[Home-on-the-range] FW: [NFB-Legislative-Directors] Legislative Priorities for the 2018 Washington Seminar

[Rob Tabor]

Greetings Kansas Federation family,

 

President Riccobono and his legislative team have announced our legislative priorities for the 2018 Washington Seminar. As with 2017, there are 4 issues, 3 of which are the same as last year. Note that for the first time in many years we are working to oppose pending legislation, e.g., the ADA Education and Reforem Act of 2017 (HR 620.) Though we prefer to be proactive in our blindness policy agenda, it is necessary from time to time to register robust opposition to pending bills that, if passed, could be damaging to our interests either in the short term, and especially in the long term. This is one of those times. So get yourself informed and read the original posting below from Gabe Cazares. Fact sheets and related documents will be on the NFB web page, but probably not until after holidays. In the meantime, be sure to let your chapter or divisional president know if you want to go to Washington Seminar, especially if you need financial help. I wish everyone a happy holiday season.

 

Best regards,

Rob Tabor First st vice president / Legislative chairman,  National Federation of the Blind of Kansas

(785) 865-9959

Rob dot Tabor at SBC Global ndot net

 

 

From: NFB-Legislative-Directors [mailto:nfb-legislative-directors-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Cazares, Gabe via NFB-Legislative-Directors
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2017 8:13 AM
To: nfb-legislative-directors at nfbnet.org
Cc: Cazares, Gabe
Subject: [NFB-Legislative-Directors] Legislative Priorities for the 2018 Washington Seminar

 

Howdy Fellow Federationists,

 

#ICYMI, yesterday afternoon, President Riccobono announced the legislative priorities of the National Federation of the Blind for the 115th Congress, Second session. During the 2018 Washington Seminar, we will be discussing:

1.       The Accessible Instructional Materials In Higher Education “Aim High” Act, (S. 2138/H.R. 1772)

Electronic instructional materials have replaced traditional methods of learning in postsecondary education, but the overwhelming majority of educational technologies are inaccessible to blind students. The law requires equal access in the classroom but fails to provide direction to schools for the way it applies to technology. The Aim High Act creates voluntary accessibility guidelines for educational technology to stimulate the market, improve blind students’ access to course materials, and reduce litigation for schools.

2.       The Access Technology Affordability “ATAA” Act, (S. 732/H.R. 1734)

Currently blind Americans rely on scarce sources of funding to acquire access technology. By providing a refundable tax credit for qualifying access technology purchases, Congress will stimulate individual procurement of access technology and promote affordability of these tools for blind Americans.

3.       Opposition to the “ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017,” (H.R. 620)

H.R. 620 erodes protections for people with disabilities by removing incentives for businesses to comply with the law, and by placing excessive burdens on the very people the law aims to benefit. The ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017 would weaken the ADA and set the disability community back nearly three decades.

4.       The Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled “Marrakesh Treaty” 

An international copyright treaty will give blind Americans access to millions of published works and improve the distribution of books around the globe.

 

Please be on the lookout for updated fact sheets and frequently asked questions. Once these are available, they will be posted to the Washington Seminar <https://www.nfb.org/washington-seminar>  webpage. Please let us know if you have any questions. Thanks for all that you do!

 

Best,

 

...Gabe

 

Gabe Cazares

Government Affairs Specialist

200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, MD 21230

(410) 659-9314, extension 2206 | gcazares at nfb.org

 

 <https://nfb.org/> National Federation of the Blind

 

                          <http://www.facebook.com/nationalfederationoftheblind> Facebook     <https://twitter.com/NFB_Voice> Twitter     <https://www.youtube.com/NationsBlind> Youtube

 

The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and friends who believe in the hopes and dreams of the nation’s blind. Every day we work together to help blind people live the lives they want. 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/home-on-the-range_nfbnet.org/attachments/20171221/97e2d8c0/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 33789 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/home-on-the-range_nfbnet.org/attachments/20171221/97e2d8c0/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.png
Type: image/png
Size: 16172 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/home-on-the-range_nfbnet.org/attachments/20171221/97e2d8c0/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.png
Type: image/png
Size: 16306 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/home-on-the-range_nfbnet.org/attachments/20171221/97e2d8c0/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image004.png
Type: image/png
Size: 16509 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/home-on-the-range_nfbnet.org/attachments/20171221/97e2d8c0/attachment-0003.png>
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: Untitled attachment 00007.txt
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/home-on-the-range_nfbnet.org/attachments/20171221/97e2d8c0/attachment.txt>