[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

=======================================================================

                                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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