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January 2004
Make Your Voice Heard: Register to Vote! By Linda Bennett With the upcoming March 16th, 2004, Illinois Primary Election and the November 2, 2004, Illinois General Election, now is the time to voice our opinions by voting in these elections. We did not get to cast our votes when the current administration cut disability benefits and programs. Nor was our opinion asked when this same Administration decreased veterans’ benefits, while simultaneously sending more and more of our troops into combat. There was also no consideration of our opinions or needs when workplace ergonomic guidelines were greatly weakened, thus leaving millions of American workers at a heightened risk of workplace injuries. In fact, our opinions and needs did not seem to matter at all, as the Administration made (and continues to make) decision after decision that has eroded so many of our basic human rights and protections. However, on March 16 and November 2 we will finally have the opportunity to make our voices heard! If each and every eligible citizen in Illinois votes in these elections, we can make a difference in public policy decisions! While every election is important, the March 16 Primary Election and the November 2 General Election are particularly significant because there are numerous crucial issues that are at stake:
Don’t sit on the sidelines while these crucial issues are at risk! Register to vote today! Democratic Candidates Reply to AAPD Questionnaire Nine Democrats have officially announced their candidacy for the party's Presidential nomination in 2004. These individuals will participate in primary elections and caucuses all across the country. Many of us will have the opportunity to vote for the candidate we believe is most in-line with our priorities. The Republican Party will run President George W. Bush for a second term and, therefore, will not conduct Presidential primaries or caucuses. AAPD sent letters with questions regarding issues important to people with disabilities to all nine Democratic primary candidates. In mid-2004, AAPD will look at the disability record and agenda of President Bush, the Democratic Party's nominee, and any other major candidates for President. Six of the nine candidates responded to our questionnaire — Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, John Kerry, and Dennis Kucinich. Here are the questions. QUESTION 1: How will you make sure qualified people with disabilities will be a part of your political team and, if elected, a part of your Administration? QUESTION 2: In recent years the disability community has become very concerned about judicial rulings and appointments that questioned the Constitutional basis of parts of the ADA. Of the existing members of the U.S. Supreme Court, which justices do you consider models for the kinds of federal judges you would appoint if elected President? Also, would you support legislation to restore civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities who have been harmed by Supreme Court decisions restricting the scope of the protected class under the ADA. QUESTION 3: Given the current economy and most states' economic struggles, Medicaid is a primary target for budget/program cuts. Knowing how vital this program is to people with disabilities and their families (frequently the only way some can get prescription drugs and long-term services and supports), how would you change the economic picture to ensure people with disabilities are able to get the services they need? How would you address the institutional bias in the current Medicaid system? Do you support passage of the Medicaid Community-Based Attendant Services and Supports Act and the Family Opportunity Act (MiCASSA)? QUESTION 4: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is undergoing reauthorization. Do you support full federal funding for IDEA? What ideas do you have for strengthening federal enforcement of IDEA and other federal disability rights laws? What ideas do you have for increasing the high school graduation rate for students served by IDEA? The answers are on the AAPD site, here. More disability information from Presidential candidates (including some who are not featured here) is featured n AAPD's site. Source: The AAPD Newsletter, Nov. 2003, Vol. 5, Issue 4. Help America Vote Act Update Millions of voters will go to the polls in the coming weeks and months to cast ballots in the first presidential contest since the 2000 election, which exposed major flaws in America's voting process. The 2004 primaries constitute the first federal election since passage of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). For a number of states, this is the first test of substantial changes to their systems of election administration. Primary Education, a new report by electionline.org and The Century Foundation, examines both national and state-specific election reform issues that could have an impact on the 2004 primary election season. "This election will be about more than candidates and issues," said Dan Seligson, editor of electionline.org and co-author of the report. "There will be more attention to how elections are administered than ever before. And with the host of new changes either mandated by Congress or opted for by the states themselves, the way elections are run will be significantly different than four years ago. The question that could be answered in these key primary states is whether the efforts undertaken to improve voting have restored the faith of voters that was lost in the wake of the 2000 debacle." The report looks at how states have complied with HAVA, passed by Congress in 2002, which authorized $3.86 billion in federal money to be distributed to the states for election system upgrades, including the purchase of new voting machines, the creation of statewide voter registration databases, and other voting improvements. The law also required that states this year offer provisional ballots, verify the identity of first time voters who register by mail, post voting information at the polling place, and have an administrative complaint procedure in place to address problems at the polls. "While the Help America Vote Act was passed in order to avoid another Florida-type election debacle, states now must deal with a whole host of new potential pitfalls," said Tova Wang, democracy fellow at The Century Foundation and co-author of the report. "Some of the provisions of that law are difficult to actually implement, and Washington has been slow to provide the funding promised to the states when they passed it. Will there be a Florida sequel? We'll only really know if the voters know what is and is not supposed to happen on election day." Primary Education explores the changes to voting procedures — and potential for voting problems — in the twenty-two early primary states that will be the key battle-grounds as the Democratic contenders seek to secure their party's presidential nomination. The report examines the impact of past and possible future litigation; controversies over new voting machines, electronic voting, and voter-verified audit trails; the effect of new mandates in states, including voter identification and provisional voting; and the ramifications of California's gubernatorial recall election, during which a federal court considered delaying the vote because of continued punch-card machine usage around the state. The report also offers examples of misconceptions about election reform. Findings in the report include : Voting machines HAVA authorized $325 million to the states specifically for the purpose of replacing punch-card and lever-voting machines. Yet we found that many states will continue using this older machinery. Punch cards will continue to be used in seven states — Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Lever machines will be used in nine states — Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Just as significantly, many voters in key primary states will cast ballots on new voting systems they did not use in 2000. Ten states — Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin — have replaced machines in some or all of their voting precincts. Voter identification As mandated by HAVA, all key primary states will ask first-time voters who register by mail for some form of identification when registering or casting ballots. Implementation of this requirement could be difficult since so many states have never had any kind of identification requirement before, and the requirement only applies to a relatively small percentage of voters. Nineteen of the twenty-two key primary states did not have identification requirements prior to 2000 and will require identification of some voters at the polls. Of the key primary states, only South Carolina, Louisiana, and Delaware had identification requirements in place in 2000. Seven key primary states enacted more stringent voter identification procedures than were in place in 2000 that will require more voters to show some form of verification before voting. Those are Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Provisional ballots Two-thirds of the key primary states will have either revised rules for provisional voting or will offer provisional ballots for the first time in a presidential election. Eight states are introducing provisional ballots for the first time since the 2000 presidential election — Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Vermont. Five other key primary states have made revisions to their provisional voting rules, some quite significant. Those key primary states that enacted or will be required to enact significant changes to their provisional ballot rules are Connecticut, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia. electionline.org is the nation's leading source of nonpartisan, non-advocacy news, analysis, and information on election reform. It is supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts with a grant administered by the University of Richmond. The Century Foundation conducts policy research and analyses of economic, social, and foreign policy issues, including inequality, retirement security, election reform, media studies, homeland security, and international affairs. The foundation produces books, reports, and other publications; convenes task forces and working groups; and operates eight informational Web sites. With offices in New York City and Washington, D.C., the Century Foundation is nonprofit and nonpartisan and was founded in 1919 by Edward A. Filene. Source: electiononline.org 
Primary Education: Election Reform and the 2004 Presidential Race
Request a copy of the report
Questions? Ask Dan Seligson (202/338.9320)
Questions? Ask Tova Wang (212/452.7704)
Court Rules on Workplace Rights Issue By Gina Holland, Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court gave companies some leeway Tuesday to refuse to rehire recovering drug addicts and alcoholics, but without the broad ruling that employers sought. Justices ruled 7-0 that Hughes Missile Systems has a legitimate reason to refuse to rehire workers who break rules, including former employees with addictions. But the court dodged the more significant question, whether the more than 5 million workers with substance abuse problems have workplace protection under the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act. The court ordered the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the case of an Arizona missile plant worker who lost his job after testing positive for drugs. Joel Hernandez, a 25-year employee, quit in 1991 after a test showed he had used cocaine. More than two years later, after completing drug and alcohol treatment, he was turned down when he tried to get rehired. The appeals court ruled that a jury should decide if Hernandez was a discrimination victim under the 1990 disabilities law. The law specifically protects people who are clean after being treated for their addiction, but allows companies to discipline those who use substances on the job. Justice Clarence Thomas, in the Supreme Court ruling, said that the appeals court used the wrong analysis in reviewing the Hernandez case. Hughes gave a "legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for refusing to rehire (Hernandez)," Thomas said. The company had an unwritten policy against rehiring workers who broke rules - such as not using drugs - and argued that thousands of other employers have the same rule. The Bush administration had sided with Hughes, now owned by Raytheon Co. Groups such as the Betty Ford Center and National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence supported Hernandez, arguing that most families have experience with addiction and that millions of people have overcome it. Two justices did not participate in the case - Stephen Breyer and David H. Souter. The case is Raytheon Co. v. Hernandez, 02-749. Source: Justice For All Supreme Court
Justice For All
ADA vs. the "Extreme" Court: Tenn v. Lane briefs By Ira A. Burnim This term, the United States Supreme Court will hear another case involving the constitutionality of the public services provisions of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). At issue in the case, called State of Tennessee v. George Lane and Beverly Jones, is whether Congress had the constitutional authority to require states to pay money damages for violations of Title II of the ADA. A negative ruling might suggest that Congress did not have the power to enact many of the core provisions of Title II and diminish plaintiffs' ability to enforce their civil rights in court.
Op-Ed: Can Disabled People be forced to Crawl up the Courthouse Steps? By Adam Cohen BENTON, TN — When George Lane showed up at the Polk County Courthouse with a crushed hip and pelvis, he had a problem. His hearing was on the second floor, there was no elevator, and the judge said he had better get upstairs. Mr. Lane, both of whose legs were in casts, somehow managed to get out of his wheelchair and crawl up two flights of stairs. "On a pain scale of 1 to 10, it was way past 10," he says. While Mr. Lane crawled up, he says, the judge and other courthouse employees "stood at the top of the stairs and laughed at me." His case was not heard in the morning session, he says, and at the lunch break he crawled back down. That afternoon, when he refused to crawl upstairs again, he was arrested for failing to appear, and put in jail. Anyone looking for evidence that a mean mood has descended on the nation need only stop by the Supreme Court Tuesday for the arguments in Tennessee v. Lane. Mr. Lane and other disabled people are suing Tennessee under the Americans With Disabilities Act for failing to make its courthouses accessible. Tennessee, backed by a group of other states, is belittling the claims, and insisting it has immunity to the suit. Incredibly, there is a real chance the Supreme Court will side with Tennessee. The court's conservative majority has been on a misguided "federalism" campaign, denying Congress's power to protect the environment, combat gun violence and ban discrimination. It has justified these rulings by saying it has to protect the "dignity" of the states. The discrimination in Mr. Lane's case is so horrific, however, it may help the court to grasp the possible consequences of that stand - including its effect on the dignity of people like Mr. Lane. George Lane was working two jobs when he got into the car accident that led to his court appearance. Mr. Lane, who had had minor run-ins with the law before, was not popular with the courthouse crowd in his rural Tennessee county. The employees who laughed at him offered to carry him upstairs, he says, but he was afraid they would intentionally drop him. (The judge who presided that day is no longer alive; the court clerk says she was not present.) A second plaintiff, Beverly Jones, supports her two children by working as a court reporter. Ms. Jones, who uses a wheelchair, has turned down jobs in some of the 23 Tennessee counties without accessible courthouses. Once, in a court without an accessible bathroom, she says, the judge had to pick her up and place her on the toilet. Another time, one of the court employees carrying her upstairs slipped. By chance she fell into someone else, she says, but she nearly fell all the way down. Ralph Ramsey, a third plaintiff, was a defendant in a civil suit. When he got to court, he sent word to the judge that his disability prevented him from getting to the second-floor courtroom. The case went on without him. An opposing attorney later came down and told Mr. Ramsey, as he passed by, that his client had just won a $1,500 judgment against him. In their briefs, the states show little sympathy for the disabled plaintiffs. Court reporters like Ms. Jones have no constitutional right, they say, to "ply their trade" in accessible courthouses. Nor, they insist, does Mr. Lane have an absolute right to attend his own criminal trial. As support, they cite a case in which a defendant was removed after repeatedly interrupting his trial and threatening to kill the judge. In any case, the states argue, Tennessee offered to "assist him upstairs," the offer Mr. Lane rejected because he feared he would be purposely dropped. But their main argument is states' rights - that the federal government has no power to protect the disabled this way. The states insist the 11th Amendment gives them immunity from suits for damages under the A.D.A. They cite the Supreme Court's own declaration that to force the states to defend themselves against these lawsuits would deny them "the dignity that is consistent with their status as sovereign entities." This interpretation of the 11th Amendment is wildly inconsistent with its plain language, which bars only lawsuits against states brought by "citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state." But conservatives on the Supreme Court, who insist in other contexts that they are "strict constructionists," have held that the amendment also limits suits brought by a state's own citizens. Even John Noonan Jr., a conservative federal appeals court judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan, has called the link between the 11th Amendment and state immunity "imaginary" — and dangerous. As off base as the Supreme Court's states' rights rulings have been, they have prompted little popular outrage. The doctrines are too obscure for most people to follow, and "respect the power of Congress" is not much of a rallying cry. But these decisions have deprived Americans of important protections, like the Violence Against Women Act and the Gun-Free School Zones Act. And they have made it easier to discriminate against older workers, blind people and cancer victims. The 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education is this year. In Brown, the Southern states argued that whatever anyone thought about segregated schools, the federal government did not have the power to order them to integrate. The Supreme Court unanimously disagreed, holding that blacks had the right not to be discriminated against by virtue of their national citizenship. Now, the court should do the same thing for the disabled. Tennessee may be willing to turn them into, as Mr. Lane puts it in his brief, "a second class of citizens who lack the full and equal opportunity to participate in civic life." But the court should make clear that as Americans, if not as Tennesseans, people like George Lane, Beverly Jones and Ralph Ramsey have the right of full entry into the halls of justice — and first-class citizenship. Source: The New York Times, 1/11/04 Op-Ed: Stalking the Giant Chicken Coop By Bob Herbert On July 30, 1965, Lyndon Johnson flew to Independence, MO and in the presence of a smiling Harry Truman signed the bill that created Medicare. "No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine," said Johnson. The growls of opposition in the background were muted. Medicare was a desperately needed program and it grew to be a wildly popular one. But conservatives were outraged by it. Socialized medicine, they snarled. Un-American. Truman had proposed a health care program for the elderly back in the 40’s. It went nowhere. Jack Kennedy pushed it in the early 60’s. Same result. It took Johnson’s legislative genius and his enormous mandate from the 1964 presidential election to bring the program into being. And even then it wasn’t easy. Johnson’s biographer, Robert Dallek, recalled that Ronald Reagan "saw Medicare as the advance wave of socialism, which would ‘invade every area of freedom in this country.’" "Reagan," wrote Mr Dallek, "predicted that Medicare would compel Americans to spend their ‘sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.’" Newt Gingrich ranted against Medicare in the 1990’s, comparing its operations to "centralized command bureaucracies" in Moscow. And George W Bush tried to fashion a prescription drug benefit that would require senior citizens to leave the traditional Medicare program before they could get the benefit. After nearly four decades, during which Medicare significantly improved the health and economic conditions of the nation’s elderly, this unrelenting hostility can fairly be called an obsession. Today President Bush will sign into law a prescription drug benefit under Medicare that will introducer the first cold drafts of bitter reality to the GOP’s long dream of dismantling Medicare as we’ve known it. Think of Medicare as a giant chicken coop. Keep in mind that the hostile-to-Medicare Republicans control the presidency and both houses of Congress. Now you decide who the foxes and the chickens are. (Hint: we’re not talking about spring chickens.) When Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman got together for the debut of Medicare, they were genuinely concerned about the medical needs of the nation’s elderly. "These people," said Truman, "are our prideful responsibility and they are entitled, among other benefits, to the best medical protection available." The bill that President Bush will sign today is a giant windfall for the drug companies, opening up a huge new market with virtually no effort to restrain prices. It will give Medicare recipients a modest drug benefit, but at a potentially dreadful cost. The bill starts the process of undermining Medicare by turning parts of it over to insurance companies, HMO’s and other private companies. The drug benefits will be delivered almost entirely through private insurance plans. It would have been more efficient and cheaper to deliver it the same way other Medicare benefits are delivered. But that’s not the idea. The Bush administration has mastered the art of legalized banditry, in which tons of government money — the people’s money — are hijacked and handed over to the special interests. Drug company stock prices soared with the passage of the Medicare bill, a sign that another government vault had been blown open and the big Medicare money was in play. The Republicans are not subtle about these matters. The bill, for example, specifically prohibits the government from negotiating discounts or lower drug prices, and bars the importation of cheaper drugs from abroad. And then there’s the "demonstration" project, to begin in 2010, in which Medicare will be forced in several cities to compete against private profit-making health plans. It will be a rigged competition in that, among other things, the private plans will be heavily subsidized by Medicare money and will be able to cherry-pick the healthiest patients. As one Capitol Hill staffer told me last week, "This is more than the camel’s nose under the tent. This is like the head, the hump, and everything else." Harry Truman would be beside himself. Source: The New York Times, 12/8/03 For sale: Quickie chair & Hoyer lift 1997 Quickie Power Chair Tiltmaster CQ System, 2 batteries, 1 charger, drives 6 mph, removable footrests and seating system. Very good condition. $2,000 OBO ($16,000 brand-new). Hoyer Lift-manual w/o sling, $100 OBO. Contact Michelle Heeter at 708/598.3749, or 708/275.8443 anytime. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
