They could barely wait for the banners to be taken down from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) 25th Anniversary celebrations. Adding insult to injury, Representative Poe (R-TX) introduced H.R. 3765, the ADA Education & Reform Act, on October 20, 2015. The bill has already garnered support from others, including Representatives Collins (R-GA), Jolly (R-FL), Marchant (R-TX), and Lamar Smith (R-TX).

The bill is being touted as an education bill, which is a new approach by the American Hotel & Lodging Association and others supporting it. You may remember when NCIL members held a “pool party” at their office (located just a few blocks from the 2012 NCIL Annual Conference) after they supported similar legislation to damage the ADA.

ADA Notification Act with a Twist:

H.R. 3765 contains language similar to that used in past proposed legislation that would have limited the ADA. Section 3 of the bill creates a new crime for sending “a demand letter… alleging a violation of [Title III] of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990…” that does not meet certain requirements. This in itself is damaging and unacceptable. In no other civil rights legislation is it a crime to file a complaint.

Should this legislation pass, it would become effective 30 days after enactment.

As NCIL members, it is important that we take action on this bill before it gains legs. Now is the time to reach out to your legislators and ask them not to support H.R. 3765, which would create additional barriers to our civil rights as persons with disabilities. If enacted, this bill could set damaging precedence potentially affecting other civil rights legislation by making notification a crime.

NCIL will be working with other disability rights organizations to stop this bill. Should additional actions be required, we will reach out to the membership. We must ensure that the ADA stays strong by stopping proposals like this before they gain traction.

Visit the NCIL Action Portal to take action on this issue.

By Jim Dickson and Kathy Hoell, Co-Chairs, NCIL Voting Rights Subcommittee

Recently, a number of states have realized that there are advantages to the state to have Online Voter Registration, so we have seen a number of Online Voter Registration sites becoming active.  The Secretary of State’s office has responsibility for elections; the result was a rush to create Online Voter Registration in time for next year’s presidential election while saving money.  In January 2015, the ACLU released a study of 20 states that have Online Voter Registration sites. Only the site in California was accessible to all people with disabilities.

So is your state’s Online Voter Registration site inaccessible? The things you need to consider are:

• Can an individual who is blind or visually impaired access the voter registration form utilizing a screen reader?
• Can an individual with a cognitive disability understand the language used on the voter registration form?
• Can an individual with an upper mobility impairment utilize the voter registration form using their technology, i.e. voice recognition or retina tracking software?

If you can answer yes to all of these questions then your Online Voter Registration site is accessible to people with disabilities. For more information, feel free to contact the NCIL Voting Rights Subcommittee at [email protected]. 

Source: Not Dead Yet / PRweb

On September 30, 2015, Not Dead Yet and five other national disability rights organizations filed a friend-of-the-court in the New Mexico Supreme Court in support of the State Attorney General’s request that the state’s high court uphold a Court of Appeals ruling that physician assisted suicide is not a right under the state constitution. Joining in the Not Dead Yet brief are ADAPT, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, the National Council on Independent Living and United Spinal, collectively referred to as the “Disability Amici.”

The case is Morris v. Brandenburg (S. Ct. No. 35,478) and the disability brief supports the Court of Appeals ruling, which was issued August 11, 2015 (Court of Appeals Case No. 33,630), and the State Attorney General, who is seeking to uphold the appellate ruling.

According to the brief filed in the New Mexico Supreme Court, “State-sanctioned assisted suicide degrades the value and worth of people with disabilities and violates the antidiscrimination rights, protections and mandates of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101, et seq.”

“Our basic position is that when some people get suicide prevention while other people get suicide assistance, and the difference is the person’s age, disability or health status, that’s a problem,” said Not Dead Yet’s president and CEO, Diane Coleman.

The dissent in the Court of Appeals decision that is the subject of the appeal to the state Supreme Court noted that the State Attorney General did not call witnesses or submit evidence of alleged any abuses in Oregon and Washington state where assisted suicide is legal. In their Supreme Court brief, the Disability Amici urge that, if the Court is not prepared to simply uphold the Court of Appeals at this stage, the Court should remand the case and allow one or more of the disability groups to assist the Attorney General or intervene as defendants in the case to ensure a full hearing of facts that were allegedly omitted in the original trial court.

This year, marking the 25th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), gives us much to celebrate. While the ADA has strengthened civil rights protections and increased accessibility to some public transit and public accommodations (among many other things), it is far from perfect. The provisions relating to employment haven’t greatly increased the number of people with disabilities anywhere near as much as we would have hoped. Those of us who need access to print and/or electronic materials can tell you that said provisions are often disregarded and unnecessarily difficult to remedy or enforce.

In addition, there are other groups within the disability community whose civil rights either weren’t included in the original law and/or have been weakened by subsequent regulations, interpretations, and court decisions. While the amendments to the ADA (passed as the ADA Amendments Act in 2008) brought some clarification and relief, it simply couldn’t be expected to fix all concerns. Many types of disabilities such as multiple chemical sensitivity/environmental illness and other “new” disabilities (as yet uncategorized) are covered very little, if at all, by the ADAAA. In addition, parental and other civil rights issues concerning people with mental health disabilities are largely unaddressed by the ADA and its subsequent amendments.

One of the things that the ADA accomplished was to bring the disability community together as had not happened previously. One of the reasons why this happened was that the disability community put people with disabilities first. To a great extent, however, this hasn’t happened specifically for people with mental health disabilities. Too often, fear and discrimination prevail even though mental health disabilities are the most common type of disability – half of Americans can expect a mental health related diagnosis during their lifetime. And, people with disabilities, including those diagnosed with mental health disabilities, are more likely to become victims of violence than perpetrators of it, despite what keeps sadly appearing in news headlines.

On 4 June, Representative Murphy introduced H.R. 2646, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. In August, a separate mental health bill (the Mental Health Reform Act S. 1945) was introduced in the Senate. Unfortunately, these bills, especially the one in the House, contain many of the provisions that threatened civil rights in the bill Representative Murphy introduced in the previous Congress, which did not pass. Provisions in the previous and current House bills threaten the structure of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), threaten privacy rights, weaken the ability of the protection and advocacy (P&As) to do their work and increase the use of forced treatment in the community through supporting assisted outpatient treatment (AOT), among other concerns. NCIL opposes any legislation or administrative action that continues or strengthens denial of rights based solely on a diagnosis or disability and any deprivation of liberty based on disability rather than criminal activity. We will, of course, provide updates on relevant legislation as it moves through Congress and are already working vigorously to oppose the above-mentioned provisions these bills.

NCIL’s Mental Health Civil Rights Subcommittee meets monthly via teleconference and also maintains an active page on Facebook. Please contact us through NCIL’s website or via Facebook if you are interested in helping with our work.