[Nfbmo] I hope you are writing and calling

[Roger Crome]

Wow, Gary, beautifully put as usual. Thank you for sharing and giving such a well designed and heart felt letter to help formulate a strong campaign of letters.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 19, 2017, at 5:56 PM, Gary Wunder via Nfbmo <nfbmo at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> At Saturday's board meeting we talked about HR 620, the ADA Education and
> Reform Act of 2017. What it says is that if some public accommodation or
> business discriminates against you, you have the responsibility not only to
> tell them about the law, but you must give them sixty days in which to
> respond to your concern. Below is the letter I sent to Representative Vicky
> Hartzler. I hope you will write. We work too hard to get the legislation
> that protects us enabled to silently sit by and watch as it is dismantled.
> Getting a quality education and a good job is an uphill battle at best. We
> don't need obstacles deliberately placed in our path. We don't exercise all
> of the control in the situation, but we do have the opportunity to let our
> views be known, to say to our representatives from Missouri that we are
> constituents who demand the right to be heard, to be considered, and to be
> understood. Please do your part. My letter is below:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dear Representative Hartzler:
> 
> 
> 
> I strongly urge that you oppose HR 620. This bill proposes to eliminate
> frivolous claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but it totally
> misses the mark. Its remedy is to say that none of the provisions of the act
> can be enforced unless a person with a disability who encounters
> discrimination first explains that discrimination to the person or business
> offering a service and then gives the business or public accommodation sixty
> days to respond. When a blind person encounters a website that will not work
> with screen reading software and attempts to apply for a job using that
> site, what are the chances that that job will remain open? When a blind
> person finds it necessary to sue a university because the professor says
> there is no place for a blind person in the class, how will that person ever
> participate if he or she must tell the professor and the University that
> discrimination is occurring and then give them sixty days to respond? What
> other law suggests that those it is meant to protect must be the educators?
> I can think of none, and for me the message that gets sent over and over
> again is that blind people must wait, wait, wait. If this were a new law, I
> could understand a phase-in or maybe even some kind of a grandfathering
> provision, but this law has been on the books since 1990. The ADA has
> received all kinds of news coverage both in the general media and in
> publications that are read by businessmen and women.
> 
> 
> 
> If you want to stop lawsuits filed by big law firms that do not truly
> represent the interests of blind people and do not result in changes in the
> behavior of public institutions and businesses, figure out a way that does
> not put all the responsibility on the person or persons being discriminated
> against. The challenges that face blind people in getting an education and
> seeking employment are already substantial enough; let our laws encourage
> not discourage. I think it is nothing less than reasonable for blind and
> otherwise disabled people to expect this of you. Please do not support House
> Bill 620-in fact, actively oppose it, and be an evangelist for seeing that
> blind people get an education, a job, and a first-class place in our
> first-class communities.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Gary Wunder
> 
> 
> 
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