[Nfbc-info] Fwd: H.R. 620 talking points

[Shannon Dillon]

Good afternoon,

Please contact your Congressional representative concerning H.R. 620.
Below please see talking points from Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette

Thank you.


From: "Hedtler-Gaudette, Dylan" <DHedtler-Gaudette at nfb.org>
Date: June 21, 2017 at 6:22:16 AM PDT
To: "State President, California" <ever.hairston at gmail.com>
Subject: H.R. 620 talking points

Hi Ever Lee,

Thanks again for your call and for jumping in with both feet on this
issue. Without folks like you leading our affiliates, we would never
be able to make the progress we do!

As promised, please find some talking points below. Feel free to use
all of them, some of them or none of them, as you see fit.

H.R. 620: The ADA Education and Reform Act

-          This bill would weaken the Americans with Disabilities Act
by undermining a person’s ability to pursue issues of inaccessibility
under Title III of the ADA
-          Title III is the “public accommodations” section of the
ADA; it refers to businesses and other public spaces that people,
including people with disabilities, may want to utilize or visit;
Title III outlines the responsibilities of businesses and other
entities in making their services and spaces accessible to people with
disabilities
-          H.R. 620 operates on the unproven premise that “frivolous”
lawsuits are filed all the time under Title III of the ADA; the
argument is that such lawsuits are designed simply to extort money
from businesses and rarely have anything to do with genuine
accessibility concerns
-          For obvious reasons, we in the disability community broadly
and the NFB specifically reject this premise; we encounter
accessibility barriers all the time, whether in physical locations or
on business websites, and we rarely file lawsuits
-          It’s also important to note that Title III of the ADA does
not actually permit lawsuits seeking “damages” or money; they can only
be lawsuits seeking redress and recourse regarding the accessibility
issue; some states have enacted laws permitting suits that seek
damages but that is a state issue, not an issue with the ADA itself
-          We are asking that the stakeholders involved pause and
gather more information on the underlying issue; namely, the actual
frequency and expense of so-called “frivolous” lawsuits brought under
Title III of the ADA
-          Specifically, we would urge the commission of a study on
the issue, to be conducted by the Congressional Research Service
(CRS); this would allow all of us to have a better sense of what the
actual issues may be and what the negative consequences of H.R. 620
might be

Ultimately we are concerned that H.R. 620 is a solution in search of a
problem, based on a faulty premise driven primarily by anecdotal and
often exaggerated stories; this is not a sufficiently strong reason to
weaken the ADA and cost people with disabilities the opportunity to
purchase goods and services, enjoy entertainment and engage fully in
their communities, not to mention the losses in potential revenue that
businesses would incur by excluding potential customers with
disabilities

Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help you as
we mobilize against this bad bill.

Take care and talk soon!

Best,
~Dylan
Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette
Government Affairs Specialist
200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, MD 21230
(410) 659-9314, extension 2210 | DHedtler-Gaudette at nfb.org






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Every day we work together to help blind people live the lives they
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-- 
SHANNON L. DILLON