d

July 26, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Today we celebrate the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, one of the great civil rights laws in the nation’s history. Seventeen years ago, Congress acted on the fundamental principle that people should be measured by what they can do, not what they can’t do. The Americans with Disabilities Act began a new era of opportunity for millions of disabled citizens who had been denied full and fair participation in society.

For generations, people with disabilities were treated with pity and as persons who deserved charity, not opportunity. Out of ignorance, the nation accepted discrimination for decades, and yielded to fear and prejudice. The passage of the ADA finally ended these condescending and suffocating attitudes – and widened the doors of opportunity for all people with disabilities.

The anniversary of this landmark legislation is a time to reflect on how far we’ve come in improving the “real life” possibilities for the nation’s 56 million people with disabilities. In fact, the seeds of action were planted long before 1990.

In 1932, the United States elected a disabled person to the highest office in the land, and he became one of the greatest Presidents in our history. But even Franklin Roosevelt felt compelled by the prejudice of his times to hide his disability as much as possible. The World War II generation began to change all that.

The 1940s and the 1950s introduced the nation to a new class of Americans with disabilities – wounded and disabled veterans returning from war, and finding a society grate for their courage and sacrifice, but relegating them to the sideline of the American Dream. Even before the war ended, however, rehabilitation medicine had been born. Disability advocacy organizations began to grow. Disability benefits were added to Social Security. Each decade since then has brought significant new progress and more change.

In the 1960s, Congress responded with new architectural standards, so we could have a society everyone could be a part of. No one would have to wait outside a new building because they were disabled.

The 1970s convinced us that greater opportunities for fuller participation in society were possible for the disabled. Congress responded with a range of steps to improve the lives of people with mental disabilities as well. We supported the right of children with disabilities to attend public schools. We guaranteed the right of people with disabilities to vote in elections, and we insisted on greater access to cultural and recreational programs in their communities.

The 1980s brought a new realization however, that in helping people with disabilities, we can’t rely only on government programs. We began to involve the private sector as well. We guaranteed fair housing opportunities for people with disabilities, required fair access to air travel, and made advances in technology available for people hard of hearing or deaf.

The crowning achievement of these decades of progress was passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and its promise of a new and better life for every disabled citizen, in which their disabilities would no longer put an end to their dreams.

As one eloquent citizen with a disability said, “I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk, to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I want to enjoy the benefits of my creations and face the world boldly, and say, this is what I have done.”

Our families, our neighbors, and our friends with disabilities have taught us in ways no books can teach. The inclusion of people with disabilities enriches all our lives. Every day, my son Teddy, who lost his leg at the age of 12, continues to teach me everyday the greatest lesson of all – that disabled does not mean unable.

As the saying goes, when people are excluded from the social fabric of a community, it creates a hole — and when there is a hole, the entire fabric is weaker. It lacks the strength that diversity brings. The fabric of our nation is stronger today than it was 17 years ago, because people with disabilities are no longer left out and left behind. And because of that, America is a greater and better and fairer nation.

Today, in this country, we see the many signs of the progress that mean so much in our ongoing efforts to include persons with disabilities in every aspect of life — the ramps beside the steps, the sidewalks with curb-cuts to accommodate wheelchairs, the lifts for helping disabled people to take a bus to work or the store or a movie.

Disabled students are no longer barred from schools and denied education. They are learning and achieving at levels once thought impossible. They are graduating from high schools, enrolling in universities, joining the workforce, achieving their goals, enriching their communities and their country.

They have greater access than ever to the rehabilitation and training needed to be successfully employed and become productive, contributing members of their communities.

With the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act in 1999, we finally linked civil rights much more closely to health care. It isn’t civil and it isn’t right to send a disabled person to work without the health care they need and deserve.

These milestones show that we are continuing the way to fulfilling the promise of a new, better, and more inclusive life for citizens with disabilities — but we still have a way to go. Today, as we rightly look back with pride, we also need to look ahead with hope and dedication.

We still face many challenges, especially in areas such as health care and in home-based and community-based services and support. Many persons with disabilities still do not have the services and support they need to make choices about how best to live their lives. Many are unwillingly confined to institutions or unable to have a financial plan for their future

A strong Medicare prescription drug benefit is essential for all people with disabilities. Today, about one in six Medicare beneficiaries — over six million people — are persons with disabilities under aged 65. Over the next ten years that number is expected to increase to 8 million.

These persons are much less likely to be able to obtain or afford private insurance coverage. Many of them are forced to choose between buying groceries, paying their mortgage, or paying for their medication.

Families raising children with significant disabilities deserve health care for their children. No family should be forced to go bankrupt, live in poverty, or give up custody of their disabled child in order to get needed health care for disabled child. They deserve the right to buy-in to Medicaid, so that their family can stay together and stay employed. Congress did its job, and now every state should do its part under the Family Opportunity Act, adopted in 2005.

People with disabilities and older Americans need community-based assistance as well, so they can live at home with their families and in their communities. We need to pass the CLASS Act to ensure this support is available, without forcing families into poverty. It’s a challenge for the nation, and we need to work together to meet it.

The Americans with Disabilities Act was an extraordinary milestone in the pursuit of the American dream. Many disability and civil rights leaders in communities throughout the country worked long and hard and well to achieve it.

To each disabled American, I say thank you. It is all of you who are the true heroes of this achievement, and who will lead us in the fight to keep the ADA strong in the years ahead.

Sadly, the Supreme Court has not been on our side. In the past seventeen years, it has restricted the intended scope of the ADA. Suppose you’re a person with epilepsy in a job you love and you get excellent personnel reviews. You’re taking medicine that controls the seizures and you have no symptoms. But your employer finds out you have epilepsy and fires you. Should you be able to sue your employer for discrimination?

Or suppose you’re a person with Down Syndrome, doing a fantastic job at the local Wal-Mart, but the manager really doesn’t want someone with Down Syndrome greeting the public. Should you be able to sue for discrimination, or are you no longer even covered under the ADA?

Congress intended full protection from discrimination – but the courts are ruling differently. It is time now to restore the intent of the ADA.

The Supreme Court continues to carve out exception after exception in the ADA. But discrimination is discrimination, and no attempt to blur that line or write exceptions into the law should be tolerated. Congress wouldn’t do it, and it’s wrong for the Supreme Court to do it.

The ADA was a spectacular example of bipartisan cooperation and success. Passed by overwhelming majorities in both the House and the Senate, Republicans and Democrats alike took rightful pride in the goals of the law and its many accomplishments.

I know that the first President Bush, Senator Bob Dole, Senator Harkin, and many other Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle consider their work on the ADA to be among their finest accomplishments in public service. It’s widely regarded today as one of the giant steps in our ongoing two-centuries old civil rights revolution.

The need for that kind of bipartisan cooperation is especially critical today as Congress embarks on restoring the ADA to its original intent, so that the rights of those with disabilities are protected, not violated.

Today, more than ever, disability need no longer mean the end of the American dream. Our goal is to banish stereotypes and discrimination, so that every disabled person can realize the dream of working and living independently, and becoming a productive and contributing member of our community.

That goal should be the birthright of every American – and the ADA opened the door for every disabled American to achieve it.

A story from the debate on the ADA eloquently made the point. A postmaster in a town was told to make his post office accessible. The building had 20 steep steps leading up to a revolving door at the only entrance. The postmaster questioned the need to make such costly repairs. He said, “I’ve been here for thirty-five years, and in all that time, I’ve yet to see a single customer come in here in a wheelchair.” As the Americans with Disabilities Act has proved so well, if you build the ramp, they will come, and they will find their field of dreams.

So let’s ramp up our own efforts across the country. We need to keep building those ramps, no matter how many steps stand in the way. We will not stop today or tomorrow or next month or next year. We will not ever stop until America works for all Americans.

I ask all of us in Congress join today in committing to keep the ADA strong. It is an act of conscience, an act of community, and above all, an act of continued hope for a better future for our country as a whole.