[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14514-14515]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           DISABILITY RIGHTS

  (Mr. LANGEVIN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to express my strong 
opposition to H.R. 620, the ADA Education and Reform Act, which 
recently passed out of the Judiciary Committee.
  For 27 years, the Americans with Disabilities Act has made a 
difference in millions of lives, including my own, by prohibiting 
discrimination on the basis of a disability and requiring accessibility 
in places of public accommodation.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 620 decimates the underlying intent of the ADA by 
allowing entities to wait before addressing barriers to access. It 
would roll back years of progress, and it sends a message to the 
disability community that we are not worthy of being included like 
everyone else. I urge my colleagues to consider the true implications 
of this policy.
  Mr. Speaker, I was injured in 1980, a full 10 years before the ADA 
was enacted. I remember what our country

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was like before the ADA. I do not wish to go back. Instead of weakening 
our civil rights, let us work together to protect them.

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