Greetings from the Road To Freedom bus currently in Concord, New 
Hampshire! We are traveling the country to promote restoration of the 
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) -- and we need your help!

 

On *Thursday morning, October 4, 2007, at 10 am*, the Subcommittee on 
Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties of the House Judiciary 
Committee will hold an important hearing on renewing the Americans with 
Disabilities Act. The hearing will focus on the ADA Restoration Act 
(H.R. 3195), the bill designed to restore the rights of the many people 
who have lost their civil rights protections due to the narrowing of the 
ADA in the courts. 

 

We urge you to attend these hearings on Thursday in *Room 2141 of the 
Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC*.

 

If you cannot attend, *please take action* *below* to let Congress know 
that you support passage of the ADA Restoration Act.

Best,

Jim Ward
Founder and President
ADA Watch/NCDR


 

*ADA RESTORATION ACTION CENTER*

**Powered By ADAWatch.org 
<http://m1e.net/c?29279385-fj9HMbY1/BswA%402799490-cUT/mr53lXedw>

 

After years of being weakened in the courts, Congress is coming to the 
rescue of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the bipartisan 
civil rights protections signed into law in 1990. This vital legislation 
will restate and clarify the intent of Congress in order to keep the 
promise of the ADA. Please take action /now/ to encourage members of 
Congress to sign-on and pass this legislation which was drafted with the 
support of a broad coalition of disability organizations.  

 

*Contact Congress 
<http://m1e.net/c?29279385-RbrB4KQnyaGWU%402799491-rGZ7yo3RweCOk>*

Click the link above to tell your members of Congress to support the 
/ADA Restoration Act/.

 

*Sign the Petition 
<http://m1e.net/c?29279385-lKSLx8YepcXrM%402799492-PM/bvvkK09g3w>*

Click the link above to show your support for passage of the /ADA 
Restoration Act/. We will distribute the petitions to Congress and the 
media.

 

*Tell Your Story 
<http://m1e.net/c?29279385-4JaeLqztZnXAo%402799493-WCWUViZX7vc4I>*

Click the link above to tell your story about disability discrimination, 
how the ADA has helped you or how the promise of the ADA is still 
unfulfilled. We will share these testimonials with Congress and the media.

 

*Get On the Bus 
<http://m1e.net/c?29279385-53c0FJzFjGDN2%402799494-VrHns6uEdhY5M>*

Click the link above to follow the /Road To Freedom: Keeping the Promise 
of the ADA/, our year-long, cross-country bus tour promoting the 
restoration of the ADA.   Freedom bus Check out the tour schedule, read 
the blog and view photos of our journey so far covering more than 20,000 
miles, 40 states and more than 60 bus stop events.

*BACKGROUND:*
Seventeen years ago, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act 
(ADA) with overwhelming bipartisan support. However, in recent years, a 
number of Supreme Court decisions have significantly reduced the 
protections available to people with disabilities in employment settings.

Courts are quick to side with businesses and employers, deciding against 
people with disabilities who challenge employment discrimination 97% of 
the time, often before the person even has a chance to show the employer 
treated them unfairly.  

Indeed, courts have created an absurd Catch-22 by allowing employers to 
say a person is "too disabled" to do the job but not "disabled enough" 
to be protected by the ADA. People with conditions like epilepsy, 
diabetes, HIV, cancer, hearing loss, and mental illness that manage 
their disabilities with medication, prosthetics, hearing aids, etc. -- 
or "mitigating measures" -- are viewed as "too functional" to have a 
disability and are denied the ADA's protection from employment 
discrimination.

People denied a job or fired because an employer mistakenly believes 
they cannot perform the job or because the employer does not want people 
with disabilities in the workplace are also denied the ADA's protection 
from employment discrimination.

*/Passage of the ADA Restoration Act of 2007 is critical to restoring 
the intent of Congress when it originally passed the ADA./*

 

As Rep. Steny Hoyer stated when he introduced the ADA Restoration Act of 
2007 on July 26, 2007, "the point of the ADA is not disability; it is 
the prevention of wrongful and unlawful discrimination." The courts have 
spent an exorbitant amount of time parsing the question of whether a 
person is really "disabled," when the real question is whether the 
person was treated /unfairly/ on the /_basis of_/ an irrelevant personal 
characteristic (disability). Courts do not require people alleging race 
or sex discrimination under other civil rights laws to first prove their 
race or gender -- instead, they look at whether race or gender was the 
basis for the adverse action. Under the ADA, however, before a court 
will hear a person's discrimination claim, the person is currently 
required to first prove in excruciating detail how "disabled" he or she 
is. This is /not/ what Congress intended in the /original/ ADA.

 

Instead, as Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner said when he joined Mr. Hoyer in the 
introduction of the ADA Restoration Act of 2007, this bill helps ensure 
that the ADA takes its rightful place among other civil rights laws, and 
"will force courts to focus on whether a person has experienced 
discrimination 'on the basis of disability,' rather than require 
individuals to demonstrate that they fall within the scope of the law's 
protection" at all. That was what Congress originally intended -- to 
focus a spotlight on unfair discrimination against people with a broad 
range of disabilities.

 

When Congress passed the ADA, when President George H. W. Bush signed 
the law, and when Attorney General Dick Thornburgh promulgated 
regulations to implement the law, the intent of the ADA was crystal 
clear -- the law was intended to apply to /everyone/ who experienced 
discrimination on the basis of disability, not just those with severe 
disabilities. Congress did not expect its legislative history, and prior 
case precedent, to be ignored.

/   /

*ADA Watch/NCDR joins CCD, NCIL and the larger disability rights 
community and urges Congress to pass the ADA Restoration Act (H.R. 
3195),* restoring the original intent of Congress to ensure the right to 
be judged based on performance, harmonizing the ADA with other civil 
rights laws, and requiring the courts to interpret the law fairly. 


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