After a discussion with NCIL President Lou Ann Kibbee on Tuesday, June 7, NCIL’s Voting Rights Subcommittee voted unanimously to send this Information Alert challenging NCIL members to get local and state officials to sign the Proclamation designating the 2nd week of July as National Voter Registration Week, which supports the growing involvement of the disability community in the political process.

Urge your local and state officials to sign annually during the 2nd week of July! A sample proclamation is available below for you to use.

WHEREAS in July 2015 people with disabilities and our supporters celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); AND

WHEREAS there are over 50 million people with disabilities of all ages living in communities throughout the United States; AND

WHEREAS the disability community has a critical interest in policies enacted at local, state and national levels that effect the integration of people with disabilities, young and old, into our communities; AND

WHEREAS getting the disability community involved in influencing public policies is essential if these policies are to meet the real needs of people with disabilities to live in the community; AND

WHEREAS voting is one way for the disability community to exert their influence at local, state and national elections; AND

WHEREAS there are multiple efforts to develop disability coalitions around the issue of voting; AND

WHEREAS REV UP America * Register – Educate – Vote Use your Power is a national effort to encourage local and/or state disability community voting coalitions; AND

WHEREAS members of national disability rights community are organizing a national Disability Voter Registration Week (DVRW) July 11th – July 15th;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the [insert city, county, state, etc.] supports the growing involvement of the disability community in the political process; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the [insert city, county, state, etc.] designates the week of July 11th – 15th as National Disability Voter Registration Week.

Did you know that there are 36 million adults with disabilities who are eligible to vote in the United States? Learn about efforts to motivate and mobilize this demographic for upcoming elections during the NCIL Pre-Conference event #VoteDisability 2016 GOTV Campaign. During this event, included with your full Conference registration, you will learn about standard Get Out The Vote (GOTV) techniques, messaging, planning, and orientation into a national disability GOTV collaborative campaign. You will leave with knowledge and resources that will enable you to become involved in 2016 disability GOTV efforts. This event is part of the NCIL Pre-Conference on Sunday, July 24: 2:00-5:15 p.m.

Visit NCIL’s Annual Conference web page for more information.

• Thursday, June 16, 2016, 1:00-2:30 p.m. Eastern

NCIL’s Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee has fought diligently for equal access in all aspects of emergency management, preparedness, response and recovery. We have had success in areas, frustrations in areas, and additional questions raised.

The American Red Cross, at our insistence, has finally engaged Portlight Inclusive Disaster Strategies to serve as their Disability Integration Advisor Team. Portlight staff has been exceedingly busy providing training and technical assistance within Red Cross and throughout the nation. When disaster hits and Red Cross deploys, they now have a team of individuals assisting them to ensure they provide equal access and comparable services to individuals with disabilities. This does not mean that everything is perfect yet, but it does mean that if you have a disability and need assistance from Red Cross, you stand a much better chance of receiving those services quickly and in a manner that you can benefit from to the optimal degree possible.

The NCIL Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee has recently turned our attention to issues that have been raised in the past few years. We have developed a small work group focused on connecting with other national, state, local, and non-governmental agencies besides American Red Cross and FEMA. We have also become concerned with the lack of funding to CILs, SILCs, and Independent Living Associations for disaster response and recovery. When a disaster strikes an area, the CIL providing services to individuals in that area will often naturally reach out to their consumer base to offer assistance. In many cases, we have reached out to them for assistance in resource discovery and ensuring that we are connecting with the appropriate stakeholders in the area. However, we know that CILs are stretched to their maximum capacity both financially and in regards to personnel. Providing assistance to consumers before, during, and after an emergency is not usually a line item in their budget and thus becomes very difficult to do, stretching already limited resources beyond their capacity.

NCIL and FEMA have teamed up to offer training on grant funding that may be available to CILs in the event of an emergency. This webinar will be held on June 16, 2016 from 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. Eastern. We encourage you to take advantage of this webinar and learn what resources may be available to you in the event of a disaster in your service area.  [Read more…]

• When: June 3, 2016, one hour before a showing of Me Before You
• Where: Your local movie theater, many cities, USA and worldwide
• What: Peacefully distribute a leaflet
• Why: To oppose ableism and the film’s message that disabled people are better off dead (and that others are better off without us)

Me Before You is the latest Hollywood blockbuster to grossly misrepresent the lived experience of the majority of disabled people. In the film, a young man becomes disabled, falls in love with his ‘carer’ and they have an incredible 6 months together. Despite her opposition, however, our hero does the “honorable” thing by killing himself at the Swiss euthanasia clinic Dignitas – so she can move on and he is no longer a burden to her. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, Me Before You is little more than a disability snuff film, giving audiences the message that if you’re a disabled person, you’re better off dead.

Ways you can protest:

• Two or more people can peacefully hand out a leaflet (available on the Not Dead Yet website)
• Display a Me Before You protest banner (PDF), which can be made at local print shops
• Send a press release or use NDY’s release (coming soon) to send to your local media.
• Join the worldwide social media Thunderclap.
• Tweet using #MeBeforeYou #LiveBoldly #MeBeforeEuthanasia #MeBeforeAbleism
• Share the articles linked below with friends and colleagues.

For more information, see the following articles:

• Salon: Spare me, “Me Before You”: Hollywood’s new tearjerker is built on tired and damaging disability stereotypes
• Buzzfeed: People Are Annoyed About How “Me Before You” Represents Disability
• Dominick Evans: Hollywood Promotes the Idea It Is Better to be Dead Than Disabled
• Crippled Scholar: Why Are You Complaining? Some People Actually Feel That Way: A Critique of Me Before You
• Self: Why Some Disability Rights Activists Are Protesting ‘Me Before You’

For more information or to discuss your plans, contact John Kelly ([email protected]) or Diane Coleman ([email protected]).

Each year we see new versions of ‘ADA Notification’ bills get introduced in Congress. To this point they have failed to move, but they are continuing to build support. This year alone we’ve seen three bills introduced, which NCIL’s ADA Civil Rights Subcommittee wrote about in last week’s WAM. The common thread among all three bills, as well as previous iterations, is that they require people with disabilities to wait even longer to exercise our civil rights. If any of these bills pass, people with disabilities will be the only protected class of individuals required to wait a set amount of time for our rights to be recognized. Twenty-six years after the ADA was passed, this is unacceptable.

This Thursday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice will be holding a hearing on “Examining Legislation to Promote the Effective Enforcement of the ADA’s Public Accommodation Provisions.” NCIL’s Executive Director, Kelly Buckland, has been invited to testify. Kelly will be discussing the importance of the ADA and the significant harms that these bills would cause if passed.

In a recent statement by Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX), he said that the intent behind H.R. 3765 is to protect American businesses from “cash-hungry attorneys and plaintiffs” who will “file a lawsuit and make some cash.” This has been the intent behind all of the ADA notification bills we’ve seen, and these efforts are sorely misguided. The problem Congress is trying to fix will not be solved with these bills, because it is not a problem with the ADA. In fact, Title III of the ADA does not authorize damages; any monetary damages for accessibility violations are based on state laws in only a handful of states.

Additionally, H.R. 3765 takes ADA notification bills to a new and even more dangerous level. First, it prohibits people from sending any type of pre-suit notification alleging a violation of section 302 or 303 of the ADA without including a list of specific information, and it makes it a crime to file without meeting these requirements by imposing a criminal fine. Second, the business owner or operator then has 60 days to provide a ‘written description outlining improvements that will be made to remove the barrier,’ and an additional 120 days to ‘remove the barrier or make substantial progress in removing the period.’ Only after that can a civil action be taken.

It is shameful that after 26 years, businesses may be given so much additional time to comply – or even just ‘make substantial progress’ toward complying – with the ADA. Even worse is the possibility of being fined for trying to have our rights enforced!

Members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice need to hear from NCIL members around the country about the dangers of this bill. These three bills would create additional barriers to filing a complaint under the ADA, making the law – and our rights – even harder to enforce. Please contact the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice at (202) 225-3951 and tell them why you oppose these bills! Then send an email to Chairman Franks and Ranking Member Cohen’s staffers. We have drafted a letter (below) for your convenience, and please feel free to change as necessary. You can contact Chairman Franks’ Deputy Chief Counsel, Zachary Somers, at [email protected]. You can contact Ranking Member Cohen’s Legislative Director, Matthew Weisman, at [email protected]. In light of the hearing on Thursday, please contact them as soon as possible!

Draft letter to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice:

Dear (Member)

I’m writing to you today to express my opposition to H.R. 3765, the ADA Education and Reform Act of 2015. This bill, along with H.R. 241 (the ADA Compliance for Customer Entry to Stores and Services (ACCESS) Act of 2015) and H.R. 4719 (the Correcting Obstructions to Mediate, Prevent, and Limit Inaccessibility (COMPLI) Act) poses significant risks to the people with disabilities and our ability to access our communities.  [Read more…]