One of United Spinal Association’s highest priorities this year, the ADA Restoration Act, illustrates the nuts and bolts of how a bill is enacted – and how important your voice is to the process.
By Peggy Hathaway
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990 with overwhelming support from both parties and signed by President George H.W. Bush. Its employment protections were intended to give people with disabilities an equal opportunity to work and a chance to be judged fairly. Many court decisions over the years, however, have created an absurd Catch-22 and created a class of persons who are “too disabled” to do the job but “not disabled enough” to be protected by the ADA. This year, the ADA Restoration Act of 2007 has been introduced to fix this problem.
Teamwork
No one ever gets a bill enacted alone. It requires champions on the Hill, a strong coalition with strong leadership, persistence and hard work, adaptability and quick action, and-most importantly- the voices of citizens like you.
On ADA Restoration we have ideal champions-leaders in both houses from both parties. In the House, the Majority Leader himself, Steny Hoyer (D-MD) is co-lead sponsor, along with Republican Jim Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin. In the Senate, the lead sponsors are Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA). All are long-time supporters on disabilities issues. Harkin and Hoyer had major leadership roles in enacting the original ADA in 1990.
United Spinal Association is a member of the coalition leading ADA restoration-the ADA Task Force of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD). CCD is a highly respected coalition of over 100 groups that advocate for people with disabilities on many issues (such as health care, education, employment and training, transportation, and Social Security disability programs). Leadership of the ADA Task Force worked with our Hill champions for months prior to introduction of the bills and continues to meet with them regularly to discuss evolving strategy.
The ADA Task Force is the driving force and command central on achieving passage of these bills. One of the leaders of this coalition is former Congressman Tony Coelho, who was the House sponsor of the ADA when it was introduced in 1988. He has a disability of his own (epilepsy) and is on the Board of the Epilepsy Foundation of America, one of the leading members of this ADA Task Force.
Nuts and Bolts
Passing a bill requires taking numerous steps, including conducting research, writing and rewriting, and building support inside Congress and the public at large.
Because courts have so badly misinterpreted the original ADA, considerable legal research was done on the court cases. This step was crucial to determining the correct wording of the bill. If it is wrong, even if the bill is passed, it will not solve the problem. The Drafting Committee of the ADA Task Force wrote these bills in consultation with our Hill champions and continues to fine-tune the wording as legal concerns arise.
The Communications Committee of the ADA Task Force developed materials that would make it easier to circulate a strong and effective message widely – both materials directed to Hill members and staff, as well as press releases and other materials directed to the media and the public. It works to obtain media attention such as the NPR article broadcast on October 23, 2007; see http://www. npr.org/templates/story/story. php?storyId=15521968
The bills were introduced on July 26, 2007, the 17th anniversary of the ADA with a great deal of media coverage. This successful initial media attention was the result of the ADA Task Force working with staff of the four major cosponsors and generating media interest.
So far, the ADA Restoration bill has had an orderly journey. One reason is that this bill does not require any federal money. If it did, it would be much more complex, challenging and controversial. However, Congress is consistently unpredictable, and anything could happen at any time that would require immediate action by advocates. (See Newsroom p. 6 for an example.)
Your Voice Is Essential
We all hear stories of how influential money is in Washington, despite lobbying laws. But even more important to every Senator and Representative is what their own constituents think. After all, without the votes, they cannot be re-elected. Members of Congress listen to their own constituents.
That’s why it is so important for everyone who cares about people with disabilities to ask their Representative and Senators to support this legislation. Your contact with Congress can help determine how many Members of Congress sign-on as cosponsors of legislation; the more cosponsors the greater the chance of enactment.
United Spinal is one of a core group of about 10 organizations working on gaining cosponsors of the bill. This group achieved a very respectable 143 cosponsors of the House bill upon its introduction. In addition, we challenged ourselves to obtain a majority of the House of Representatives as cosponsors before the first hearing in the House on October 4-and we succeeded!
Your e-mails, letters and phone calls to Representatives are what made this success possible. We may bring issues to their attention, but it is what they hear from their constituents that persuades them.
Getting a Hearing
Many bills are introduced but only a few have hearings in committee.
The ADA restoration bill must be passed by four House committees- an unusually high number.
The first hearing on ADA restoration was held on October 4 in the Constitution Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary. Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who is committed to this bill, had his staff work with the ADA Task Force to plan the hearing.
The lead witness was Majority Leader Hoyer himself. A leader in the ADA Task Force, the American Diabetes Association, arranged for one witness, Stephen Orr, who had been fired from his job as a pharmacist due to his diabetes. Orr appeared on less than 24 hours notice because another witness had to cancel. Three additional witnesses also spoke eloquently in favor of the bill: Cheryl Sensenbrenner, Chair of the American Association of People with Disabilities (and married to Representative Sensenbrenner), who is paraplegic; Michael Collins, Executive Director of the National Council on Disabilities, who has a spinal cord injury; and Chai Feldblum, a professor at Georgetown University Law School who helped draft the initial ADA and this bill. Only one witness spoke against the bill-a representative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In November, the ADA Task Force anticipates a hearing in at least one additional House Committee. In the Senate, we expect Senators Harkin and Specter and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions to focus on this bill late this year and early next.
Prospects Because so many constituents have expressed support for this bill, we are optimistic that it will get through all four committees in the House. And because we achieved such an impressive list of cosponsors, we are virtually assured of success on the House Floor. In the Senate, we expect to play a major role as we did in the House. But this effort will succeed only if constituents like you continue to ask your Senators to support ADA restoration.
It’s easy to click and send an e-mail to your own Senators and Representative by going to www.unitedspinal.org/advocacy/ employment-Discrimination/ and clicking on Take Action. It is helpful for you to do this even if you’ve already done it when we send out an alert at critical times. When you do so, you are playing an essential role in our representative democracy and protecting people with disabilities from discrimination in the workplace.
Peggy Hathaway is Vice President for Public Policy.
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CIVICS 101: Refresher Class
Here’s what every citizen should know about their government.
The Basics:
- Every state elects two Senators (elected to 6-year terms) and one or more Representatives (elected for 2-year terms) based on the state’s population. Each Representative represents a geographic district of a state.
- To become a law, a bill must pass both houses and be signed by the President. It requires a two-thirds majority in both houses to over-ride a veto.
- Bills are assigned to committees that may or may not hold one or more hearings and ordinarily need to vote to approve a bill in order for it to be voted on by the full House or Senate.
- The House is led by the Speaker and Majority and Minority Leaders. The Senate is led by Majority and Minority Leaders.
- Congress meets for 2-year sessions. The 110th Congress convened in January 2007 and will run until late December 2008 or early January 2009.
- The people who wrote our Constitution wanted to be sure that those with minority views would not be totally at the mercy of a majority but would have some power. That’s why in the Senate, even though there are 100 Senators, 41 of them can stop a bill from coming to a vote. This is one of many reasons why it is much easier to stop a bill than to enact it.
