[NFBNJ] NFB: IMPORTANT! URGENT! HR 620 "ADA Education and Reform Act"

[Brian Mackey]

>From the desk of NFBNJ President Joe Ruffalo.

Received from Joe Drenth, 1st Vice President, NFB of Pennsylvania.

Requested for distribution from Brian Mackey, NFBNJ Treasurer & Webmaster.

 

Greetings to all,

 

Please read, act upon, and share with others as soon as possible.

We do not want HR 620, the ADA Education & Reform Act of 2017 to become law.

The message follows.

 

>From Michael Gamel-McCormick in Senator Robert Casey’s office:

 

Hi, all. I’m writing to let you know that the House of Representatives will most likely be voting next week on a bill that will strip away civil rights of people with disabilities. 

 

HR 620 would do the following:

 

*	Eliminate the need for businesses and other entities that offer services to the public to meet accessibility requirements until a complaint is filed against them
*	Limit the ability to file a complaint unless it is in writing, specifies the exact part of the law that is being violated, whether the person complaining has made a direct complaint to the business, and whether the barrier or lack of access is permanent or temporary
*	The person with a disability must then wait up to 180 days for the business to “fix” the complaint; therefore denying the person with a disability access to the services for the waiting period
*	Also, a business could have more than 180 days to fix the complaint if they are making “substantial progress” to fix the complaint

 

This bill attacks the rights of people with disabilities because of “frivolous” law suits being brought by lawyers against businesses. This “problem” is about lawyers who are bad actors and should not be “solved” by gutting the rights of people with disabilities. 

 

As of this afternoon this is what our House folks are telling us:

 

Tuesday the 13th—The House Rules Committee will meet to set the process for consideration of the bill

Wed or Thursday (14th or 15th)—probable floor vote on the bill

 

For national folks, I’ve checked in with Dara Baldwin and have given her this information but I wanted to let everyone know that this is happening.  

 

There are vulnerable Democrats who may sign onto the bill in AZ, CA, FL, HI, NY, and WA. They need to know they should not be supporting the bill.

 

In addition, Republican disability supporters need to hear from people to vote against the bill, folks such as Reps. Harper, McMorris Rodgers, Senssenbrenner, Sessions, and others.

 

The House leadership looks like they really want to push this through next week. Congressmen and women in the House of Representatives need to hear from the community now. 

 

As a summary of talking points on the bill here is what can be said:

 

*	HR 620 will take away the civil rights of people with disabilities
*	It will make people with disabilities wait for up to 180 days for services that other people have immediate access to
*	The wait may be even longer than 180 days because a business that is making “substantial progress” toward fixing a problem can take even longer than 180 days
*	HR 620 will eliminate the need for businesses to be accessible until a complaint is received; there will be no need to make a business accessible until someone complains; that will mean many groups building new buildings, renovating buildings, opening new businesses will not make their services accessible
*	HR 620 shifts the burden of accessibility from those who offer services to the person with a disability; no other group needs to prove their right to access to publically offered services
*	We should not be gutting the rights of people with disabilities; if there is a problem, we should be limiting the actions of a small number of lawyers who are bad actors
*	HR 620 will take away the civil rights of people with disabilities; would we ever think about eliminating the rights of any other group of Americans? This is disgraceful. 

 

Thanks for all your efforts to get folks out and pushing as hard as possible.

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