Boy, I never thought Harry Callahan would betray me.
My letter goes in the mail tomorrow morning. We only have a couple of days
to get this done folks.
*****************
It is important that everyone of us, and everyone that we know, write
to and
call the members of the subcommittee that will be hearing the anti-ADA
bill,
HR 3590, on May 18th. I have posted some fax numbers and e-mail
addresses
previously along with the names of all of the members of the
subcommittee. I
will post that information with additional fax numbers and e-mail
addresses
again tomorrow (Friday). The following letter is a sample letter that
makes
some of the points about what is wrong with this bill. I am posting
this
letter so that everyone can use it or any parts of it in your letters
and
phone calls to the members of the subcommittee. Please forward this
e-mail
to everyone you know and to every discussion group in which you
participate.
It is most important that you write to and call the Republican members
of
the subcommittee.
I will be posting two or three more sample letters in the next day.
Feel
free to use them or any parts of them. If you write a letter based on
this
sample letter and then like something in the next sample that I post
you can
write to the subcommittee members again. You can write and phone as
often as
you have something to say. There will be other members of this list who
will
have their own ideas of what to say. Please post your ideas to the list
so
that everyone has as much information as is possible and as many ideas
of
what to say as we can put together.
I must stress that letters to the subcommittee members should not be
hostile
or insulting. We want them to understand our side of this issue and to
vote
to protect our civil rights. Hostility and insults will not help us get
to
where we need to go.
Sincerely yours,
Fred
--
Frederick A. Shotz
ADA Consulting Associates
Leading The Way To Equal Access
For People With Disabilities
-----------------------------------
Dear Congressman _________:
I am writing to you to express my strong opposition to HR 3590 which
will be
heard by the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee
on
May 18th. I am a person with a disability. This bill which attempts to
protect business interests from predatory lawyers is totally
unnecessary and
would be harmful to people with disabilities. There are a few lawyers
making
too much money by suing for ADA violations. However, most lawyers
taking
such cases are simply making a reasonable hourly fee for their work. In
many
parts of the country there are no lawyers taking ADA plaintiff cases as
there is not enough money to be earned representing clients with
disabilities.
As you know the ADA is a civil rights bill. It is, to my knowledge, the
first civil rights bill ever passed by Congress that allowed violators
of
people's civil rights a period of time to continue discrimination after
the
bill was signed into law. President Bush signed the ADA on July 26,
1990.
Businesses were given two years to comply with the nondiscrimination
requirements of this law before they could be sued for discrimination
in the
federal courts. Can you imagine the uproar if businesses discriminating
against people of color were given two years to continue discriminating
after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law?
When Congress passed the ADA no large increase in the budget of the
Department of Justice (DoJ) was provided so that the DoJ could enforce
this
civil rights law. The authors of this law, understanding that there
would
not be funds provided to DoJ for enforcement, included a citizen's
enforcement provision in the bill. That simple section of the law
allows the
legal fees of people with disabilities to be paid by the defendant in
an ADA
lawsuit if factual discrimination is established in the course of the
litigation. As is the case with most laws that provide for prevailing
legal
fees to be paid by the loosing party the court is given the final say
on
what constitutes appropriate legal fees in a given case. Any case where
a
plaintiff lawyer has been paid excessive fees was a case where the
defendant
agreed to pay those fees without asking the judge to determine what
constituted a reasonable fee.
HR 3590 would stop almost all litigation against businesses under the
ADA.
This bill, if it was to become law, would also stop almost all
voluntary
compliance with the ADA in facilities constructed prior to the
effective
date of the ADA. The ultimate effect of this bill would be to give
every
business in the United States the absolute right to continue
discriminating
against people with disabilities until someone complained in writing
about
specific issues of discrimination. Only when such a complaint was
received
would a business owner have reason to resolve the barriers to people
with
disabilities that were the basis of the complaint. I would not matter
if the
business had one barrier that was required to be removed or one hundred
barriers. The only responsibility of the business owner would be to
remove
the barrier that was the subject of the complaint. Discrimination based
on
other barriers could continue until a person with a disability
complained
about those barriers in a letter.
Picture an arena that was built before the ADA became law. The arena
does
not have wheelchair accessible seats, does not have wheelchair
accessible
restrooms, does not have wheelchair accessible food service counters,
does
not have wheelchair accessible entrances, does not have wheelchair
accessible parking, and does not sell tickets to people who use
wheelchairs
due to the lack of accessible elements. If HR 3590 was the law then a
person
with a disability would have no way of enforcing their civil rights
granted
by the ADA. The person who would not be able to go to this arena would
not
have knowledge of all of the barriers in the arena.
This person could send a letter stating that not selling tickets to
people
with disabilities who use wheelchairs is a violation of the ADA. Ninety
days
later the arena could start selling tickets to people with disabilities
who
use wheelchairs. This person, now with a ticket, could then go to the
arena
but would find no accessible parking. With the unused ticket this
person
could again write to the arena stating that the lack of accessible
parking
was an ADA violation. Ninety days later the arena could have painted
some
parking spaces with access aisles so that wheelchair users could exit
their
vehicles. This person could again buy a ticket, go to the arena, and
find
the doors not wide enough for wheelchair access. Another letter could
be
written and the arena could, in a 90 day period, put in a new door (or
doors) wide enough for people with disabilities who use wheelchair to
use.
This person could then again buy a ticket, go to the arena, park, and
get in
the door. This time the person would discover that the wheelchair seat
was
in the aisle behind the last row of seats in a location where nothing
could
be seen. This could result in the next letter and the next correction
on the
part of the arena. At this point one year would have passed since this
person first tried to go to this arena. The food service counters would
not
have been altered and the restrooms would not have been altered.
Complaints
about those issues could take another six months to correct if the
problems
were not identified during the same visit to the arena.
After one and one half years of continuing discrimination this
facility,
with no penalty for their failure to comply with a federal civil rights
law,
would finally be wheelchair accessible. But, people with disabilities
with
mobility impairments who do not use wheelchairs would still not have
had
their access rights address. People who are blind or visually impaired
would
still not have had their access rights addressed. People who are hard
of
hearing or deaf would not have had their access rights addressed. This
kind
of piece meal approach would be the only way to enforce the ADA since
with
no lawsuits allowed unless the facility failed to respond to a
complaint
within 90 days, no full inspection of the property would be possible.
Businesses would never voluntary allow an inspection once they
understood
that they were only at risk of litigation for their failure to remove
barriers that were individually identified and were the subject of a
written
complaint.
Congressman Foley represents this bill as a bill that will protect
businesses from unnecessary litigation. In reality this bill is an
attempt
to allow increased discrimination against people with disabilities and
to
deny to people with disabilities the right to enforce their own civil
rights. This bill would only be reasonable if it was paired with enough
funding of the Department of Justice to allow them to fully enforce the
ADA
in every community throughout the United States.
It is my request that you follow the lead of President Bush and protect
the
civil rights of people with disabilities by voting against HR 3590.
Sincerely yours,
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