Today is the 3 year aniversary of me and my friend getting left behind on a school field trip in hawaii and desperately trying to convince the chaperones and our own parents that were thousands of miles away to believe it wasn’t actually an April fools joke.
This is about HR 620, aka The Ruin Disabled Peoples Lives Bill. Do Not Assume That Your Politicians Will Vote Against This, I don’t care how “liberal” they are or whatever.
From Lindsay B, who works at a national disability advocacy org (& she’s disabled & supports our local ADAPT & I know her from a local support group):
The House is voting on H.R. 620 THIS THURSDAY [February 15th 2018]. This is scary, people. H.R. 620 is a dangerous bill that would weaken the Americans with Disabilities Act and strip away disabled peoples’ civil rights. It would undermine the KEY intent of the ADA, which is to ensure that disabled people have access to public places! PLEASE TAKE ACTION!
Contact your Representatives and tell them to OPPOSE H.R. 620:
Monday (TODAY!) - Participate in the ‘Save The ADA CALL IN DAY’ and tell your representative to VOTE NO on H.R. 620! All Representatives can be reached at the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 or (202) 224-3091 (TTY).
Tuesday - Post your opposition on social media! Tag your Representative and use the hashtags #HandsOffMyADA and #StopHR620. You can find your Representative’s Twitter handle and FB information at [link next] www.ContactingCongress.org
Every day until the vote - use Resistbot (link: https://resist.bot) to turn texts into faxes, mail, or hand-delivered letters; fax your members of Congress (use link faxzero.com to find their fax number); or contact your Representative with contact information from link www.ContactingCongress.com.
Thursday (the day of the vote) - CALL and TWEET all day and tell members of the House to VOTE NO!
Additional info:
See NCIL’s alert with more info about the bill and links to additional resources: [link next]
http://www.advocacymonitor.com/action-alert-save-the-ada-h…/
DREDF’s HR 620 page with tons of links to resources and articles: [link next]
https://dredf.org/hr620/
more info from Lindsay:
“Some businesses care about accessibility, but some definitely don’t (and/or don’t prioritize it). It’s not conjecture to say that a lot of businesses will fail to provide accessible facilities- there are a lot of businesses that are still not in compliance 28 years post-ADA. This bill takes away any incentive to remove barriers until they’ve received the specific notice required. I would like to believe businesses will do the right thing, but the reality is even without this bill many have already shown us they won’t.”
“They claim the bill is to protect small businesses from lawyers who are abusing the ADA by filing frivolous lawsuits.
(But the reality is this is not a widespread problem (not nearly as widespread as inaccessibility!), and where this has been an issue at all is in the small number states that have laws going beyond the ADA and allowing damages, which are not allowed under Title III of the ADA.)”