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Steny H. Hoyer

Democrat

“I worked to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act. I worked with many people. The bill was bipartisan. It is now 36 years old. The law helped a lot of people. We did many things to strengthen it. The ADA is supposed to prevent people with disabilities from being segregated. But the Department of Justice says the ADA does not guarantee a right to live and receive services in integrated settings. They say it only prohibits unnecessary institutionalization. That is absurd. We knew what we meant when we passed the law. The Department of Justice is wrong. This administration uses disability rights to undermine ballot access. They slash Medicaid funding that many disabled people rely on. We must remember the legislative intent of the ADA. It is about equal access, public accommodation, and integration. We cannot go back to before the ADA when disabled people were isolated. I am proud of the part I played.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. Speaker, one of the proudest moments of my time in public service was sponsoring the Americans with Disabilities Act and seeing it through to enactment. I was honored to work closely with House and Senate colleagues, leaders like Bob Dole, Tom Harkin, Tony Coelho, Steve Bartlett, Orrin Hatch, and Ted Kennedy, just to name a few. We passed it on a bipartisan basis, and it was signed into law by President George Bush in 1990. This month, we celebrate the 36th anniversary of the ADA. In those 36 years, that law has made a transformative difference for millions of Americans. It did so not only for physical access to public and private spaces of public accommodations but also in ensuring reasonable accommodations in workplaces and nondiscrimination in every facet of American life. We have seen it strengthened through legislation like the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 and through the courts with decisions like Olmstead v. L.C. in 1999. That decision concerned the ADA's nondiscrimination rule and applied it to the forced segregation of disabled people away from their communities, a historic tragedy in centuries past. The Olmstead ruling affirmed that States are required to provide disability services in the most integrated setting possible: in schools, workplaces, and even individuals' homes. Last month, the Department of Justice issued new guidance that the ADA does not guarantee--according to them--a right to live and receive services in integrated settings. Instead, it reinterprets the Olmstead's decision as only prohibiting States from unnecessarily institutionalizing those with disabilities without adequate justification and that it did not establish a general integration mandate. Frankly, that is absurd. Olmstead merely affirmed what Congress had clearly intended in the ADA. Unlike when we speculate on what our Founders' intent was in paraphrasing certain parts of our Constitution, when it comes to laws enacted 36 years ago, we can go right to the source. Let me be absolutely and unambiguously clear, as the House sponsor of the ADA: An integration mandate, as outlined correctly in the Olmstead ruling, was our intent. Senators Dole, Kennedy, and Hatch may no longer be here to state it, but I am sure former Senator Harkin and former Representative Coelho, Bartlett, and others, who were involved in drafting and enacting the law, will affirm the same. Among the findings expressly listed in the text of the ADA was that, ``Society has tended to isolate and segregate individuals with disabilities, and, despite some improvements, such forms of discrimination against individuals with disabilities continue to be a serious and pervasive social problem,'' according to the Olmstead case. The Department of Justice is wrong and ought to retract its new guidance to States and communities. At the same time, we have also seen the Trump administration use disability rights as an excuse to undermine ballot access and trample on the Help America Vote Act, which I also had the honor of sponsoring. The same principle just outlined about Olmstead applies here as well. It was never Congress' intent in writing the ADA that accommodating people with disabilities should be used as an excuse to limit Americans' right to vote, just as it should not be issuing a rule penalizing Americans with disabilities for living at home with their families and caregivers and slashing Medicaid funding, upon which so many in the disability community rely. I certainly hope statements like this one--from someone who was intimately involved in the writing of the ADA and stated from the floor--will serve as a reminder of the legislative intent of the ADA and of the Congress: It is truly all about nondiscrimination, public accommodation, equal access, and, yes, integration as much as possible within communities. We cannot turn the clock back to the time before the ADA, when those with disabilities were ostracized, isolated, and locked away. I am proud of the part I played in changing that. All of us should be proud that this institution came through and delivered in both promise and practice. Let us continue to do so today.

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36th Anniversary of Ada

Steny H. Hoyer