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

Thu Feb 8 13:35:15 UTC 2018

For those that want to call or email their representatives regarding to HR 620, here is their contact information for their Washington, DC offices.

1st District

Congresssman Donald Norcross

1531 Longworth Building

Washington, DC 20515 

Phone: 202 225 6501

Alexander Krupnick, Legislative Correspondent

Email: Alexander.Krupnick at Mail.House.Gov <mailto:Alexander.Krupnick at Mail.House.Gov> 

2nd District

Congressman Frank LoBiondo

2427 Rayburn Building

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: 202 225 6572

Nicholas Down, Junior Legislative Assistant

Email: Nicholas.Down at mail.house.gov <mailto:Nicholas.Down at mail.house.gov> 

3rd District

Congressman Tom MacArthur

506 Cannon Building

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: 202 225 4765

Chris Griswold, Deputy Chief of Staff

Email: chris.griswold at mail.house.gov <mailto:chris.griswold at mail.house.gov> 

4th District

Congressman Chris Smith

2373 Rayburn Building

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: 202 225 3765

Courtney Webb, Legislative Assistant

Email: courtney.webb <mailto:courtney.webb at mail.house.gov> @mail.house.gov

5th District

Congressman Josh Gottheimer

213 Cannon Building

2232 Rayburn Building

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: 202-225-4465

Matthew Appenfeller, Special Projects Director

Email: matthew.appenfeller at mail.house.gov <mailto:matthew.appenfeller at mail.house.gov> 

6th District

Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr.

237 Cannon Building

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: 202 225 4671

Roberto Sada, Legislative Assistant

Email: Roberto.sada at mail.house.gov <mailto:Roberto.sada at mail.house.gov> 

7th District

Congressman Leonard Lance

2352 Rayburn Building

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: 202 225 5361

Bri Hearn, Legislative Assistant - Education

Email: Bri.Hearn at Mail.House.Gov <mailto:Bri.Hearn at Mail.House.Gov> 

8th District

Congressman Albio Sires

2342 Rayburn Building

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: 202 225 7919

Kaylan Koszela, Legislative Director

Email: Kaylan.koszela at mail.house.gov <mailto:Kaylan.koszela at mail.house.gov> 

9th District

Congressman Bill Pascrell

2370 Rayburn Building

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: 202 225 5751

Elaina Houser, Legislative Director

Email: elaina.houser at mail.house.gov <mailto:elaina.houser at mail.house.gov> 

10th District

Congressman Donald M. Payne, Jr.

132 Cannon Building

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: 202 225 3436

Erika Northington, Legislative Director

Email: erika.northington at mail.house.gov <mailto:erika.northington at mail.house.gov> 

11th District

Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen

2306 Rayburn Building

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: 202 225 5034

Steve Silvestri, legislative director 

Email: steve <mailto:steve> .silvestri at mail.house.gov <mailto:.silvestri at mail.house.gov> 

12th District

Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman

1535 Longworth Building

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: 202 225 5801

Kevin Block, Senior Policy Advisor

Email: Kevin.Block at mail.House.Gov <mailto:Kevin.Block at mail.House.Gov> 

From: Beatrice oliveti [mailto:beatrice.oliveti at gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2018 10:54 PM
To: bmackey88 at gmail.com
Subject: RE: [NFBNJ] NFB: IMPORTANT! URGENT! HR 620 "ADA Education and Reform Act"

Whatt are the phone numbers to call on this? This e-mail doesn’t include phone numbers. Please help Brian. Thanks. 

From: NFBNJ [mailto:nfbnj-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Brian Mackey via NFBNJ
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2018 12:57 PM
To: NFBNJ NFBNet listserv
Cc: Pare, John
Subject: [NFBNJ] NFB: IMPORTANT! URGENT! HR 620 "ADA Education and Reform Act"
Importance: High

>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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