[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT OF THE AMERICANS WITH
DISABILITIES ACT OF 1990: THE CURRENT STATE
OF INTEGRATION OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION, CIVIL
RIGHTS, AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2021
__________
Serial No. 117-41
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
48-275 WASHINGTON : 2022
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chair
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania, Vice-Chair
ZOE LOFGREN, California JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Member
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., DARRELL ISSA, California
Georgia KEN BUCK, Colorado
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida MATT GAETZ, Florida
KAREN BASS, California MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island TOM McCLINTOCK, California
ERIC SWALWELL, California W. GREG STEUBE, Florida
TED LIEU, California TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington CHIP ROY, Texas
VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida DAN BISHOP, North Carolina
J. LUIS CORREA, California MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
JOE NEGUSE, Colorado CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon
LUCY McBATH, Georgia BURGESS OWENS, Utah
GREG STANTON, Arizona
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
MONDAIRE JONES, New York
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
CORI BUSH, Missouri
PERRY APELBAUM, Majority Staff Director & Chief Counsel
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION, CIVIL RIGHTS,
AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee, Chair
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina, Vice-Chair
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana, Ranking
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., Member
Georgia TOM McCLINTOCK, California
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas CHIP ROY, Texas
CORI BUSH, Missouri MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas BURGESS OWENS, Utah
JAMES PARK, Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Steve Cohen, Chair of the Subcommittee on the
Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties from the State
of Tennessee................................................... 2
The Honorable Mike Johnson, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on
the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties from the
State of Louisiana............................................. 4
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the
Judiciary from the State of New York........................... 5
WITNESSES
Ms. Patricia Lee, Lumberton, North Carolina
Oral Testimony................................................. 7
Prepared Testimony............................................. 9
Ms. Regina Kline, Founder and CEO, SmartJob, LLC
Oral Testimony................................................. 10
Prepared Testimony............................................. 12
Ms. Karen Harned, Executive Director, National Federation of
Independent Business
Oral Testimony................................................. 22
Prepared Testimony............................................. 24
Ms. Michelle Bishop, Voter Access and Engagement Manager,
National Disability Rights Network
Oral Testimony................................................. 32
Prepared Testimony............................................. 34
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
An article entitled, ``Texans with disabilities fear voting will
get harder for them as special session on GOP restrictions
nears,'' The Texas Tribune, submitted by the Honorable Sylvia
Garcia, a Member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil
Rights, and Civil Liberties from the State of Texas for the
record......................................................... 58
Materials submitted by the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Member
of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and
Civil Liberties from the State of Texas for the record
An article entitled, ``Black students and students with
disabilities remain more likely to receive out-of-school
suspensions, despite overall declines,'' Child Trends........ 70
An article entitled, ``Here's how Texas elections would change,
and become more restrictive, under the bill Texas Republicans
are pushing,'' Click2Houston................................. 76
APPENDIX
An letter from the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities,
submitted by the Honorable Steve Cohen, Chair of the
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil
Liberties from the State of Tennessee for the record........... 90
OVERSIGHT OF THE AMERICANS WITH
DISABILITIES ACT OF 1990: THE CURRENT
STATE OF INTEGRATION OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
----------
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and
Civil Liberties
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Steve Cohen
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Cohen, Nadler, Cohen, Raskin,
Ross, Johnson of Georgia, Garcia, Bush, Jackson Lee, Johnson of
Louisiana, Fischbach, and Owens.
Staff Present: Jordan Dashow, Professional Staff Member;
Cierra Fontenot, Chief Clerk; John Williams, Parliamentarian
and Senior Counsel; Gabriel Barnett, Staff Assistant; Merrick
Nelson, Digital Director; James Park, Chief Counsel; Will
Emmons, Professional Staff Member/Legislative Aide; Matt
Morgan, Counsel; James Lesinski, Minority Counsel; and Kiley
Bidelman, Minority Clerk.
Mr. Cohen. Blast off. I am not Jeff Bezos. I am Congressman
Steve Cohen, and this is start of the Judiciary Subcommittee on
the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. Today's
most important hearing is on the Americans with Disabilities
Act, the great Act of the 1990s, the ADA. The Committee will
come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to
declare a recess at any time.
I welcome everyone to today's hearing on Oversight of the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the current State
of integration of people with disabilities. This is an Act that
I think Steny Hoyer was the sponsor and a great patron. I
recognize Mr. Hoyer at this time.
I would like to remind Members, we have an email address
which you know, and you hear innumerable times, where you can
share distribution of exhibits, letters, written materials, et
cetera. So, you have got that address.
Also, I would like to ask Members and Witnesses, both those
in person and those appearing remotely, to mute your
microphones when you are not speaking. This will help prevent
feedback and other technical issues. You may unmute yourself at
any time you seek recognition. I will now recognize myself for
an opening statement.
Hailed by many as the most significant and comprehensive
civil rights statute since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was enacted with
overwhelming bipartisan support. The late Senator Edward
Kennedy, a lion of the Senate, if not the lion of the Senate,
dedicated champion of civil rights, and one of the two chief
sponsors of the ADA, noted that in passing the legislation,
Congress affirmed its commitment to remove the fiscal barriers
and antiquated social attitudes that have condemned people with
disabilities to second class citizenship for far too long.
The bill's Chief House sponsor, now Majority Leader Steny
Hoyer, said in 1990 before the ADA was signed into law that the
day the President signed the bill would be Independence Day for
those who have been disabled. Both Senator Kennedy and
Representative Hoyer were right. President George H.W. Bush
declared as he signed the ADA into law, let the shameful wall
of exclusion of people with disabilities finally come tumbling
down.
The ADA has improved lives of millions of individuals with
disabilities by explicitly prohibiting discrimination on the
basis of disability, and by providing standards for legal
recourse for confronting such discrimination when it occurs.
The idea that we had a period in our history when we didn't
have sufficient parking for people with disabilities, curb
cuts, banisters to help people get up and down stairs, it is
hard to imagine. It goes way beyond that, of course.
This nation has made progress in the last 31 years toward
achieving the ADA's goals of ending discrimination against and
segregation of people with disabilities. The law has yet to
achieve its full promise. Indeed, we could devote numerous
hearings to many different aspects of the ADA and the various
remaining areas that prevent disabled persons from enjoying the
full blessings of American life.
It has been a decade since this Subcommittee last took a
comprehensive look at the State of ADA's implementation. Given
the breadth of potential topics, we have chosen to concentrate
today on the ADA's integration mandate as a starting point,
because community integration is a core goal of the ADA
overall.
We will look at title II of the ADA and the enforcement and
implementation of the Supreme Court's Olmstead decision.
Additionally, we will examine longstanding barriers to voting
accessibility for people with disabilities. title II of the ADA
provides an individual with a disability shall not be denied
the chance to participate in or benefit fully from the
services, programs, or activities of public entities, which
include, of course, State, local, and Federal governments.
More than 20 years ago, the Supreme Court declared in the
Olmstead case that unnecessary institutionalization of people
with disabilities violated title II of the ADA and that States
must ensure that individuals receive services in the least
proscriptive setting possible. Yet, thousands of individuals
with disabilities still find themselves in situations with
their only option for receiving housing and treatment services
are in institutional settings isolated from the community.
People with disabilities continue to face discrimination in
the form of over-institutionalization, and the COVID-19
pandemic has further exacerbated this problem. As of June 2021,
over 180,000 people living in institutional settings have died
during the pandemic. The pandemic has underscored the urgent
need to fully implement Olmstead and to ensure that the States
transition to providing home and community placement services.
I don't know if it is based on anything with ADA, but it
certainly comes from that spirit. We have in our Build Back
Better bill funding for people to remain in their homes when
they get older, which is not necessarily, I guess, part of the
ADA. As you get older, that is a disability of disabilities
too, and you should have home healthcare and be able to stay in
your home. That is something that crosses political borders.
Another core goal of the ADA is to ensure that people with
disabilities can obtain economic self-sufficiency. Olmstead
requires States to provide employment services in the most
integrated setting appropriate to the individual's needs. Yet,
persons with disabilities continue to face discrimination in
the provision of employment-related services. Many persons with
disabilities continue to be employed in sheltered workshops
where they are segregated from the rest of the community, and
they often earn a subminimum wage, because that is the setting
where the State provides employment services. These
environments do not aid people with disabilities in achieving
competitive, integrated employment which should be the goal.
The goal is difficult because it is hard to judge, but we need
to look at it.
The Department of Justice plays an important role in
ensuring State employment services comply with Olmstead. In
2017, however, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded
the Department's guidance document describing the application
of Olmstead to State and local government employment services
and systems. There was no explanation of or justification for
rescinding this, and other critical ADA-related guidance. The
department should reinstate and strengthen the Olmstead
guidance so it may transition away from providing employment
services and sheltered workshops, and instead, provide
supported employment in the community and allow people with
disabilities to earn a competitive wage while developing job
skills.
Also, of critical importance to integrating people with
disabilities in American society is the right to participate in
our democracy. Yet, 31 years after the ADA's enactment, people
with disabilities continue to face significant barriers to
access the vote. We certainly hope our minority Members don't
find any new ideas for voting laws when we discuss these
disabilities with significant barriers. These barriers create
physical barriers to in-person voting locations as well as
impediments to voting by mail that particularly undermine
voting access for blind and low-vision voters and voters with
limited manual dexterity.
In 2020, many States implemented changes to voting laws in
response to the COVID-19 pandemic that while improving voting
access ability also highlighted the fact that people with
disabilities still face numerous and longstanding barriers to
voting. While the COVID pandemic voting reforms proved to be an
unexpected boon to voter accessibility in the 2020 election,
States are now poised now to erase the gains made by voters
with disabilities, but also to erect additional barriers to
voting. This Subcommittee is dedicated to ensuring States do
not erode the ability of people with disabilities to vote.
More than 30 years after the ADA's enactment, the law's
implementation has fallen short of its full potential. Many
challenges remain to fully achieve the ADA's goal of ending
disability-based discrimination and the exclusion of people
with disabilities from American society. It is a difficult
balancing act, and we hope that--we know we will hear from the
experts on where it falls, and what we can do to fulfill the
purposes of the law and its intent. This hearing will do that.
I welcome our Witnesses, and I look forward to their testimony.
It is now my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of
the Subcommittee, the gentleman from Louisiana, the State where
it is good to be a football coach who has got a good buyout,
Mr. Johnson, for his opening statement.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is a
sore subject. It is too soon.
I appreciate everyone participating in the hearing today,
and I note that we have a sign language interpreter, Mr.
Stubbs, who is trying to keep up with how fast we speak, so we
appreciate that. I will be cognizant of it. We all should.
The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed by Congress
in 1990 and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. It
was a big achievement. For 30 years, the ADA's purpose has been
to, ``provide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for
the elimination of discrimination against individuals with
disabilities.'' Obviously, that is a noble goal that I think
probably all Americans agree with. Of course, we should all
strive to ensure people with disabilities can live in their
communities and work in their chosen professions to the fullest
extent possible.
In the more than 30 years since the ADA was passed,
however, it has become very clear that the law, subsequent
regulations, and jurisprudence, have convoluted things to the
point where small businesses simply have no clear guidance on
what exactly is required of them. Instead of successfully
codifying the golden rule of treating our neighbors as we want
to be treated, the ADA has resulted in a compilation of vague
and often complex standards and balancing tests. This has led
to bad outcomes for individuals with disabilities and for
businesses which are struggling to comply.
As we hear from our Witnesses today, people with
disabilities still face obstacles in their daily lives.
Meanwhile, businesses don't know what they must do to comply
with this Federal law. As one legal commentator has remarked,
``Because the ADA requirements are both obscure and voluminous,
and even compliance experts do not agree amongst themselves how
much accommodation counts is enough, potential violations can
be found at most businesses.'' Businesses regularly face so
much uncertainty in how the ADA will be enforced, they are put
in the impossible position of complying without even knowing
what compliance means. If businesses mistakenly get it wrong,
too bad for them. They are punished anyway.
It must become simpler than that, and this dilemma must be
resolved in the best interest of all Americans, and everyone
involved. Until it is, I fear that we will continue to fall
short of the ADA's goal of eliminating discrimination against
individuals with disabilities, and we will put millions of
business owners, employers, job creators who are operating in
good faith, in this continued impossible situation.
We do thank our Witnesses for appearing today, and we look
forward to your testimony.
With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.
Are there any opening statements from Chairs, or do we
introduce--oh. Mr. Nadler. You are here. Sorry. I don't go to
my right very often. You are welcome.
Chair Nadler. Thank you, Chair Cohen, and thank you to all
our Witnesses for joining us today.
In considering the current state of integration of people
with disabilities into their communities, today's hearing
provides us an important opportunity to examine the extent to
which the ADA has ensured that people with disabilities have
access to housing, employment, and voting rights as the law
intends.
The ADA is one of the nation's most important civil rights
laws. Thirty-one years ago, on a bipartisan basis, Congress
passed this historic law to, ``provide a clear and
comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of
discrimination against individuals with disabilities.'' While
the ADA has helped break down many barriers facing people with
disabilities, our nation has yet to achieve the law's promise
of full integration.
Notably, the Supreme Court, in its landmark 1999 decision
in Olmstead v. LC, held that title II of the ADA which provides
that people with disabilities must have the chance to
participate in or benefit fully from the services of public
entities and the DOJ's regulations in interpreting that
provision prohibited the unjustified segregation of people with
disabilities. Such unjustified segregation, the Court held,
constituted discrimination, and required that States, should an
individual not oppose it, must provide community-based services
to people with disabilities in the most integrated setting
appropriate.
The importance of the Olmstead decision to the disability
community cannot be overstated. Transitioning people from
congregate institutional living or treatment settings has
enabled people with disabilities to live better, more
independent lives as individuals with the dignity that they
deserve, which is one of the core purposes of the ADA. Twenty-
two years of experience with Olmstead has not only demonstrated
that States can comply with the decision, but also that
Olmstead has made State service systems better and more
responsive to the individual needs of the people they serve.
Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the urgency
and necessity of implementing Olmstead. The COVID-19 pandemic
has disproportionately impacted people with disabilities,
partly due to their overconcentration in congregate settings
such as nursing homes or other assisted care facilities.
According to The New York Times, as of June 1st of this year,
over 184,000 deaths have been reported among residents of
nursing homes and other similar congregate facilities. The
pandemic has made implementing Olmstead literally a life-or-
death matter.
To promote State compliance with Olmstead, Congress should
create incentives for States to expand their community service
systems. The American Rescue Plan provided a one-year incentive
to States to expand home- and community-based services by
providing an increase in Federal Medicaid funding matching for
those services. The Build Back Better Act would also make a
similar incentive permanent, provided that States meet certain
conditions. I hope this will be enacted into law soon.
It is also important to recognize that the segregation of
people with disabilities is not just limited to where they live
or receive treatment, but it can also manifest in where they
work. Another one of the core purposes of the ADA is to ensure
that people with disabilities can achieve economic self-
sufficiency and independence. If the majority of people with
disabilities are not part of the labor force, and a significant
number of those who are employed work in sheltered workshops
where they are relegated to performing menial tasks below their
capability, sometimes for subminimum wages and segregated from
the wider community.
To fully realize the ADA's integration mandate, we must
also ensure that State employment service systems comply with
Olmstead. Rather than provide services in segregated settings
cut off from the rest of the community, State employment
services should transition to providing supported employment in
the community to ensure that people with disabilities can
develop the skills necessary to achieve competitive, integrated
employment, and economic self-
sufficiency.
Last, but certainly not least, ensuring that people with
disabilities are integrated into the community requires that
they are fully able to participate in the electoral process.
Indeed, as I have stated before, the right to vote is
instrumental in securing and defending all other rights. Yet,
over 30 years after the ADA's passage, people with disabilities
still face too many longstanding obstacles to exercising their
right to vote.
Many of the changes to our voting laws in the wake of the
COVID-19 pandemic made the 2020 election more accessible to
people with disabilities than past elections. While that
perhaps unexpected progress is welcome, it only highlights the
continuing and persistent barriers that people with
disabilities face when voting. Moreover, as this Subcommittee
learned during its oversight hearings on the Voting Rights Act
this past summer, the current attack on voting rights includes
a rollback of those positive voting law changes and would
institute additional barriers to voting that disproportionately
impact voters with disabilities and especially voters of color
with disabilities.
Congress took an important step when it passed the ADA in
1990, but as a nation, we still have a long road ahead to
achieving the goal of full community integration. We must
continue to ensure robust enforcement of the ADA and compliance
with the Olmstead decision across the board.
Again, I thank Chair Cohen for holding this hearing, and I
look forward to hearing from our Witnesses. With that, I yield
back the balance of my time.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We will now go into our series of statements from our
Witnesses, and I shall introduce them before they start their
statements. We thank you for participating today and
introduce--your statements will be entered in the record in
their entirety. You have five minutes to summarize your written
statement or to provide it here today. There is a timer in the
Zoom view that should be visible at the bottom of your screen
if you are with us on Zoom. It shows you how much time you have
left to help stay within that time that should be visible at
the bottom of your screen.
I would like to remind all the Witnesses appearing that you
have a legal obligation to provide truthful testimony and
answers to the Subcommittee and that any false statements you
make today may subject you to prosecution under United States
Code. Our first Witness is Ms. Patricia--everybody mute.
I think we got that. Our first Witness is Patricia Lee. Ms.
Lee is a resident of Lumberton, North Carolina. She formerly
was a resident of an assisted living facility, and she faced
many obstacles to rejoining her community because of mental
disability and a history of substance abuse. Because of the
ADA, she received necessary resources that empowered her to
move into her own house in her local community. She has
accomplished many milestones in pursuit of her goals such a
driving a car and finding a career, and she is here to share
her story with the Subcommittee. Ms. Lee, you are recognized
for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF PATRICIA LEE
Ms. Lee. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Patricia Lee.
I live here in North Carolina, and I am here to talk about how
the Americans with Disabilities Act significantly changed my
life.
Because of the Americans with Disabilities Act, I have had
an equal opportunity to turn my life around. I have a history
of substance abuse and mental health diagnoses, and I found
myself in a situation where the only housing I could obtain was
an assisted-living facility. This was put into place by my
doctor because I was going to end up on the streets where I
would probably begin using again. The doctor thought that the
assisted-living facility would be able to treat my mental
health diagnosis as well as maintain my recovery.
The assisted-living facility was very depressing. If you
know anything about people who are in recovery, it is very
important that we don't experience severe depression. This
makes people more likely to use again. The only good thing
about that place was that my mother was in the room next to me,
and the most depressing aspect was the way I saw the staff
treat other people. It was just too much negativity to be
around.
I honestly thought that my end result was an assisted-
living facility. A lawsuit found that mental health services in
North Carolina were violating the Americans with Disabilities
Act, and not providing needed services for people with mental
health diagnosis to be successful in the community.
To meet the terms of the lawsuit, East Point came in and
asked me, did I want to live on my own? I didn't think that was
an option for me anymore. East Point helped me get a house that
I still live in. They showed me the house, and I approved of
it. There was a chance that someone else could have gotten it,
so I looked at a duplex as well.
Once I moved in, I decided to set a goal to get an
emotional support animal, and that is how I got my dog, Lady. I
receive mental health services from Stephens Outreach Center,
and transition support from East Point and others that include
a therapist, peer support, a specialist, rental assistance, and
any other support needed to help me set my goals and reach my
goals. My faith has played a large role in my recovery as well.
Through my faith, I have a family who is always there. My faith
in Jehovah has helped me persevere.
When I was living in the assisted-living facility, I
received less services for my mental health, and there were
always appointments that were canceled and never rescheduled
while I was in the assisted-care home. The appointments were
even set beyond my control. So, now, I receive all the support
I need from the Community inclusion Pilot Program with East
Point and Alliance of Disability Advocates of North Carolina.
I had a goal of paying off my court fees that I got when I
was not in recovery and getting my driver's license reinstated.
I have been able to pay off the debts completely. When I got
one of the last debts paid off, I was suddenly told of a class
that I needed to take to get my driver's license. This was
devastating, as I had been saving just to pay off the court
fees, and now I had to pay a thousand dollars to take the
class. Fortunately, it was around the same time that a program
called Freedom Funds was available. Freedom Funds helped me
with this expense, and I have completed the class, and now I
only have to take my test.
Freedom Funds comes from the community inclusion services.
This program has enabled me to move out of the facility and
into my own house. I still receive needed services such as
counseling, peer support, and anything I need to reach the
goals that I have set for myself. I have successfully lived
independently for almost four years now. Through mental health
services in the community, I still have the support that
empowers me to reach my goals. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Lee follows:]
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Ms. Lee. I appreciate your testimony
and your success and your opportunity to have your home and
what you need.
Our next Witness is Regina--she goes by Gina Kline. Ms.
Kline is the founder and CEO of SmartJob, a global company with
the core mission of closing the disability wealth gap by making
jobs smarter through expanded investment, access to financial
services, and better public policy. Ms. Kline previously served
as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil
Rights during the Obama Administration where she provided legal
and policy counsel regarding efforts to implement the ADA. She
filed and resolved the nation's first cases under title II of
the ADA and the Supreme Court's Olmstead decision to challenge
segregated work settings. She received her degrees from the
University of Maryland School of Law, making Steny Hoyer very
proud, and from Columbia University, making Chair Nadler proud.
Ms. Kline, you are recognized for five minutes. There you
go.
STATEMENT OF REGINA KLINE
Ms. Kline. I hope that I have corrected my Zoom problem.
Thank you very much, and I am very happy to be here.
People with disabilities are a constituency that includes
nearly one in five Americans. This constituency comprises
nearly half of those Americans that live in long-term poverty.
We are talking about nearly two-thirds of working age people
with disabilities who are, in fact, not employed. So, in short,
this is an unemployment crisis of profound proportions, and it
has direct ramifications for the economy.
Crucially, in the United States, this disability
unemployment crisis has been deepened by public spending,
namely, the significant overreliance of State and local
government on service systems that structure employment in
employment service delivery for people with disabilities in
separate, segregated employment settings apart from mainstream,
competitive employment and typical jobs in the open market.
This violates the mandates of the Federal civil rights laws
that were just explained, namely, the Americans with
Disabilities Act and the Supreme Court standard that was set
forward in the Olmstead v. LC decision.
While plaintiffs' counsel and the Department of Justice
have worked vigorously over roughly the past decade to rectify
these failures through enforcement of title II of the ADA and
Olmstead, there is much work left to be done in the country.
There is a multibillion-dollar public service system that
largely still significantly relies on separate segregated, both
employment and day settings, for service delivery in lieu of
investment in integrated alternatives that includes supported
employment services and the types of support that Americans
with disabilities need to find, obtain, and sustain typical
employment in the community.
This bitter reality remains, and so the core
recommendations that I provided in my much longer written
testimony include that the DOJ reinstitute and reinstate this
critical guidance that explains title II of the ADA and
Olmstead to public entities. That guidance that was rescinded
roughly five years ago provided technical assistance and
understanding to State and local governments as to how to
comply with these core requirements of the ADA.
The second recommendation is to encourage States to make
use of American Rescue Plan dollars to fund critical home- and
community-based services to support the population of Americans
with disabilities who can and want to work to transition into
typical employment at this crucial and pivotal moment in the
pandemic instead of being reinstitutionalized or returning to
separate, segregated settings where, typically, there is the
payment of subminimum wages and a lack of training and support
to reenter the market.
Finally, the DOJ should continue to prioritize and
vigorously enforce title II of the Americans with Disabilities
Act and the Olmstead decision as applied to employment. I do
not have knowledge of any recent enforcement actions from the
DOJ applying title II of the ADA to employment. However, I am
aware of some truly amazing and considerable progress as it
relates to enforcement of existing consent decrees.
So, those are the recommendations, and this is an issue of
critical importance to millions of Americans with disabilities
who now, during the pandemic, for the first time in quite a
while, have the opportunity to reassess whether they can and
want to work and need the support from State and local
governments to work.
[The statement of Ms. Kline follows:]
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Cohen. Thank you.
Our next Witness is Karen Harned. She is Executive Director
of the National Federation of Independent Businesses Small
Business Legal Center, a post that she has held since 2002. In
that role, she comments regularly on small business cases
before Federal and State courts. Prior to joining NFIB, she was
in private practice and worked for U.S. Senator Don Nickles of
Oklahoma as Assistant Press Secretary. She earned her J.D. from
the George Washington University School of Law and her B.A.
from the University of Oklahoma.
Ms. Harned, you are recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF KAREN HARNED
Ms. Harned. Thank you, Chair Cohen, Ranking Member Johnson,
and the Members of the Subcommittee. On behalf of NFIB, thank
you for asking me to testify regarding the Americans with
Disabilities Act.
Small business owners are proud of the commitment they have
made to accommodate the disabled. NFIB members have spent
millions of dollars constructing and/or renovating their
businesses to remove barriers and provide accessible
accommodations. Unfortunately, many small business owners do
still struggle to understand when and what structural and
online changes are required due to the highly technical nature
of the ADA standards for brick-and-mortar businesses, no legal
standards for websites, and enforcement that is primarily done
through private lawsuits.
When it comes to regulations, small business owners bear a
disproportionate amount of the regulatory burden. The small
business owner is the chief compliance officer for her
business, and consequently, faces significant head winds when
navigating any regulatory regime, particularly one as complex
as the ADA.
Title III prohibits discrimination based on disability in
places of public accommodation, but many small business owners
rent space in facilities and buildings that were constructed
decades ago, and subject to the ADA's barrier removal
requirement. DOJ has, in practice, defined a barrier as any
element of a public accommodation that does not comply with the
extensive and detailed requirements of the ADA standards for
acceptable design. This is a document that even a lot of
lawyers have trouble understanding. To comply, small business
owners have to hire an ADA consultant to determine what
barriers exist, and an ADA lawyer to determine when barrier
removal is readily achievable.
Adding to the confusion, many State and local building
codes continue to allow for the grandfathering of older
facilities, but the 2010 ADA standards do not. So, it is easy
to see why the owner of a small book shop on Main Street can
think she is complying the law and up to code, but really be in
violation of the technical ADA requirements for barrier
removal.
When it comes to websites, the text of the ADA provides no
clear guidance on its applicability to the internet, so the
courts have been forced to weigh in. While they have generally
found that the ADA applies to websites, they disagree on just
what is required, and neither Congress nor DOJ have stepped in
to answer this important question. Private groups have filled
the void with what are known as web content accessibility
guidelines. These are extremely technical and could cost
thousands of dollars or even more to implement.
Given the lack of clear standards for barrier removal and
website accessibility, the primary method of title III
enforcement has been through private plaintiffs in the courts.
The year 2021 marks a record high for this type of litigation,
which is often motivated by financial gain instead of
accessibility for the disabled. The high costs associated with
litigation does nothing to improve access for disabled
customers, but a lawsuit over the slightest deviation from
complicated ADA guidelines, or worse, website standards that
don't even exist, can prove disastrous for the millions of
small businesses across the country who do not have compliance
officers or attorneys on staff.
NFIB strongly encourages Congress to enact the ADA
Education and Reform Act of 2017 that was introduced in the
last Congress. It would provide small business owners time to
remedy alleged ADA violations before being forced into a
settlement or a legal challenge. Congress also should pass
legislation clearly defining its intent with regards to
websites under the ADA.
Accessibility makes good business sense. The ADA needs to
be clarified and enforced in a manner that benefits the
disabled by providing access without putting well-meaning small
business owners out of business.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look
forward to any questions that you may have.
[The statement of Ms. Harned follows:]
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Cohen. You are welcome. Thank you very much.
The final Witness is Michelle Bishop. Ms. Bishop is the
Voter Access and Engagement Manager of the National
Disabilities Rights Network where she is responsible for
coordinating voting rights initiatives in every U.S. State,
district, and territory, as well as providing training and
technical assistance on the nationwide network of the national
disabilities rights groups and members regarding voting rights
and access for voters with disabilities. She received her
Master of Social Work and Social Economic Development from the
Brown School of Washington University in St. Louis, and a
Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and English Literature from the
State University of New York at Geneseo.
Ms. Bishop, you are recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF MICHELLE BISHOP
Ms. Bishop. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity
to testify today representing NDRN, the National Disability
Rights Network, which is the nonprofit membership organization
for the Federally mandated Protection Advocacy or PNA network.
The United States Government Accountability Office has
studied polling place accessibility for 20 years. In 2000, GAO
found that only 16 percent of polling places had an accessible
path of travel from parking to the voting station, 27 percent
in 2008, and 40 percent in 2016, still less than half. Voting
stations and equipment dropped from 54 percent accessible to 35
percent in 2016. Combining this data, only 17 percent of
America's polling places are accessible. As I have stressed to
Members of Congress before, America's polling places are
woefully, inexcusably, unjustly out of compliance with the ADA.
Alarmingly, 13 States closed an overwhelming 1,688 polling
sites in just six years, often blaming the ADA. NDRN examined
this issue in depth and found that jurisdictions that settled
with DOJ in the last several years were working to find
innovative solutions to avoid poll closures while increasing
accessibility. Alternatively, jurisdictions that closed polling
places citing the ADA typically were not under a settlement
agreement with DOJ and could not provide proof of
inaccessibility.
Turning our attention from in-person to remote voting,
traditional vote by mail systems is not and have never been
accessible to voters of disabilities who cannot privately and
independently mark, verify, and cast a paper ballot.
Increasingly, people with disabilities have been given access
to electronic ballot delivery systems typically reserved for
military and overseas voters protected by UOCAVA. This is a
promising practice, but these systems often require of voter to
print and return a paper ballot, reintroducing an accessible
paper to the process.
Pivoting now from these longstanding accessibility barriers
to take a closer look at 2020, the pandemic created shortages
of polling places and poll workers which complicated in-person
voting. Elections officials found themselves unprepared for a
significant increase in voting by mail. As nursing homes were
forced to close their doors, guidance from the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid services reinforced the obligation to
staff to facilitate voter participation among residents.
However, relying on an overworked staff on the front lines of a
global pandemic revealed how genuinely tenuous voter access is
for residents of long-term care facilities.
Smart jurisdictions made rapid changes to their election
policies to meet these demands which had a side effect of
improved access ability. Forty-two States offered a significant
period of early voting. Some States also implemented curbside
voting or extended it to all voters, opened up absentee voting
processes, allowed voters to use electronic ballot delivery,
and all but 10 States offered ballot drop boxes, the most in
any American election.
In the aftermath of COVID-19 creating more accessible
elections, States across the U.S. have seen legislation
introduced that threatens the progress made during the 2020
election cycle. By October 2021, 19 States have enacted 33 laws
that will negatively impact the accessibility of the vote,
including reducing locations or hours for polling places,
increasing the number of voters per precinct, limiting early
voting, prohibiting curbside and drive-through voting,
preventing distribution of food and water to voter lines,
shortening the window to apply for a vote by mail ballot and
timelines for ballot return, creating stricter signature match
requirements for vote-by-mail ballots, imposing limits on drop
boxes, making it more difficult to remain on absentee voter
lists, or limiting who can assist a voter to return a ballot.
Ultimately, the ADA has been and continues to be the gold
standard in protecting the right to vote for people with
disabilities. Congressional funding is sorely needed to help
election administrators to improve accessibility and for the
PNAs to provide them with invaluable consultation. In this
vein, Congress must Act now to reintroduce and pass the PAVA
Inclusion Act and provide the last two excluded PNAs with
desperately needed HAVA funding, a simple and no cost
legislative fix.
Congress must amend the Freedom to Vote Act to allow voters
with disabilities an exemption from nationwide paper ballot
mandates that will disenfranchise them. Creating a legislative
carveout for people with disabilities, in addition to a
periodic reauthorization or a sense of Congress to reconsider
the need for a paper ballot mandate, will allow voters with
disabilities who need it most to access the same technologies
we allow for UOCAVA voters. We are willing to take a limited,
calculated risk to ensure that our deployed military will have
their voices heard on Election Day. We must be willing to do
the same for people with disabilities.
Finally, Congress must now Act to pass the John Lewis
Voting Rights Advancement Act to prevent known discriminatory
practices. These problems are solvable, and after 30 years of
the ADA, there is no excuse for not having addressed them. I
have said it to the Subcommittee before, but it bears
repeating. We call them Americans with disabilities because
they are, first and foremost, Americans, and America's
democracy is only as good as its ability to hear the voices of
all Americans. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Bishop follows:]
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Cohen. Thank you very much. Apparently, the
interpreters are following Mr. Johnson's earlier imploration,
and people are talking too fast, so we need to talk slower.
Thank you. I would normally go first for questions, but with
this new requirement that we talk slower, I will yield to Mr.
Nadler for the first question.
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Ms. Lee, why is living independently important to you? Ms.
Lee? Oh.
Ms. Lee. Living independently gives me a sense of
accomplishment. That is the best way I can say it.
Chair Nadler. Okay.
Ms. Bishop, one of the ADA's purposes is, ``to invoke the
sweep of Congressional authority in order to address the major
areas of discrimination faced day to day by people with
disabilities.'' Why is ensuring the right to vote for every
American with a disability essential to fulfilling its purpose?
How should Congress be invoking its authority to accomplish
this goal in terms of the right to vote?
Ms. Bishop. I think that Congressman John Lewis said it
best when he said that the right to vote in America is one that
is almost sacred. It is the foundation of all our other rights,
and people with disabilities have to be able to participate in
the democratic process to ensure that their rights are going to
be protected.
I think Congress has a role to play in ensuring that the
ADA, which works, is being enforced and in providing funding
and support to our nation's election officials to help them to
meet the demands, as well as look [inaudible] past works of
other Federal legislation that also supports the right to vote
for people with disabilities, including passing an amended
version of the Freedom to Vote Act, as well as the John Lewis
Voting Rights Advancement Act.
Chair Nadler. Thank you.
Ms. Kline, in September, this past September, the civilian
labor force participation rate was 22.3 percent for people with
disabilities compared to 67 percent for people without
disabilities. Why do you think there is such a large
discrepancy in these labor force participation rates?
Ms. Bishop. Yes. Thank you for that question, Congressman
Nadler. In truth, there has been a nearly 40-point percentage
gap for decades as between people with disabilities and people
without. This is an ingrained, systemic injustice that has to
do with where we invest. When we invest the majority of our
service dollars in separate, segregated settings where people
spend the majority of their days for the majority of their
adult working years, the results that we get are low labor
force participation.
In addition, we have very little to show in terms of the
public investment in the types of skills that are most catered
to new and emerging industries in this utterly disrupted,
knowledge-based economy. We are vastly overinvested in manual
skills training in separate settings, and as a result, we have
seen very little breakthrough in terms of that labor force
participation rate over time.
Chair Nadler. What should we be doing instead?
Ms. Bishop. What we should be doing instead is providing
guidance and support to those State and local systems that want
to rebalance and shift their service systems to resource those
that are advancing the solutions to supporting workers to come
into typical jobs. What that means is, supporting job coaches,
job developers, benefits counselors.
We are talking about shifting the lion's share of public
service dollars from supervision and support in separate
settings to supporting workers to find, obtain, and sustain
employment in jobs that match their skills and talents.
This is not something that happens lightly. This is
something that takes the intentionality of the public system
working together with private employers. Here is the good news:
Private employers are in search of talent today and have been
for quite a long time in search of diverse talent, including
people with disabilities. Our talent pipelines are caught up,
held captive in this system that is actually channeling workers
with disabilities out of secondary school around the United
States and directly into segregated programs instead of typical
employment. So, it is a challenge to support those service
providers within State systems to support workers to move into
competitive, integrated employment.
Chair Nadler. Thank you. Finally, can you describe what
segregated employment settings look like, and how they are at
odds with the ADA?
Ms. Bishop. Well, segregated employment settings take on
many of the institutional attributes that are recognized in
residential settings. That means that there are people with
disabilities congregated with each other without people without
disabilities in the employment setting, except typically paid
staff, paid support staff.
One of the indicia of this segregation, and one of the
factors that shows how out of step with economic self-
sufficiency these settings are, is that they so often pay
subminimum wages. How could this be in 2021 in step with the
meaning and purpose of the ADA and title II that we have
Americans earning less than minimum wage in these settings?
Chair Nadler. Well, thank you. I just want to say that I
certainly think we ought to outlaw subminimum wages. I thank
you, and my time has expired. I yield back.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Nadler.
I would now like to recognize Mr. Johnson for five minutes.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and again,
all of you for participating. I had a couple questions for Ms.
Harned.
Is it your experience that most small businesses really do
want to comply with the ADA?
Ms. Harned. Oh, absolutely. If you go into any business--or
I shouldn't say any business, but the businesses I have gone
into, the Members I have talked to that is actually one of the
questions I ask them, because I know this area of the law is
complicated. They are, like, oh, I am up to code. Yes, I am
compliant. That is why it is so frustrating to me and
frustrating to them because they are thinking in many instances
that they actually are doing the right thing because, of
course, before you go into your place of business, you are
going to have a business--I mean, you are going to have it
inspected, right. So, that is where I think we are still not
there yet on all of us being on the same page as to what it
takes to be compliant with ADA.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Really, that is the primary
point. There are a lot of incentives to comply, not just to
comply with the golden rule and do the right thing, be a good
corporate citizen, but there is an economic incentive as well
because you want to provide for as many customers and clients,
et cetera, to access your business as possible. It just follows
commonsense. Earlier this year, the National Federation of
Independent Business released a White paper on the lack of
guidance businesses have received from the government on how to
make their websites ADA-compliant. That is just a case in
point. The paper said businesses were left with a mandate that
essentially says, ``comply, but we won't tell you how to
comply, and what compliance means.''
So, can you explain a little bit about this uncertainty in
this area or just one example regarding websites and how that
affects small business?
Ms. Harned. Correct. Well, this is nothing short of, I mean
to use a term my kids would use, a hot mess. There is no legal
standard for what it means to comply, to have your website
accessible. So, the courts have stepped in, and the answers are
all over the place. The circuits are split on what is required.
The Department of Justice really has not been very helpful in
providing any answers, and, so, you are really seeing,
particularly in this space, a lot of predatory litigation.
I mention in my testimony the story of a business owner I
just recently heard from that is part of a class action
lawsuit, and he is--the way he speaks is definitely the way our
Members speak. He said, I try to do everything the right way. I
try to be on top of all the laws, but I have no law I can
comply with here, and he is just extremely frustrated. So,
yeah, that is a big area of--it is becoming a bigger problem
each and every day, quite frankly.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. It is. You have noted, and we all
recognize, common sense tells us, experience tells us most
small businesses, obviously, do not have compliance
professionals and lawyers on the payroll to help them navigate
all this, these various laws and rules. As you mentioned, even
when they make a good-faith effort to comply even when a small
business does hire a consultant, other professionals, somebody
that specializes in ADA compliance, that is not even a panacea,
because they can still be found in violation, so they are in a
tough spot.
You proposed today some practical solutions. One of them, I
note, was you were talking about providing an expanded period
to allow for compliance by a willing business before these
punitive damages are assessed. Could you explain that just a
bit more and how it would help?
Ms. Harned. Right. I understand from members of the
disabled community they might react, oh, it is 31 years. Your
business should be--this should not be an issue anymore.
Honestly, I know of business owners that have done what they
thought was required under the law using an attorney, only to
find that they were sued because a guardrail was a quarter of
an inch off which I recognize, again, may be a lot for a member
of the disabled community. I am not saying that is not real.
What I am saying is that a small business owner is not going to
know that level of technicality, and they could receive bad
advice. The bad actors are not going to--they don't care if I
am being completely candid, but most small business owners do
care. If you tell them what they are doing wrong, they will fix
it.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. That has been my experience as
well. I think the goal of all of this, every one of us, this is
not a partisan issue. We want disabled Americans and everyone
to have full access and the ability to patronize businesses and
do everything that everything else can, and we want the
businesses to thrive as well. We want all boats to rise
together. To do that, we have to apply common sense. We have to
modify some of these rules and regs and make it possible so
that we can achieve all those goals simultaneously. These are
not mutually exclusive pursuits, and I think we would do well
to recognize that. I think Congress has a role here to help,
and I hope that we will.
I am out of time, unfortunately. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I am going to take my
five minutes and ask a few questions.
Ms. Kline, I think it was your testimony concerning the
employment locations where folks are just congregated without--
to do work and paid a subminimum wage. Was it you or was it Ms.
Bishop who testified about that?
Ms. Kline. That was me, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Mr. Cohen. I mean, what are some of the groups that have
that type of employment situation? There are groups in the
community, well-known, but I don't recall them, not that well-
known, but pretty well that have shelters and provide this work
for people with disabilities which, as I recall, when I
visited, this has been many years ago, they seemed to be doing
a good public service. Who are those groups?
Ms. Bishop. Well, Mr. Chair, that is an interesting
question and one that is often asked. These service settings
are prolific, and there is no particular group that I would
isolate other than to say to you this is an 83-year-old
practice, the origins of which are embedded in the New Deal.
There is no doubt in my mind that you have seen these groups
over the years and that many people who have explored, people
with disabilities who are working have seen them working in
separate settings.
It is an historical anachronism to say that we set it and
forget it. The moment has come, and there is no particular
group to isolate. This is a question of priorities of spending
and supports. People about disabilities have an archaic, and
pretty much fossilized service system for employment at the
precise time when there is a labor shortage, at the precise
time when other workers in the global economy are reassessing
their skill development, are reassessing their interests and
preferences for employment, and we have got to get moving on
this goal. It is the time to evaluate--
Mr. Cohen. Ms. Kline, I understand what you are saying in
theory, and I accept it, but I am just trying to recall. Some
of these groups seem to be very well-intentioned, and very
well-respected in the community, and a lot of the people that
were working there look to me to be very seriously disabled to
where they probably could not work in a different setting.
There is a standard by which some of those people could
continue to work in those settings, because otherwise, they
wouldn't probably be able to work at all. Is that not correct?
Ms. Bishop. Well, Federal courts have recognized, and the
ADA itself has explicitly recognized that we should not give
regard to whether someone can work or not without providing
them an individualized assessment of their skills and their
functions on the job in employment. Actually, what we have done
is we referred many people to these settings without a unique
understanding of their skills. We don't know--what we do know
with particularity is that many people can and want to work in
other settings, but because of the significant excessive
overreliance on these settings by State and local governments,
people have been channeled to these settings.
Mr. Cohen. Ms. Harned, let me ask you this. Are you
familiar with any of these particular groups that provide these
disability shelters? They are shelters, I think they are
called. Are you familiar with those groups? Are they part of
NFIB at all? Ms. Harned, are you there? You are muted.
Ms. Harned. I apologize.
Mr. Cohen. There you are.
Ms. Harned. I am not personally familiar with these groups,
no. I am sorry.
Mr. Cohen. Okay. Sorry to hit you with that, but whatever.
I want to see this work, but I also know there are situations
to where some of those groups are doing good things. They maybe
should pay minimum wage. Minimum wage is absurdly low right
now, and to pay less than that is almost infinitesimal to
determine something less. I think that the people that--a lot
of the folks who work there, I don't know if they have cerebral
palsy. I think there is one particularly, and then other
disabilities where they might not otherwise have any meaningful
activity, and it seems you don't want to throw the baby out
with the bath water because some of it is probably good. On
voting--
Ms. Kline. Mr. Chair, apologies. If I could just respond,
just one more response to that comment which I think is useful,
is that the goal of many of the current legislative proposals
toward spending new public resources to support people in their
transition is this concept of providing career development
planning and really getting to the bottom of what people can
and can't do. We haven't done that yet with the level and the
capacity that we need to support people toward their employment
goals. It is not painting with a broad-brush stroke about the
validity of a particular provider. It is empowering that
provider to support people in their interests and their
preferences towards employment.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you. I am going to recognize Mr. Owens in
a minute, but I just have one question and ask for a brief
answer, if I can.
Ms. Bishop, you talked about voting. Have any of the
places--I can see a problem when you have got, like, 200 voting
precincts, and they all ought to be compliant and make it easy
to vote and not have barriers. Have any districts tried to get
around this by having a central location and allow people with
disabilities to come to some particular location that might be
totally set up for people with disabilities and have all the
barriers removed?
Ms. Bishop. I think the closest thing that we have seen to
that, thus far, is States that moved to a vote center model--
Mr. Cohen. Yeah.
Ms. Bishop. --which is not exclusive to voters with
disabilities, but open to all voters. I think that they come
with their pros and cons. It does give you the opportunity to
pick out your most accessible locations and rely on those, but
we do have to be very conscious of how many vote centers we
have, how far they may be from voters with disabilities, how
accessible they are according to public transit, accessible
public transit to make sure that they are going to be
effective.
Mr. Cohen. Right.
Ms. Bishop. One thing I think we would discourage is having
a separate vote center specifically for people with
disabilities when we are really trying to have the most
integrated experience possible for voters with disabilities
rather than separating how they vote from other voters.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you. I am over my five minutes by far. I
apologize.
Mr. Owens, you are recognized for five and a half minutes.
Mr. Owens. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I want to just echo what the Ranking Member said.
This is very simple. It is very nonpartisan. We all can agree
on the benefits of ADA was done to help the vulnerable. My
message will be making sure that we have a balance, make sure
that our small businesses can continue to grow, because that is
truly what creates this culture, this great culture we have
called the American way.
I want to offer to Patricia, thank you for your story. You
are a remarkable example of the American way again, second
chances, and what can happen when you can truly get support and
you believe in self-sufficiency, which you are in the process
of doing. My dreams and hopes--and I don't know if you ever
thought about it--but one day to be in the position to start
your own business one day. I mean, that is what we are all
about.
I want to say this real quickly about my upbringing,
because the small business owners are truly what makes our
country what it is, and I grew up in the sixties where 40
percent of Black Americans were business owners in our
segregated community. We had them all over the place. Forty
percent equated 50-60 percent of Black Americans across our
country being middle class. It is that middle class that powers
this great culture that we look at that is full of service and
commitment and innovation, and all the great things that we
feel about our country comes from that powerful middle class.
We have to make sure that we do not do anything that will
diminish that.
Right now, my community, that great community I just talked
about, is now down to 3.8 percent business ownership, and so
you don't have the same innovation. You don't have the same
success story, the same mentorship that I grew up with around.
So, that being said, I think what it comes down to, ADA, is
we have got to make sure--and anything we have in which we are
looking for the benefit of protecting the vulnerable, that we
also protect those vulnerable business owners that really give
us this opportunity to have people like Patricia or anyone else
out there that they can actually build a business.
I have some real concerns about what I see as predatory
lawsuits. Ms. Harned, if you wouldn't mind answering this
question for me, to your knowledge, are Black business owners a
popular target for predatory ADA lawsuits and demands? Have you
seen that happen, by chance?
Ms. Harned. Well, I don't know specifically about Black
business owners. I will say, what we have seen, particularly in
California where this has been a tremendous problem for
decades, there are a lot of not--business owners that English
is not their first language, where they do tend to be hit more
than others, I would say, and I find that very disturbing,
quite frankly.
I really encourage anybody to look at the standards that
the document--it is 200 pages long, and it really is highly
technical. Again, I think that is one of the reasons why it is
just so easy for small business owners to be victims of these
lawsuits.
Mr. Owens. Yes. I probably should transition from Black to
minority, for those who are maybe first-time business owners,
those who get the dream, but they just want to move up, they
are not--don't have the legal background but just have the
dream, the dream they want to move forward, and those are the
ones that are most vulnerable because they don't know. They do
their very best.
Let me see here. Are you able to--okay. When a business is
targeted by any of these lawsuits, they cannot afford to pay
attorney's fees associated with the lengthy expensive
litigation, what recourse do they have, in your experience,
what you have seen with any minority or new businesses getting
started with these types of onerous litigations?
Ms. Harned. Well, a lot of the attorneys that practice in
this area, quite frankly, again, these would be those that are
really more interested in their own financial gain than maybe
the end goal, and they know that these small business owners
cannot afford to litigate these suits going in. So, they will
send demand letters and say we went by your business and this
is off or whatever, and give a few things, and then say, if you
don't pay us X amount of money by X date, we are going to bring
you to court.
So, there is not even a follow-up later to see if the
business owner even fix it. It is all about trying to extract
the funds. Because, honestly, our research has shown that small
business owners just don't go to court. They are going to
settle these suits. A lot of these drive-by--these lawyers that
do these, what are called drive-by lawsuits that are well
documented, that is their mode of operandi.
Mr. Owens. Okay. I think it is important to realize these
are predators. These are people who look at vulnerable
businesses, those who cannot afford, and they know that
exactly. They are not looking for the benefit of those who need
the support. They are looking for their own monetary gain.
So, I think we should really keep that in mind. Again, it
is a very nonpartisan price, my friends. Let's make sure those
who need the support, those who are vulnerable citizens of our
country get what they need. At the same time, small business
owners, they are the ones that give the best service you
possibly could find. They want their customers to continue to
come back. Let's make sure they continue to thrive, and our
country moves forward as they do.
So, thank you so much, and I yield back the remainder of my
time.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Owens.
Ms. Ross, the gentlelady from North Carolina, is recognized
for five minutes.
Ms. Ross. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I wish I was
in the room with you. We are juggling multiple meetings, but
this is such an important one and particularly in North
Carolina.
I wanted to thank Ms. Lee for being with us. It means a lot
to hear a story from North Carolina, and I will ask you a
question in just a minute, so get ready.
The Americans with Disabilities Act was designed to ensure
that disability is no barrier to opportunity and that people
with disabilities are fully integrated members of society.
Since the law was enacted, our nation and our economy have
benefited from the contributions of tens of millions of
Americans with disabilities in our workforce and in our
communities. Yet, countless incidents, including in my home
State of North Carolina, continue demonstrating that the ADA
was a milestone but not the end of our fight for equality for
people with disabilities.
Recently, a blind man in Winston-Salem, North Carolina,
named Wilmer was denied entry into a store with his guard dog,
Forte, not only once but twice in the span of a single month.
The second time, the local police were called and threatened
Wilmer with arrest, simply for shopping with his guide dog.
Disability Rights North Carolina has filed a Federal
complaint for Wilmer arguing that the officers violated the
ADA. This incident demonstrates how pervasive discrimination
against people with disabilities is ongoing.
Thirty-one years after the enactment of the ADA, far too
many people are unaware of the accommodations legally required
for people with disabilities. To keep our promise to people
with disabilities, we need stronger enforcement of the ADA to
ensure that everyone can fully participate in public life.
I would like to ask Ms. Lee how important it is to have
those community services so that you can live independently. I
know in North Carolina we had a history of institutionalizing
people and then putting them in assisted living facilities
rather than investing in community supports. I would love to
hear your story about how important it is to have those
community supports.
Ms. Lee. Without those supports, I don't see where I would
be--reach the barriers that I have been able to reach.
Ms. Ross. Well, thank you so much.
My second question is for Ms. Kline. Just this week, I
visited a service industry for people with disabilities where
they pay more than minimum wage, get full benefits, are located
near a transit stop. It is called LCI Industries, and they
contract with the military to provide beds for the Navy. They
make all sorts of supplies under Federal contracts.
Could you tell me how you see these kinds of facilities
functioning and how they differ from the ones that you see as
problematic?
Ms. Kline. Thank you, Congresswoman Ross. Each instance
requires more of an acute awareness of the factual
circumstances of that provider, and so I feel discomfort in
weighing in on the nature of their service provision.
The one thing I will say to you, though, that is quite
relevant to your question is we are making significant
progress, including in Federal procurement. Just this month, in
honor of October being National Disability Employment Month,
the AbilityOne Commission, which manages over $3 billion in
Federal procurements, has issued a proposed rule moving away
from subminimum wage and in support of moving more towards
integration. How that looks over time and what happens to the
rule yet remains to be seen, but it is a considerable statement
of progress towards the acknowledgment that what is typical is
the goal, that systems should be realigned towards the goal of
what is typical, including the indicia of integration.
So, I think that we are seeing the needle move. Every
instance requires more knowledge about what the particular
services that are being provided are. The point is that we are
starting to come to grips with the fact that we have got to get
the end game in mind first, and it is integration and realign
services from there.
Ms. Ross. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Ms. Ross.
We now recognize, for five minutes and thirteen seconds,
Mr. Hank Calvin Johnson.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Oh, thank you, Mr. Chair. I wasn't
quite ready to be called on, but I want to thank you, Mr.
Chair, for holding this hearing. I want to thank the Witnesses
for their testimony today.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle throughout the
pandemic have been strong proponents for schools being open for
in-person learning. After Democrats passed the American Rescue
Plan and we finally started getting shots into arms,
Republicans started fostering vaccine hesitancy. As we started
getting kids safely back in schools, my friends across the
aisle should have been happy. Yet, despite the CDC
recommendations that for in-person learning, universal indoor
masking should be required for all teachers, staffs, students,
and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status,
as of September 29, Republican politicians in nine States have
banned school districts from setting universal mask mandates.
Ms. Kline, do local and State bans on mask mandates make it
more difficult for students with disabilities to return to in-
person learning? Based on your experience, how can the
Department of Justice help ensure that civil rights of persons
with disabilities, especially students, continue to be
protected and that States and localities are mindful of their
obligations under title II of the Americans with Disabilities
Act?
Ms. Kline. Yes. Thank you, Congressman. As you know, my
background is in, with particularity, to employment, but I am
happy to weigh in to honor your question to the extent that I
can.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Please. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Ms. Kline. Yes. One thing that is clear from the pandemic
is that people with disabilities have been disproportionately
impacted. A lesson learned is that congregation is dangerous.
It imposes safety risks. The advocates have long understood
that about congregation in segregated settings. It became clear
there was a prism or a magnifying glass on that issue as it
relates to segregated settings during the pandemic, obviously,
because of an airborne virus.
As it relates to schools, the same is true that there are
many students with disabilities across the country that deserve
equal access to education in the least restrictive environment
and students who are particularly vulnerable to the idea that
there would be health risks imposed upon them by these
policies.
So, the goal of title II is to ensure integration. The goal
of the ADA is to ensure equal access. The goal of the IDEA is
to ensure equal access to education.
So, that is a generalized response to your statement, I
understand, but this is complementary to the goal of the ADA is
to provide students with disabilities access to education at
this time.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you. Imposing bans on mask
mandates hurts the ability of disabled students to return to
school safely. Is that true or is that false?
Ms. Kline. Yes. If I sounded at all equivocal, the answer
is yes.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
With regard to voting rights, it seems that after Trump
lost the 2020 election in a landslide and after the big lie and
the insurrection, the right to vote has once again come under
relentless assault in States led by Republican politicians
looking to remain in power, despite the demographic shifts
occurring throughout the nation. I don't think every American
truly understands the extraordinary efforts many disabled
voters must take to exercise their fundamental right to vote.
Ms. Bishop, what discriminatory barriers have persons with
disabilities historically faced when attempting to vote? How do
unnecessary and punitive restrictions on voting by mail impact
accessibility when it comes to voting as a disabled person?
Ms. Bishop. I think when we talk about the barriers that
voters with disabilities face, the answer is just about
everything. Every method of voting--in person, election day,
early voting, voting by mail, even getting registered to vote--
still has some existing barriers for at least some people with
disabilities, because we have really yet to fully realize the
promise of the ADA, as well as the Help America Vote Act, to
make the process fully accessible and fully integrate voters
with disabilities.
You talked about vote by mail, and I think some of the
things that we did in 2020 in response to the pandemic were
really important for making vote by mail work for more voters.
We relaxed some of those deadlines by which you had to apply or
return your ballot. We relaxed some of the requirements around
having witness signatures, notaries, getting a doctor's note to
attest that you have a disability to vote by mail, things that
are just extra hoops for voters with disabilities to have to
jump through. It can be a barrier for any voter, but for a
person with a disability for whom those things may not be
readily available, for whom transportation could be a problem,
it just is that much more difficult.
The last thing I want to stress is that we have seen an
increase in allowing voters with disabilities to use electronic
ballot delivery that we usually use for our military and
overseas voters, which allows them to receive and mark their
ballots electronically because mailing them a piece of paper is
never going to be accessible to everyone. I think that is
something that we really have to look at expanding nationwide.
It is something we are willing to do for our military and
overseas voters. We should be willing to do it for people with
disabilities who are stateside as well to ensure that they have
access to the vote.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Good to hear from you.
Good that the Dodgers had Cody Bellinger yesterday.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. We still [inaudible] though.
Mr. Cohen. I now recognize Ms. Garcia, who is happier with
what the Astros did last night.
Ms. Garcia. Much better, Mr. Chair. Thank you so much for
this opportunity to examine the continued and longstanding
barriers to voting accessibility for people with disabilities.
As a young legal aid lawyer many years ago, I actually
represented the Coalition for Barrier Free Living here in
Houston, which started working on some of these issues. Let me
tell you, it is completely disheartening, disheartening, Mr.
Chair, that we are still talking about the same things that we
talked about back when I was in legal services in the late
eighties, and that has been some time ago.
So, with that in mind, whether it is the ADA or local or
State government requirements people with disabilities should
have full participation in all aspects of life. Certainly, when
it comes to voting, they should also have equal access without
facing any barriers of any sort.
I would like to call your attention to an urgent problem
that this Subcommittee has held numerous hearings on, and that
is, of course, the voting rights, particularly for us here in
Texas, for minorities' and seniors' ability to vote. One in
every three States in the country have passed voting
restriction laws this year, as was quoted by one of our
Witnesses. This is alarming. New voting restrictions could
threaten seniors and people with disabilities, like my
constituent, Earlene Sullivan, who turned 102 years old
recently. I visited her at her home, and she shared with me
that even within her own house, one of her sisters is a
Republican, who has actually already insinuated that she is
ballot harvesting because she has her sister--her daughter
helps her with her mail-in ballot.
Imagine the friction that causes in one's household when
one sister is already accusing another sister of doing
something that has always been acceptable but now, under the
Texas voter restriction laws, may be illegal.
Then look at another one in our area, Nancy Crowther, a 64-
year-old retiree, who is disabled because of a neuromuscular
disease, turned to mail-in voting in hopes of safeguarding her
health during the pandemic. Because of the Texas GOP's renewed
force to further tighten the State's voting procedures, Nancy
had no other choice but to traverse a quarter of a mile in her
wheelchair, navigating an uneven intersection and construction
tunnel, totaled approximately three miles, just to cast her
ballot in person so that she could avoid any accusations of
voter issues.
So, it is clear that the law is not helping. In fact, the
laws are hurting.
So, my first question is for Ms. Bishop. First, Ms. Bishop,
thank you so much for continuing the work that is so important
in this area. Ideally, what do we need to do? I know you have
mentioned passing two bills. What else can Congress be doing to
ensure that the States and the local communities do not do
anything that hamper a person's access to the ballot,
particularly for those with disabilities?
Ms. Bishop. I love the stories, first, that you talked
about your constituents. I think they are so important, because
so many people who had an easy experience voting do not truly
understand that is not the experience of all voters and that
some of us jump through hoops of fire to be able to cast our
ballots. I also really loved the story about the voter whose
own family in her home are not necessarily supportive of her
votes. That is really important to point out, because I think
we often hear a lot of things proposed that will make it
difficult to impossible for people with disabilities to vote
privately and independently, which is their Federal right. The
excuse we always hear is that, well, people with disabilities
will just have someone assist them. That is not what their
rights are under Federal law, first and foremost, but also not
everyone has that, which your story illustrates. Not everyone
has someone who they can trust to mark and return their ballot
for them. We have to make the process as private and
independent as possible.
I did talk about a couple pieces of Federal legislation in
particular. I do think Federal legislation can be very powerful
for ensuring that we have good pro-voter policies in place that
will ensure people with disabilities and all voters are going
to have access to the vote and can counteract some of those
policies.
I did talk about the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement
Act, in particular, because it would restore Federal
preclearance, which helps us stop some of those practices
before they even begin, so that we are not waiting for a
lengthy process of litigation to ensure that voters aren't
going to be disenfranchised while elections are passing.
Ms. Garcia. Well, thank you.
Mr. Chair, I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter
into the record an article, ``Texans with disabilities fear
voting will get harder for them as special session on GOP
restrictions nears.''
Mr. Cohen. Without objection, so entered.
[The information follows:]
MS. GARCIA FOR THE RECORD
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Ms. Garcia. Thank you. I yield back.
I will submit a question for Ms. Kline that I did have on
some employment numbers.
Thank you.
Mr. Cohen. You are welcome, Ms. Garcia.
Our next Congressperson to be recognized for five minutes
is Ms. Bush who just got on. I am sorry. Ms. Bush trumps Ms.
Lee.
Ms. Bush, you are recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Bush. Thank you.
Good morning to everyone. As a St. Louisan, I thank you,
Chairs Cohen and Nadler, for convening this urgent hearing on
the importance of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
For decades, disability rights activists have been sounding
the alarm about how a lack of accommodations negatively impacts
every aspect of their lives. Disabled people have been denied
equal access to higher education, disproportionately struggle
with mental health crises, suffer from police brutality at high
rates, and get denied opportunities for civic engagement in
voting.
As a nurse, I have seen firsthand how anyone at any time
can become permanently disabled, whether you become disabled
from elder age, an accident, a health crisis, or you are born
disabled. This society should be built to accommodate your
needs.
Schools, businesses, transportation systems, and buildings
have had over 30 years to get this right, 30 years. It is time
to fight to develop universal designs for every single building
and home that are designed to be accessible for everyone.
Disabled workers are subjected to an abysmal subminimum
wage that makes the self-sufficiency described in the ADA
nearly impossible to obtain. Low wages more or less guarantee
disabled workers must live in poverty. Disabled people have to
juggle subminimum wages while navigating higher medical costs,
needing extra time off for appointments and treatments, and
contending with a physically hostile environment. This is a
shameful failure at every level of policymaking and
enforcement. The buck, it stops here.
Ms. Kline, in your testimony, you mentioned the issue of
disabled workers' rights. Can you talk about some of the
workplace accommodations and practices that support people with
disabilities, particularly in the wake of COVID-19?
Ms. Kline. Thank you. Thank you, Congresswoman Bush, for
your really sensitive remarks about the reality. You are very
sensitive to the issue as a nurse background when you are
saying the reality is that we all could become a member of the
population of people with disabilities at any time. It is the
reality, this is us. This is a universal human condition.
To your point, COVID-19 has been a major disrupter to the
way everyone works. I would like to say we are living in the
golden era of more flexible, more autonomous, more distributed
work, and yet we are talking about the very population of
people that may have been the inventors of flexibility in work
since 1990 and before, that have the least amount of investment
in the infrastructure to have an even recovery from this
pandemic.
It seems that we are seeing a widening, a deepening
inequality, an uneven recovery. People with disabilities were
the first fired, they are the last rehired in this type of
economic shock. We have the majority of our equities, in terms
of public spends, still channeled towards segregated, separate
settings when, in fact, there are many workers around the
United States with disabilities who are reassessing their
interests and their preferences for competitive employment and
actually need more flexible technology, the infrastructure
around broadband but also the infrastructure around remote and
distributed business tools, the types of technology that will
allow virtual reality training.
This is what other workers are doing right now. They are
upskilling. They are reskilling. They are getting acclimated to
a knowledge-based economy. There are so many workers trapped in
historical anachronism. They are being trained in industries
that are no longer pertinent to this knowledge-based economy.
So, we need to shift the focus of public spending to catch
up, because the economy won't wait as the expansion and
knowledge-based jobs upskilling and reskilling is of utter
necessity now and we need public investments to follow.
Ms. Bush. Thank you. Thank you so much for all that
information.
Ms. Bishop, research from Rutgers University shows that
21.3 million eligible voters have mobility disabilities and
seven million have visual disabilities. What practices can
local and State governments adopt to ensure their elections are
widely accessible?
Ms. Bishop. I think the number one most important thing we
can do in terms of practices to make sure our elections are
accessible is to include people with disabilities and
disability rights organizations in the process from start to
finish. We very often devise an electoral process and then show
it to people with disabilities after the fact and say, look
what we made for you. It is not actually accessible, and we
have to go back and try and retrofit something we have already
built to make it work for everyone.
We should be bringing everyone to the table and making sure
that their voices are heard from start to finish so that we are
designing processes from the start that are actually accessible
to everyone.
I would also be remiss if I didn't say I was a St. Louisan
before I came to DC, and go Cardinals.
Ms. Bush. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Cohen. You have every right to throw in the Cardinals.
Mr. Carter took them out, I think.
Ms. Jackson Lee, you are recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Chair, thank you for this outstanding
hearing, long overdue, and clearly a needed refresher course
for so many about the crisis of living in America with a
disability.
This is a serious issue, so I will step aside because I
cannot be restrained to say go Astros. Let me move to the
seriousness of this issue and the importance of seeing what
legislative response we need to give.
Let me quickly read into the record from the Centers for
Disease Control: Three in ten American Indians have a
disability. One in four African Americans have a disability,
one in five Whites, one in six native Hawaiian Pacific
Islander, one in six Hispanic, and one in ten Asian.
The disabled community is with us, and they deserve an
ultimate quality of life that we as part of the democratic
republic must ensure they get. I will ultimately introduce into
the record the inequities that are faced, particularly by those
racial and ethnic disparities in special education, an article
from Child Trends, that indicates the need to address those
inequities as relates to dealing with children with
disabilities and discipline, if you will, the challenges that
come about through placement and discipline of children with
disabilities.
Also, will discuss and enter into the record the article
entitled, ``Here's how Texas elections would change, and become
more restrictive, under the bill Texas Republicans are
pushing,'' dated April 21, 2021; and then an article that has
already been submitted I will speak from is a July 5, 2021,
that says it is harder for us to vote in Texas with people with
disabilities.
Ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chair, as I go forward.
Mr. Cohen. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
MS. JACKSON LEE FOR THE RECORD
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Ms. Jackson Lee. Let me thank the Witnesses: Patricia Lee,
Regina Kline, Michelle Bishop, and Ms. Harned as well.
Patricia Lee, let me thank you for your story. Let me tell
you that SB 7 in Texas, words that I really don't want to say,
it is not an election bill. It is a prohibition of an election
bill. It would videotape people who were giving assistance to
disabled people, allow them to be in the voting area with a
camera.
Can you, again, talk about how difficult it is in life at
an assisted-living facility where you used to live and how your
life changed, and how these living conditions may deny you your
constitutional right to vote?
Ms. Lee?
Ms. Lee. Yes, ma'am. I don't know how to answer that
really, but I am just going to say I didn't feel very
independent whenever I was in the assisted-living facility. It
was very depressing. I didn't feel any independence or
accomplishment there. Through the help from Disability
Advocates in Eastpointe, TCLI, have brought me so much more--
have helped me to obtain goals that I didn't think I could
obtain, and I see myself in a better place in the future.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Ms. Lee. Because I--yes, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you so very much.
Was it harder for you to vote too?
Ms. Lee. I don't vote.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, it was harder for you to feel like a
human being?
Ms. Lee. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson Lee. All right. Thank you so very much.
May I ask Regina Kline and Michelle Bishop, again, a
question of how we can further enhance the Americans with
Disabilities Act on issues like voting, on issues about
introduction--interaction in the retail and manual skills? What
do we need to do to refresh or improve the Americans with
Disabilities Act?
If the Chair would be kind enough to allow both of you to
answer the question. Regina Kline and Michelle Bishop. Thank
you.
Ms. Kline?
Ms. Kline. Yes. Thank you, Congresswoman Lee. I would defer
the voting issue to my colleague, Ms. Bishop, who is certainly
an expert on that issue.
To your other question, Congresswoman, we need not do
anything to the ADA other than enforcement and vigorous
enforcement. I am very troubled today by some of the comments
made about ADA notification. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
At bottom, courts are very clear about the standards that apply
to the ADA.
On this issue regarding employment, it is very clear what
the mandate of title II of the ADA and Olmstead is, and it is
really a matter of supporting State and local governments to
comply, supporting the Department of Justice to vigorously
enforce the mandate of title II, and providing clear,
unequivocal guidance as to how to do it.
So, my answer is pretty plain. There is nothing that needs
to be done, other than vigorous enforcement, as it relates to
the very clear and powerful mandate embedded in the ADA and the
integration mandate.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I appreciate that, and we will listen very
carefully and engage.
Ms. Bishop, would you follow up, please?
Ms. Bishop. So, Ms. Kline and I have very different areas
of expertise, but we completely agree. There is nothing that we
need to do to the ADA. The ADA works. What we need to see is
vigorous enforcement by the DOJ, I agree completely. Additional
guidance is always helpful. We see new issues arise in the
world of voting rights all the time. Ballot drop boxes became
one of the rock stars of the 2020 election, but they weren't
always designed and placed accessibly, and that is something
that guidance could be issued on to help election officials to
do that.
In terms of the role of Congress, I would say absolutely
funding, funding for elections officials to meet the
requirements of the ADA, fundings for our organizations, like
our national network, to provide them consultation to do that,
that is our role under the Help America Vote Act, but also
restoring Federal preclearance that would stop in its tracks
some of the legislation that you mentioned that really does
threaten access to the vote for people with disabilities.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Voting, would you answer that?
Ms. Bishop. Yes. I do think it is important to amend and
pass the Freedom to Vote Act that would establish protections
for voters with disabilities, as well as other voters, and
implement pro-voter reforms nationwide. I think it is important
to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to fully
restore Federal preclear-ance so that we can stop some
discriminatory practices we are seeing arise in the States.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you very much.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Ms. Lee. Good luck with the Astros.
That concludes our hearing. Everybody has had their chance
to ask their questions. We appreciate the Witnesses.
Without objection, all Members will have five legislative
days to submit additional written requests--questions for the
Witnesses or additional materials to the record.
With that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:37 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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