 Illustration by Doug Davis
Who Gets Your Vote?
By Rebecca Hare and Daryl Ann Doane
October 2008
New Mobility asked two people with disabilities, each with knowledge of politics and government — one Republican and one Democrat — to write an essay of equal length explaining why they are voting for their party's candidate. The views expressed are those of the authors, not New Mobility.
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Why Barack Obama Is the Best Choice for Americans with Disabilities |
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By Rebecca Hare |
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As a second generation little person, I was born and raised in the disability community. My father, Billy, and my mother, Joan, were both little people. When I was a year old, my father became paralyzed in an on-the-job accident. I have no memory of him ever not using a wheelchair. What I do have memories of is his worry about how to support our family and to get the health care services he needed outside of the hospital. When my parents went to Voc Rehab to apply for services, they were told to put their daughter in foster care. That was not an option.
My parents grew up without the Americans with Disabilities Act and fought discrimination in their academic, employment, and social lives. I am fortunate to be a member of the ADA generation, having grown up with the civil rights protections of the ADA, Sect. 504, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. These laws need to be protected and enforced. This is why I am proud to declare my support of Sen. Obama's candidacy for president of the United States of America.
The Supreme Court and ADA Restoration
The 2008 presidential election is critical for the disability community not only because we will elect the next leader of our nation, but also because of the impact the next president will have on Supreme Court appointments. From his background as a civil rights attorney, Obama understands the need for supporting civil rights statutes and expanding the availability and provision of accommodations in the workplace to enable qualified people with disabilities in the workplace.
Obama is a long-time supporter of the ADA Restoration/Amendments Act and signed on as one of the original co-sponsors. Sen. McCain is an original co-sponsor as well, and even though this is very exciting to have both presidential candidates supporting this legislation, it is critical for voters not to forget that the next president will likely have the authority to reshape the Supreme Court in a powerful way.
Americans with disabilities cannot afford to ignore the importance of the relationship between the Supreme Court and the ADA in this election. In the aftermath of multiple cases where the Supreme Court has found it appropriate to narrowly define who is and who isn't a person with a disability, McCain has made it clear that the justices he would appoint would model the views and opinions of the more conservative justices, many of whom do not have track records that demonstrate support of the ADA. Too many Supreme Court decisions related to disability issues have resulted in narrow rulings. With at least two justices reaching the age where they are more likely to retire, voters in the disability community need to be aware that if McCain becomes our president and appoints more anti-ADA justices, there is a stronger likelihood that those decisions will turn to 7-2 verdicts, and the rights of people with disabilities will continue to be rolled back with rulings supporting insurance companies, nursing homes, employers, and other groups that see the provision of basic human rights of people with disabilities as an overstep.
The nomination of Supreme Court justices is a pervasive issue that could have an impact across every piece of new and existing disability public policy. Appointed justices have the choice of striking down pieces of the Community Choice Act and other pending legislation that intend to empower people with disabilities to make real choices in their health care based on what they want, rather than what their services will pay for.
Obama has pledged to nominate justices who support the ADA, not restrict it by narrowly redefining who is and who isn't a person with a disability or create a variety of mitigating measures to bypass the law. Obama has also pledged to increase funding for the enforcement of the ADA through the EEOC and other enforcement bodies inside the federal government.
Education
During the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 2004, McCain repeatedly sided not with students with disabilities or their families, but with school administrators and district officials. He stood against the secretary of education's right to refer cases where states were shown to be "substantially noncompliant" with IDEA and its provisions to the Department of Justice for litigation. He supported allowing schools to be able to determine for themselves how students with disabilities were disciplined. This is not enforcement; this is enablism, enabling the school systems to continue to escape accountability for providing students with disabilities a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment.
Obama pledges full funding and full enforcement of IDEA to allow schools to be able to provide the services our students need, and to enforce the law to hold schools accountable. He also supports early intervention and early screening so that kindergarten students can receive the services they need now, not when someone finally notices a disability later on in junior high or high school.
Community Choice
People with disabilities do not want to live in nursing homes or hospitals. We don't want to live in institutions. Obama understands this. His personal connection to disability through his father-in-law's experience with multiple sclerosis and his background in civil rights law contribute to Obama's strong support of the Community Choice Act of 2007 and the CLASS Act of 2007 [the Community Choice Act would allow people to receive personal assistance services in their own home and the CLASS act would create an insurance program for adults with significant disabilities]. Obama understands that people with disabilities shouldn't have to choose between their health care and where they receive it. In addition, he supports the Fair Home Health Care Act, which would extend minimum wage and overtime for personal attendants, and he wants them to have access to high-quality health insurance. Additionally, Obama believes that federal, state, and local job training programs need to ensure that they're connected with direct care providers to recruit, train, and prepare a qualified workforce to meet this critical need.
I was in Columbus, Ohio, for the Presidential Candidates Forum on Disability Issues. Whereas Sen. Harkin expressed his colleague's (Obama's) adamant support of the ADA, Community Choice and CLASS Act legislation, McCain said that he believed in choice, but he didn't believe in the Community Choice Act. Nowhere on his website does it articulate his views on issues related to Community Choice or the right of people with disabilities to live in our homes and not nursing homes. In his disclosure as a person with a disability, the candidate fails to address those issues of critical importance to Americans with Disabilities. He has no plan, let alone a plan to empower Americans with disabilities.
Disaster Preparedness
Hurricane Katrina highlighted for the rest of Americans what Americans with disabilities already knew. There was no foresight in addressing the needs of people with disabilities and only limited and biased media coverage of our issues in the aftermath. People with disabilities were forced to evacuate without support animals or technology they depended on for survival — if they were able to evacuate at all. Obama was proud to pass legislation supporting the proper evacuation of people with disabilities, but also knows that this is just a first step in an area that demands the attention of the next president.
Obama's campaign and hopes for his presidency embody the very goals of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The goals are full participation, equality of opportunity, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for all Americans. We deserve a president who understands the disability experience and can translate it into actual policy change in this country to empower us to achieve in our lives, not waste away in nursing homes. We don't need paternalism, nor do we "suffer" from our disabilities. Rather, we suffer from people's lack of high expectations for our achievement.
We deserve a president who values our current and potential contributions to society. We deserve a president who supports the Community Choice Act in enabling us to live in our homes and potentially train for work to move from being tax users to tax payers. We deserve a president who will not nominate judges to the Supreme Court who hack away at our civil rights and decide amongst themselves who they think fits the definition of disability. This candidate is Obama, and I urge you to vote for him.
Rebecca Hare coordinates NCLD/Youth, a youth information center working to require the teaching of disability history and awareness in public education.
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Why I'm Voting for John McCain — the Red White and Blue Candidate |
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By Daryl Ann Doane |
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I believe Sen. John McCain exemplifies the character required of a president: He has extensive experience in making government work properly, he has humility and respect for sources of good ideas from people of all backgrounds, and he is truly compassionate. In particular, he empathizes with those of us with disabilities.
McCain has worked faithfully to try to insure that government works properly. Each year, sometimes as the only one in the U.S. Senate, he has exposed self-interest pork-barrel projects hidden under legislative "earmarks" — one of which proposed a bogus expenditure of $30 billion.
Congress passes laws. One of the main jobs of the president is to ensure that existing regulations and laws are enforced. Because McCain is not afraid to confront self-interests, he is more likely to enforce existing laws and regulations than other recent presidents. On July 26, the American Association of People with Disabilities sponsored the National Forum on Disability Issues in Columbus, Ohio. Speaking to this forum, McCain said that he would "scrub" every federal agency to make sure it is working properly!
Many laws and regulations have established affirmative action and hiring goals for people with disabilities in both the private and public sector. Presidents from both parties have issued numerous executive orders, but employment of people with disabilities in government jobs has still decreased steadily for 15 years. A Cornell University study in 2003 found that existing regulations governing the hiring and retention of people with disabilities were not well implemented or enforced in most governmental agencies.
At the AAPD forum, Cynthia Owens of the Oregon Developmental Disabilities Council mentioned her experience with the Social Security Administration. She said many in SSA do not understand the existing work incentives in place for helping disabled people become self-supporting. These include provisions for help with assistive technologies and ways to avoid losing benefits while working. "Scrubbing" federal agencies to live up to existing policies and programs is certainly higher priority than stipulating new policies or "fully funding" programs that are not properly enforced, as has been put forth by Obama.
If new programs are initiated, they should be based on proven models. Federal welfare reform has been successful because it was based on a state model. At the AAPD forum, McCain mentioned pilot programs in Arizona that have successfully provided incentives for people to stay in their own homes rather than in a nursing home. Cost-effective federal programs will reflect the best experience of the states.
McCain also recommended making Veterans Affairs more effective with less bureaucracy. Veterans requiring standard health care could be allowed to get equivalent care wherever they wished, at government expense, without having to wait at VA facilities. The VA could then concentrate on doing what it should do best: treating veterans with combat-related injuries.
Importance of Humility and Compassion
Not only is applicable experience valuable, but humility is also important for a leader. A president needs to be able to benefit from experts at all levels, past and present. Last year, McCain published Hard Call, a book detailing hard but noble decisions made by famous people, including Presidents Lincoln, Truman, and Reagan. While most politicians write books to honor themselves, McCain has written books honoring others and not hiding his own failings. McCain has consistently demonstrated his respect for the best opinions of others, and has worked with prominent Democrats in Congress to achieve important objectives.
Those of us with disabilities sometimes need help and compassion from others. But we don't need those who want to dictate our choices. We know more about our bodies than anyone else, and we don't think doctors, nurses or even family members can tell us what is best for us. When government offers help, it typically attaches strings. McCain supports the principle of "money follows the person" that has recently freed many from unnecessary institutionalization resulting from such strings.
It is not real compassion to feed a bureaucracy that puts strings on everything, including dictates to faith-based organizations that they must hire people outside their faith if they accept government grants, as Obama proposes. Nor is it real compassion to provide government support for the abortion of unborn children, which Obama has supported. It is also not real compassion to promulgate executive orders calling for employment of more persons with disabilities without enforcing existing provisions in governmental agencies that would actually accomplish this objective. Obama wants to reissue such an order made by President Clinton that had no measurable effect. McCain realizes that agencies must be "scrubbed" to insure they function properly.
Most people have heard of John McCain's injuries and torture in North Vietnam, and his fight to regain most of his physical abilities. Years of painful suffering as a POW and arduous physical therapy have given him empathy for all of us who have disabilities. While people can experience poor treatment in nursing homes, McCain spent a long time unable to move in dirty rooms, even lying in his own waste without proper food or medication. As a prisoner, he had no say in his medical treatment, exercise or his living arrangement.
Cindy McCain also has much empathy for the disabled. She has taught disabled children of migrant farm workers. She also independently arranged trips of volunteer doctors and nurses to minister to the ill and disabled in various places around the world. Cindy McCain also experienced a stroke at a relatively young age, followed by extensive rehabilitation. She would be a valuable advisor to her husband in helping people with disabilities.
Working for Something Greater than Ourselves
One of the most important things McCain understands is the sanctity of human life. As a POW, he experienced what men do when unencumbered by fear of God and respect for life.
On a broader scale, there is widespread pressure to get rid of people who are "inconvenient." Calls for "euthanasia" can easily lead to removal of the aged or infirmed, who are considered too much trouble. Unnecessary confinement to nursing homes or institutions is related to inconvenience. The fact that tens of millions of unborn Americans have been aborted in the last 40 years is further evidence of a lack of respect for human life. Many of those were aborted because they were judged to be inconvenient.
I have a stable condition with limited mobility that resulted in childhood from a rare disease similar to polio. While some doctors were helpful and compassionate, others have been telling me what to do since I was 7 years old. Doctors told my mother to "go home and take care of her other children," implying that she should let me die! She did not, but instead pushed to get me the best education possible, even while I was still in a hospital.
Some doctors counseled me strongly against having children. I didn't listen to them, and became pregnant. During my somewhat difficult pregnancy, a doctor counseled that I could have an abortion if I did it soon. I didn't listen then, either. In the end, with help from skillful doctors and God's evident hand in everything, I had two healthy boys. Each of them made medical history! Bearing and raising them has certainly not been "convenient," but the joy of seeing them grow and mature is immeasurable!
It is not real compassion to provide government support for the abortion of unborn children, as Obama has voted to provide. As Illinois state senator, he even refused to support bills aimed at protecting infants who survive abortions. McCain has consistently opposed government support for abortion of unborn babies.
While we all need to protect our rights, it is hollow in the end if we are only serving ourselves. One thing we can all support is respect for life, particularly the life of others in danger. The unborn are fully human — as evidenced by ultrasound images — and they deserve our protection. McCain has emphasized the need to work for something greater than ourselves.
Typically, "red" or Republican policies are seen as those emphasizing limited government and maximizing individual choices. "Blue" or Democratic policies are seen as those emphasizing compassion. What we really need is a "red, white, and blue" combination, where the "white" represents integrity and incorruptibility. I believe McCain is the candidate that best embodies these qualities.
Daryl Ann Doane, Ph.D, is president and CEO of a start-up company, DeposiTech, developing and manufacturing electronic equipment for the semiconductor and printed circuit board industries.
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