From the Dallas News:

Clay Boatwright, who serves on the board of the Arc of Dallas and the Arc of Texas, says he fears that federal budget tightening will reduce services for people with disabilities and prevent them from reaching their fullest potential.

Among the problems he sees:

– A plan to prohibit school systems from billing Medicaid for administrative services;

– A plan for major reductions or elimination of services in vocational rehabilitation and training; and

– A plan to drastically reduce funding for caseworkers who help people move out of state institutions into the community.

Boatwright backs the ADA Restoration Act, along with a bill that requires medical schools to teach doctors about disability, and another that will help the states increase wages for direct support workers.

Just as people’s value should not be based on their sex or the color of their skin, nor should it be based on a disability.

‘Now is the time to act to protect the disabled’

From the Chicago Tribune:

Lynne Landsberg, a rabbi who sustained a traumatic brain injury in a car accident, urges speedy action on the ADA Restoration Act of 2007. It is needed to close loopholes in the ADA and ensure the comprehensive civil rights protections the 1990 bill was meant to provide, she writes.

Before my brain injury, I belonged to one minority that was strong and articulate — the American Jewish community. Now, I belong to a second minority that is daily the victim of discrimination yet remains powerless and barely heard — people with disabilities.

… Even with résumés that indicate they are qualified for the job, [people with disabilities] must convince employers that the discomfort disability engenders will not impede their work ethic.

Unfortunately, thousands of Americans face unconscionable acts of disability-related discrimination in the workplace every day.

… We must encourage Congress to recognize that people with disabilities are human beings with full civil rights who want to work, support their families and live their lives.

More on Lynne Landsberg from Washington Jewish Week.

In a letter to the editor of the Chicago Sun Times, Jim Radermacher calls for passage of the ADA Restoration Act. An excerpt:

Unfortunately, a series of Supreme Court decisions have narrowed who is covered by the [1990 ADA] so that many individuals with disabilities, including chronic illnesses like diabetes, epilepsy and cancer have found themselves no longer protected by the act because they don’t meet the very stringent definition of disability.

It is critical for Congress to pass the ADA Restoration Act, which will restore the basic rights of people with disabilities. Passage of this legislation harmonizes the ADA with other civil rights laws and enables people with disabilities to be judged just like everyone else — on their ability to do the job.

Radermacher is the Chicago Leadership Council Advocacy Chair of the American Diabetes Association.

See earlier posts here and here.

‘Equal rights nonsense’

From the Wall Street Journal:

Roger Clegg, president of a conservative think tank called the Center for Equal Opportunity, says the Americans with Disabilities Restoration Act is “designed to overturn at least four Supreme Court decisions about the ADA, and make a bad statute even worse.” The reference is included in a column about “legislation pending in Congress that would dramatically increase the liability of private companies for alleged acts of employment discrimination.”

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‘Congress and the disabled — More harm than help’

From Foxnews.com:

James Sherk, a fellow in labor policy at the Heritage Foundation, says the proposed bill undermines protections for people who need it by extending coverage to those with any physical or mental impairment, no matter how minor.

Take your pick: Heartburn. Stress. Insomnia. Occasional shortness of breath. Headaches. Tennis elbow. Heck, the flu, for that matter. If the ADA Restoration Act becomes law the government would consider every American with imperfect health — which means almost every American — disabled.

… When everyone is special, no one is. Calling all workers disabled once again tilts the playing field against those with genuine handicaps. Washington is filled with absurd ideas, but the ADA Restoration Act goes beyond absurd — to harming the very individuals it’s intended to help.

See also: ADA restoration: Undermining the employer-employee relationship, by James Sherk and Andrew Grossman for the Heritage Foundation.
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A report from Kiplinger.com says expansion of the ADA looks likely, and that businesses say it goes way too far.

Business groups complain that the proposed change, as drafted, would apply to almost everyone because it would not let employers take into account whether a condition was mitigated by measures such as medication or eyeglasses (more…)

Writing in the Lost Angeles Times, two economists analyze the causes of the current slump and try to place blame. Is there a villain, the headline asks? One writer points at the ADA.

Stephen Landsburg, professor at the University of Rochester:

Our assigned topic for today is, “What’s wrong with this economy?” My answer is, the same things that are always wrong with it: bloated government, a badly designed tax system and an excess of regulation.

Addressing those fundamental problems would do far more good than shuffling a bunch of checks around. If you really think the economy needs a jump-start, let’s try suspending the Americans with Disabilities Act for a year.

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Jason Furman, senior fellow and director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution:

We can debate whether the economy is slipping into recession or about to rebound. We can debate whether the best tools are for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates or Congress and the president to apply fiscal stimulus. And we can debate the most effective forms of fiscal stimulus.

But to argue that the downturn could be solved by temporarily permitting discrimination against people with disabilities is just daft.

By Joseph Shapiro on National Public Radio:

Civil rights groups that won passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 are now pushing to have the landmark legislation rewritten. The reason: a Supreme Court decision has narrowed the definition of disability, saying that people who can control their disability with medications and devices might not be considered disabled.

They want a new ADA, even though Congress is not so sympathetic to passing civil rights laws anymore, and rewriting the laws runs the risk of giving opponents a chance to further water it down.

“We are prepared to take those risks,” says House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. “Certainly I don’t think we’re going to do anything more to undermine the ADA than the courts have done, which we’re trying to correct.”

Hoyer says Congress always intended the ADA to cover conditions such as diabetes, epilepsy and mental retardation.

… But business groups worry that any rewrite is likely to broaden who is called disabled — way beyond what was intended by the original ADA.

From the New Haven, Connecticut, Register:

Advocates on a traveling “freedom tour” came to New Haven this week to spread the message that the Americans with Disabilities Act is threatened.

… And particularly threatened by some court decisions by judges who opted to narrowly interpret the law. The advocates say the law is in need of protection, reinforcement and, in some cases, repair.