[Ct-nfb] ACTION NEEDED: Senator Murphy - Today's Meeting

Tue Jan 28 17:53:01 UTC 2014

Attention Federationists:

Today, Nathanael, Mary Silverberg, and Anil Lewis met with Senator Murphy's key legislative assistant for the Workforce Investment Act.  He asked real questions, which means this man is listening to us.  It is also clear that he does not yet agree with us.  This is why we need to contact him ASAP while the meeting is still fresh in his memory.

If you see below, you'll find the follow-up message that I sent to his assistant, Mark Ritacco.  Please, please, please write to him.  It doesn't have to be a long message, but he needs to hear from us.  We need to fix the Workforce Investment Act. Please do this for me, for you, for all people with disabilities, and for all taxpayers.

Sincerely yours,

Justin Salisbury

To: 'mark_ritacco at murphy.senate.gov'
Cc: 'Nathanael T. Wales' (ntwales at omsoft.com); marysilverfox at gmail.com; alewis at nfb.org; 'rsloan at nfb.org'
Subject: Today's Meeting

<My address>
<My phone number>

Dear Mark,

Thank you for meeting today at 10:30 AM with Mary Silverberg, Nathanael Wales, and Anil Lewis, representing the National Federation of the Blind of Connecticut.  I most appreciate your willingness to voice your actual concerns.  This is one of the greatest qualities of the people of Connecticut, and it gives rise to our leadership and advancement in education and culture.

At the meeting, you discussed S. 1356, the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA).  I absolutely oppose the bill as it is currently written, but, if you can initiate two simple changes, I will support it completely.  Americans with disabilities need-truly need-Senator Murphy to offer an amendment that will strike Section 511 of Title V of WIA, and remove the language that transfers the Rehabilitation Services Administration from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor.  I tried writing to Senator Murphy before, but I regretfully report that his response did not demonstrate that he actually read my message.  His reply is available below this message.  I have heard from so many other concerned constituents that we are all receiving the same result.  Please do not let this be all that we have to remember when we cast our votes.

Nathanael and Anil have both played a very serious role in my growth and success since I lost my sight during high school.  On my fifteenth birthday, I thought I was going to become an engineer and had a great chance of playing college football.  On my sixteenth birthday, I was blind, and I had lost my desire and the belief in myself to do much of anything with mathematics, which had been my favorite subject in school.  I had been taught by society that blind people were less capable and believed that, when I had lost my sight, I had lost a lot of my productive capacity.  When I was a freshman in college, I met Nathanael, a blind engineer.  At first, it really bothered me to have someone like him telling me that he believed in me and my ability to achieve in mathematics.  It didn't make any sense.  How could blind people do math?  Two years later, I met Anil, and he, too, has been a mentor and role model who has helped me believe in the capacity of all human beings.  With the guidance, support, and, most of all, belief of Nathanael, Anil, and the National Federation of the Blind, I graduated in four years with a degree in mathematics and received the top graduating senior award.  I was on stage with the chancellor at the commencement ceremony, and the entire football stadium of attendees heard my biography and learned that people with disabilities have capacity.  I am now in a PhD program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.

I would never in a million years have achieved what I have if not for the people like Nathanael and Anil, who have believed in me and encouraged me to do more than society had taught me that a blind person could do.  I now understand that this is true for all people with disabilities, and I am infinitely grateful for those who taught me to believe in myself.  When I meet the blind people and people with other disabilities working in sheltered workshops, and when I think about how that could have been me without the right influences, I get onions in my eyes-onions of gratitude.  A critical way that we can teach disabled people to believe in themselves so that they can achieve their full potential is to stop reinforcing policies that perpetuate a lack of belief-the outdated status quo.

Sir, people with disabilities all over Connecticut and our great nation need Senator Murphy's and your help.  Please offer an amendment that will strike Section 511 of Title V of WIA, and remove the language that transfers RSA from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor.

Thank you again for today's meeting.  If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me.  Society has failed to educate you about the capacity of people with disabilities, and I am here to bring you the understanding which you have always deserved.  What really disables us is not what we cannot do; it is what people assume we cannot do.

Sincerely,

Justin Salisbury

Legislative Coordinator

The National Federation of the Blind of Connecticut

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