Ran out of steam tracking email addresses.  Many Reps. use a centralized
email adress.  You'll have to hunt down a zip code to get to an input page.
Good luck hunting.

106TH Congress
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-3951
Subcommittee Assignments

SUBCOMMITTEE ON
COMMERCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE LAW
B353 Rayburn HOB
Tel: (202) 225-2825
MR. GEORGE GEKAS (PA), CHAIRMAN <[log in to unmask]>

Mr. Lindsey Graham (S.CR)

<http://www.house.gov/graham/Opinions/opinions3.htm>

Mr. Steve Chabot (OH)  ZIP 45202
Ms. Baldwin
<http://www.house.gov/writerep/>

Mr. Bachus
Mr. Watt
Ms. Bono

Mr. Nadler
Mr. Weiner
Mr. Scarborough
Mr. Delahunt
Mr. Vitter

Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law
LIVE AUDIO
10:00 a.m. in 2141 Rayburn House Office Building
Legislative hearing on H.R. 3590, the "ADA Notification Act."







----- Original Message -----
From: "Betty Alfred" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2000 4:31 PM
Subject: Re: Eastwood vs ADA


> 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,
>