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-----Original Message-----
From: Majordomo List Server [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of [log in to unmask]@trip.TRIPIL.COM
Sent: Friday, February 19, 1999 6:22 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Governors Declare War On Disabled People


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   For more information, contact:
February 19, 1999               Jennifer Burnett: (202) 289-5959 Hotel in DC
                                Janine Bertram-Kemp: (202) 253-9384 cell phone
                                                        (202) 342-9439 ph #
                                Joe Ehman: (303) 487-9587 ph #

        Governors Declare War On Disabled People

WASHINGTON, DC-- The National Governor's Association has signed onto a
lawsuit that will strip the rights of people with disabilities to live in
the most integrated setting, saying that state government knows better
than people themselves, where and how they should live their lives.  ADAPT
is meeting with leaders of the NGA today, at 9:30AM, at the Hall of the
States, 444 N. Capitol Street. N.W.  to demand that they withdraw their
support of the lawsuit, promote MiCASSA, federal legislation that will
give people with disabilities a REAL choice in long term services and
support.
        With its decision to hear a Georgia lawsuit known as L.C. & E.W. v
Olmstead on April 21st. the Supreme Court will consider putting back in
place what former President George Bush called "the shameful wall of
exclusion" separating people with disabilities from other Americans,
leaders of national disability rights group ADAPT stated today.  ADAPT
blames governors for their support of Georgia's petition.  In a friend of
the court brief, the governors contend that the federal Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) does not require community placement if appropriate
care can also be provided in an institution.
        "It's hard to believe that we're entering the next millennium and
we still have governors deciding where people with disabilities live,"
stated ADAPT national organizer Mike Auberger, "Governors don't decide for
African Americans, they don't decide for Hispanic, women, or any other
minority yet they insist on eroding away our civil rights by signing onto
a lawsuit like Olmstead." ADAPT has mounted a campaign to protect the ADA
and the fundamental right of people with disabilities to live in the
community, dubbed "Don't Tread on the ADA".  While the Georgia lawsuit
involves people with mental disabilities, ADAPT points out that the
Supreme Court decision will have a far reaching impact on the lives of all
people with disabilities.
        "This will be the defining moment for the ADA," explains
Philadelphia attorney Steve Gold.  "If the Supreme Court rules in favor of
Georgia, the ADA will become a mere shell of what it is intended to be,
stripping away its major civil rights provision--integration."
        In 1995, the Supreme Court declined to hear Gold's similar
Pennsylvania lawsuit, known as Helen L v. DiDario on appeal, letting the
lower court's decision stand and freeing a Pennsylvania woman from
unnecessary institutionalization. Both Georgia's lawsuit and the Helen L.
ruling are based on the ADA's "integration" mandate, which says, "a public
entity must administer services, programs, and activities in the most
integrated setting appropriate to the needs of qualified individuals with
a disabilities."  Authorized in 1990, the ADA is the most sweeping civil
rights legislation protecting people with disabilities. Upon signing the
law at a packed White House lawn ceremony, President Bush declared, "And
now I sign legislation which takes a sledgehammer to another wall, one
which has, for too many generations, separated Americans with disabilities
from the freedom they could glimpse, but not grasp."
        Georgia's appeal to the Supreme Court has outraged ADAPT and the
entire disability community.  All people want the choice to live in the
community, and Georgia's lawsuit challenges this, stating "the fundamental
issue of whether Congress intended for institutional care to constitute
discrimination...can and should be decided first.".  ADAPT recognizes that
being forced into an institution constitutes discrimination, and does not
want to see this important civil right stripped from the ADA.  Integration
NOT Segregation.

        ###


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