must work to uphold in the months to come. We must
overcome the Supreme Court decisions that have weakened this right
by making the ADA Restoration Act the law of the land a law that
will bring us closer to the ADA's ideal of barring discrimination
against anyone on the basis of disability."

SOURCE: Obama for America

EDWARDS:

Calls for strengthening the law

Chapel Hill, North Carolina – On the eve of the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Senator John Edwards called for Congress to pass new legislation strengthening the ADA. At the same time, Edwards' campaign announced that he had been endorsed by several prominent leaders in the disability rights movement.

"As we prepare to celebrate the 17th anniversary of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act, we must reclaim the ADA. Hostile, conservative judges have put new barriers in front of Americans with disabilities who seeking nothing more than the right to work and live with dignity," said Edwards. "Congress should pass the ADA Restoration Act to ensure that the law remains consistent with Congress' original intent and restore civil rights protections to people with epilepsy, depression, diabetes, cancer and other conditions."

Edwards has long supported initiatives to break down the barriers that separate people from disabilities from opportunity in America, including:

• Enforcing the right of every child to receive a free and appropriate education in schools that are fully accessible.
• Creating new internship and mentoring programs that break down barriers for young people making the transition from school to work.
• Providing accessible transportation so people with disabilities have a way to get to work.
• Making the federal government a model employer to lead the way toward a fully-inclusive American workplace.
• Securing the rights of people with disabilities to live independently with the services and supports they need, which is essential to guaranteeing equal opportunity.

Edwards is also committed to including closed captions on all campaign television advertisements and is in the process of captioning all videos on JohnEdwards.com. The campaign's Web site is designed to be accessible to all visitors.

"Many people with disabilities live in poverty because they are denied full and equal opportunities in education and employment. Their transportation needs are ignored. They also face discriminatory and dehumanizing inequities in health care," said Laurie McCray, New Hampshire parent advocate. "I am confident that as president, John Edwards will be a strong and compassionate advocate for people with disabilities so they can have successful and meaningful lives."

California Democratic Party Disabilities Caucus Chair August J.P. Longo said, "Senator Edwards never forgetting to include people with disabilities in his speeches and platform tells us that he will not forget us in his Administration."

"During the days when ADA was being considered I wrote to Senators and Representatives regarding this important legislation. Now as we celebrate the anniversary of the ADA I can say that I did that. That is the type of action that John Edwards inspires all of us to take" said Jon Raiss, Michigan Democratic Party Disabilities Caucus Chair.

SOURCE: JohnEdwards.com

Upon the Anniversary of the ADA

My son Teddy has a business selling tshirts. He sells tshirts designed by Dan Wilkins, but also his first personal design. This was designed to honor the person considered the father of the ADA, Justin Dart. Below is what Justin said when the ADA was signed and also what Teddy's new tshirt looks like. You can order these from his website, Teddy's Ts. They cost $18. and come in sizes S, M, L, XL, 2XL, and 3XL. They are Texas orange, Justin's favorite color. They say " I am with you. I love you. Lead on" Yoshiko Dart approved their design before they went into production.

ADA: Landmark Declaration of Equality By Justin Dart

President George Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26, 1990, a landmark date in the evolution of human culture.

Throughout all of reported history until recent decades, people perceived as having significant disabilities have been treated as sub-humans. At worst they were killed or left as beggar-outcasts to die, at best they were cared for through subsistence welfare, out of sight and mind in institutions and back rooms.

With the development of modern medicine and social responsibility, millions of 20th Century humans are surviving previously fatal conditions and living on with significant disabilities. These individuals have a great potential to be happy, productive members of their communities. However, our best efforts to fulfill this potential have been consistently limited by a massive residue of prejudice and paternalism. Our society is still infected by an insidious, now almost subconscious assumption that people with disabilities are less than fully human, and therefore are not fully eligible for the opportunities, services and support systems which are available to other people as a matter of right.

More than two decades ago many of us in the disability community concluded that Americans with disabilities would never achieve full, productive citizenship until this nation made a firm statement of law protecting their civil rights.

The Americans with Disabilities Act is such a law. It establishes a clear and comprehensive prohibition of discrimination on the basis of disability. Taken in combination with previously existing disability rights law, it provides a sound legal framework for the practical implementation of the inalienable right of all people with disabilities to participate equally in the mainstream of society. It extends to people with disabilities the same protection of their rights that is already enjoyed by the members of all other minorities.

Most importantly, ADA is a landmark commandment of fundamental human morality. It is the world's first declaration of equality for people with disabilities by any nation. It will proclaim to America and to the world that people with disabilities are fully human; that paternalistic, discriminatory, segregationist attitudes are no longer acceptable; and that henceforth people with disabilities must be accorded the same personal respect and the same social and economic opportunities as other people.

ADA opens the doors of opportunity for millions of isolated, dependent Americans to become employees, taxpayers and welcome participants in the life of their communities. It prepares the way for the emancipation of more than half of a billion of the world's most oppressed people.

I am proud of America. I am proud of President Bush, Attorney General Thornburgh and Boyden Gray. I am proud of Senators Harkin, Hatch, Kennedy and Dole. I am proud of Congressmen Hoyer, Owens, Bartlett, Mineta, Fish, Brooks and all the great members of Congress who supported ADA. I am proud of former members Lowell Weicker and Tony Coelho. I am proud of Bob Silberstein, Bill Roper, John Wodatch, Melissa Schulman, Bob Tate, Maureen West and all the great Congressional and Administrative staff who authored and fought for ADA.

I am proud of Pat Wright, Lex Frieden, Evan Kemp, Sandra Parrino, Paul Marchand,
Wade Blank, Elizabeth Boggs, Liz Savage, Marca Bristo, Judy Heumann, Arlene Mayerson
and the thousands of other patriots who have struggled for long, hard years in a
wilderness of prejudice and paternalism for the victory of ADA.

Once again America has passed the torch of liberty and productivity to the world.

All who love justice must unite in action to protect our hard won ADA rights, and to ensure that they are implemented through strong regulations, and enforced in every community.

We of the disability community must communicate to America that full compliance with ADA can be profitable for all citizens, and we must join in cooperative action with government and the
private sector to ensure that all will profit.

But ADA is only the beginning. It is not a solution. Rather, it is an essential foundation on which solutions will be constructed.

We must undertake a courageous reallocation of our society's resources from paternalism to independence and productivity. We must invest in a continuum of new and strengthened programs to liberate people with disabilities from dependency, and empower them to be equal and productive participants in the mainstream: Productivity-oriented education for all citizens. Economic, technological, independent living, vocational rehabilitation, transitional, personal assistance and community based supports for productivity and quality of life. Prevention. Affordable insurance and health care for all. Incentives for productivity to replace disincentives. Accessible communications, transportation, housing, and completely new communities that are accessible as a whole.

A large agenda? Certainly! But no larger than that which faced our patriot forefathers at the successful conclusion of the revolutionary war.

Like them, we have accomplished much. Like them, we have a profound responsibility to make a bold declaration of equality real in the lives of hundreds of millions of people in future
generations.

I believe that we will unite to fulfill that responsibility. Because I believe in you, the patriots of ADA. And I believe in you, the patriots to be.

Together we have overcome. Together we shall overcome.

I am voting for Hillary

When Hillary Clinton answered the AAPD questions I got off the fence and decided she would have my vote. Today I know that was the right decision. She announced specific plans to increase employment opportunities for people with disabilities. http://hillaryclinton.com/feature/ada/ Two things I am most impressed with:

• Providing More Technical Assistance for Employers. Many employers are hesitant to hire people with disabilities because they are unsure about the accommodations necessary to enable successful work. President Bush has not kept his promises to fund programs that remove employment barriers that keep people with disabilities from work. He has cut funding for the Office of Disability Employment Policy by 41%, and his current budget proposes to cut the Office by an additional 34%. As President, Hillary Clinton will restore funding to the Office of Disability Employment Policy, with an emphasis on giving employers the tools to effectively employ people with disabilities. She will establish a new technical assistance resource center to provide real-time support for employers and help them link with local resources to implement workplace accommodations.

Workers with disabilities face extra costs for accessible technologies, transportation, and support service workers. These additional expenses amount to a regressive tax for workers with disabilities, so the federal government must work to offset these costs. Hillary Clinton proposes a $1,000 refundable tax credit to help offset additional expenses for workers with serious disabilities and moderate incomes.

Both of these items demonstrate to me that Hillary understands what people face when they are prepared to be employed and yet aren't because employers anticipate the accommodations they need to be too difficult to provide and that once employed their income is diminished by the extra cost to be employed.

This last one for me is important. I am not on SSI or SSDI and my income is far from substantial. But to work I must have a scooter. Each year it seems to need a repair of some sort, and a new set of batteries. It rarely adds up to $1,000, but is it enough that it sure puts a dent in my pocketbook. Most of the things related to my inability to hear well are paid for by work, but there have been things I use at home to work that they haven't. And I use my son as an unpaid PA, which could be rectified.

So Hillary, at least for the moment, you have my vote!

Shouldn't everyone get a Vote?

Why is it that people who are deemed incompetent get no vote? Why if you have alzheimer's or dementia or have a guardian you get no vote? Important decisions are made via voting that have an enormous impact on the quality of your life. Shouldn't you have a say in those important decisions?

I am not saying that the person with dementia casts the vote, but there is a person who is that person's next of kin who could vote on their behalf. I think there should be proxy voting for people deemed to be incompetent to vote.

I know this would be a ripe situation for abuse. It would have to be carefully designed so that it was only people who had nothing to gain from having a handful of proxy votes. A nursing home logically could be considered to be a proxy voter, but they have too much to gain from having those votes.

Perhaps you would have to designate who was going to be your proxy while you still were competent in the case of age-related acquired incompetency. Designate your spouse or your adult child. And perhaps in the case of children with disabilities - that if and when they acquired guardians - that would be decided as part of that procedure.

The problem this presents is what happens if your proxy dies or doesn't stay in touch - then do you lose your right to vote?

One of the reasons (only one)I will never become my son's guardian is because I will never take away his right to vote. He votes with tremendous pride. He chooses himself how he will vote with my support to understand the issues and the candidates. Twice he has been challenged about his right to vote (and he is just 24). I doubt he would have been challenged if he didn't have Down syndrome and look so obviously disabled. How many people who actually legally do not have the right to vote - vote - because no one challenges them?

Voting is a privilege. It is how we make decisions about the future of the place where we live. It is a privilege that should be denied no one.

Where the similarities in the history between being 'only' Black or Disabled in the USA stop

I will come back to this as I think on it more - but I've been thinking on the similarities between the history of people who have disabilities and who are originally slaves from Africa.

Both have been taken from their communities of origin to live far away
Separated from the families they love
To work for no pay
Raped and abused by the people they are entrusted to
Forced to give up their children, be sterilized, and to abort
Not be allowed to learn
Considered less than fully human
Disenfranchised to vote
Not permitted to sign contracts
Not allowed to marry
Given substandard, if any, health care

I'm sure there are more.

The difference I see is that far too little of this has changed for far too many Americans with disabilities, while all of it has changed for the (eta) nondisabled descendants of slaves.

Stranger in a Strange Land

An interesting video I caught on Pitt Rehab. Much like a film I had at my film festival a few years ago called "I am not from Hear". What would it be like it everyone but a minority had a disability and the world was geared to us with disabilities rather than the reverse?

ADA Restoration Act

The ADA may not be a perfect civil rights document, but its initial imperfections have been inflated tenfold by the changes in the way it has been interpreted. It is no longer being enacted in the way it was intended. Right now the ADA still offers people with disabilities important rights that without their status as equal citizens would be jeopardized. Without the ADA there would not be an increasing number of curb cuts in every city, or public TTYs in public buildings, or new voting machines that have given people their right to vote privately for the first time in their life.

What the ADA has been unable to accomplish has been in large part due to its major flaw - that to get the ADA enforced one has to go to court before a judge who will decide what the ADA says. Judges across the nation have interpreted the ADA and what constitutes a person with a disability differently. They are not ADA experts. They have generally decided to look at the language of the ADA as exact - the law must be followed precisely. But when written the ADA was written as a guideline to given people an idea of what made sense. Every situation that could confront a person with a disability could not be described in one document - so the ADA only suggests broad parameters.

Please, if the ADA is as important to you as it is to me, read the following and act!

Ask Your Representative to be an
Original Cosponsor of the ADA Restoration Act of 2007!

Background

This Thursday, July 26, marks the 17th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). On this day, the ADA Restoration Act of 2007 will be introduced by chief cosponsors Representatives Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) to restore protections for Americans with disabilities under the landmark law.

Despite the ADA's intent to create a level playing field in the workplace, the full promise of the law has never been fulfilled. In recent years, the Supreme Court has slowly chipped away at the broad protections of the ADA and created a new set of barriers to employment for people with disabilities.

Courts across the country have been quick to side with businesses and employers, deciding against people with disabilities who challenge employment discrimination 97% of the time, often before the person has even had a chance to show that the employer treated them unfairly. Indeed, courts have created an absurd catch-22 by allowing employers to say a person is too disabled to do the job, but not disabled enough to be protected by the ADA. For example, people with conditions like epilepsy, diabetes, hearing loss, and mental illness that manage their disabilities with medication, prosthetics, hearing aids, etc. or mitigating measures are viewed as too functional to have a disability and are denied the ADA's protection from employment discrimination.

This is not what Congress intended when it passed the law and President George H.W. Bush enacted it into law in 1990. The law was intended to be broadly - not narrowly - interpreted.

The bipartisan ADA Restoration Act will amend the ADA to require courts to focus on whether a person has experienced discrimination "on the basis of disability," rather than requiring individuals with disabilities to first demonstrate that they are substantially limited in some major life activity.

Disability advocates have been working tirelessly for the last several years to restore the original intent of the ADA by meeting with Members of Congress, collecting stories about disability discrimination and ADA success stories, issuing a petition to support the ADA Restoration Act, and leading a bus tour that has traveled more than 13,000 miles in 28 states. We need your support now more than ever.

Status

On July 20, a "Dear Colleague" letter was sent by Representatives Hoyer and Sensenbrenner to all members of the House of Representatives seeking original cosponsors before the bill is introduced next week on July 26.

Take Action

Call your Representative TODAY and ask him/her to cosponsor the ADA Restoration Act now! Our champions need to have as many original cosponsors as possible to make a good showing on introduction.