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House GOP Pass Bill to Harm Rights of People With Disabilities
In 1990, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which promoted the integration, acceptance, and everyday rights of people with disabilities. But last week, the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted along party lines to undermine a key tenet of that landmark civil rights law. The bill now heads to the Senate.
Under Title III of the ADA, private businesses must ensure new buildings are accessible and remove barriers in older buildings where it is “readily achievable”—a standard that considers the cost of the change and the resources of the business.
Now a group of businesses led by the owners of large shopping malls have persuaded more than 100 representatives to introduce H.R. 620, the so-called “ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017.” This legislation would require people with disabilities who encounter access barriers at a business or facility to become legal experts on the code, to provide “notice” to the business of what code they are violating, and to wait six months or longer. And this isn’t even for the business to actually fix the problem—just for the business to make “substantial progress” towards accessibility.
Only after all these steps and months of waiting, would H.R. 620 authorize filing a lawsuit. Navigating such a process would be both complicated and time-consuming, which, of course, is the point of the bill.
This bill, misleadingly titled the ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017, threatens the civil rights of people with disabilities by nearly three decades. As described about, this bill seeks to significantly undermine the ADA which mandates that people with disabilities have “equal opportunity” to participate in American life.
People with disabilities face barriers everyday: inaccessible restrooms, inaccessible medical equipment, inaccessible parking lots, inaccessible entrances, and inaccessible tables at restaurants. But instead of fixing those problems, H.R. 620 would force people....to become legal code experts....before being able to assert their rights under the ADA.
H.R. 620 erodes the balancing of interests in the ADA by removing incentives for businesses to comply with the law and by placing excessive burdens on individuals with disabilities.
This legislation is simply too absurd to believe. The exact opposite should be occurring as the ADA should be strengthened not destroyed. Is anyone paying attention?
If the House wants to rectify problems in access litigation, it should be assessing penalties against noncompliant businesses—not making it harder for people with disabilities to simply assert our right to be part of society.
In conclusion.....
Places of public accommodation have had a full 27 years to comply with Title III of the ADA. Yet, despite substantial gains.... society is still rife with architectural barriers that prevent people with disabilities from fully participating in public life. The ADA Education and Reform Act.... condones the businesses that.... have yet to comply..... [T]here exists “no other law that outlaws discrimination but permits entities to discriminate with impunity” until after victims of that discrimination inform business owners that they’re breaking the law.
Additional reading: https://www.aclu.org/other/hr-620-myths-and-truths-about-ada-education-and-reform-act
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