The source of this article is New Mobility: http://tinyurl.com/5tblw

October 2004 Issue


Why Vote?

By Douglas Lathrop

Following the November 2000 election, a survey by the Rutgers Center for Public Interest Polling found that people with disabilities were 12 percent less likely to have cast ballots than nondisabled voters. Had disabled Americans gone to the polls at the same rate as the rest of the electorate, there would have been an additional 3.2 million votes cast--nearly six times the number separating Al Gore and George W. Bush in the popular vote.

To put it bluntly: If more of us had voted, the past four years might have turned out quite differently. Or, they might not have--but at the very least, phrases like "hanging chad" and "butterfly ballot" might not be taking up valuable space in our brains today.

Within the disability community, discussions of poor voter turnout tend to center around barriers--inaccessible polling places, discrimination by pollworkers, etc.--as well as, recently, the virtues of paper ballots versus touch-screen voting machines. Just for a moment, though, let's ask a separate question: Why should we vote anyway?

Disability issues are not always easy to map onto the traditional liberal-to-conservative political spectrum. Although recent polls indicate that the disability vote tends to skew left, the disability community as a whole cuts across political lines. The same holds true among elected officials. After all, it was a Republican President, George H. W. Bush, who signed the ADA into law in 1990. In Congress, friends of the disability community--frequently those with disabled family members--range from liberal Democrats like Sens. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Tom Harkin of Iowa (whose late brother was deaf) to conservative Republicans like Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas (whose son has a mental disability).

We know voting is our civic duty, of course--but as people with disabilities, what real difference does it make whether Bush or John Kerry is in the White House, or whether the Republicans or Democrats control Congress?

For close observers of disability issues, the answer is: It makes a lot of difference. Says Gwen Gillenwater of the National Council on Independent Living, "I don't think we've ever had an election that has been more important for people with disabilities. We need to be asking the candidates what their stances are, and becoming educated."

Following is a brief overview of a few areas where the 2004 election could directly affect people with disabilities.

Stem Cell Research
In 2001 the Bush administration, citing religious and ethical objections, sharply limited federal funding for research using stem cells derived from human embryos. For the next three years politicians and the media lost interest, until the death earlier this year of former President Ronald Reagan after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease pushed stem cells to the top of the campaign agenda. Reagan's son, Ron Jr., addressed the Democratic National Convention on the issue in August, and it is assumed that a Kerry administration would restore support for stem cell research to pre-2001 levels.

The Supreme Court
In recent years a series of Supreme Court rulings has severely limited the scope of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Other rulings have upheld the act's provisions, but by narrow 5-4 margins. Currently, the average age of the nine justices is 70, with two--John Paul Stevens and Chief Justice William Rehnquist--in their 80s. It is conceivable that, between now and the 2008 election, the President will have the opportunity to appoint as many as three new Supreme Court justices. The future of the ADA, and of disability rights generally, will depend greatly on who those appointees are.

"Whether it's a Democrat or a Republican in the Oval Office, it should be reasonable for us to expect appointees who support the ADA," says Brewster Thackeray of the National Organization on Disability. "And of course, their emphasis on the ADA will reflect how they might be expected to support other issues for people with disabilities."

Bush's appointments to lower courts--especially those of Jeffrey Sutton and William Pryor--have drawn fire from many disability activists because of what they see as their anti-ADA stance. In addition, should Rehnquist retire as Chief Justice--as he is expected to do if Bush wins a second term--the current odds-on favorite to replace him is Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the most vociferous opponents of the ADA on the high court.

As a Democrat, Kerry would most likely prefer judges who support civil-rights laws such as the ADA--although presidential candidates tend to avoid promising single-issue litmus tests for judicial nominees. Regardless of which candidate wins the White House, Thackeray believes they need to be held equally accountable for the judges they appoint. Where disability rights are concerned, "we don't want a wolf in sheep's clothing."

Congress
Even in so-called "red" or "blue" states which seem safely in the hands of either Bush or Kerry, voters still have to select candidates in a large number of hotly contested congressional races. The results of these races can affect the overall makeup of Congress--and the future of legislation affecting the disability community.

At the top of the disability agenda is MiCASSA--the Medicaid Community-Based Attendant Services and Supports Act--a bill diverting Medicaid funds for long-term care from nursing homes to community-based attendant services. Introduced in the last three sessions of Congress, it has languished in committee, in large part because of lobbying from the nursing-home industry. Nevertheless, MiCASSA continues to enjoy support from members of both parties, and it is sure to be reintroduced next session.

Less friendly to the disability community is the so-called "ADA Notification Act," a bill (first introduced in 2000) that would require individuals to give 90 days' advance notice before filing suit against businesses for lack of access. Although reintroduced this year, it has received lackluster support. "As more legislators have learned about how it would actually impact people with disabilities, it's wound up pretty much stalled," Thackeray says.

Obviously, we are not one-issue voters--and even if people with disabilities voted at the same rate as the rest of the electorate, we would not do so as a bloc. We share the same concerns and diversity of opinions as all other Americans--over the economy, the war in Iraq, how to protect ourselves against terrorist attacks, and social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. Even some of those issues we think of as "ours"--such as affordable access to health care--are of great concern to nondisabled Americans as well.

Still, the more we make ourselves heard at the polls, the more politicians will begin to see us as a constituency worth listening to. It may look like one sometimes, but democracy is not a spectator sport--especially not for people with disabilities. "If you're blind, deaf or in a wheelchair," said a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece in August, "the stakes on Nov. 2 are enormous."

Online Resources for Voters with Disabilities

The American Association for People with Disabilities Web site includes statements from the Bush and Kerry campaigns: www.aapd-dc.org.

The National Organization on Disability has a number of campaign-related articles and an extensive list of links concerning the presidential candidates: www.nod.org/election2004.html.

ADA Watch is an advocacy group that focuses on threats to the ADA, whether in the form of legislation, court cases or judicial appointments: www.adawatch.org.

Although not disability-specific, Project Vote Smart, a nonpartisan site, is an excellent resource for voters seeking information on the presidential candidates as well as House and Senate races: www.vote-smart.org

Democratic National Committee: www.democrats.org/disability.

Republican National Committee: www.gop.com/GOPAgenda.

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