From: Julie Dawson 
Subject: Equality of Opportunity -- HISTORY.TXT  (fwd)
lobbyists argued that such phrases as  undue hardship,   readily
achievable,  and  readily accessible,  were inadequately defined,
and would therefore invite frivolous law suits.  Businesses, they
argued, would not be able to know whether they were in
compliance.  A second concern was the potential cost of
accommodations.  One proposed solution was to have the government
share some of the burden through tax credits and other
mechanisms. Third, numerous covered entities lobbied to have a
more concrete definition of disability, ideally one that listed
every covered disability instead of relying on a flexible
definition.  Fourth, small busi nesses argued that they should be
exempt from the public accommodations requirements, or at least
be phased in more gradually, because small businesses were exempt
from other civil rights legisla tion.  Fifth, scores of
organizations protested the enforcement mechanisms available
under the ADA, especially private litigation and the availability
of punitive damages.  Sixth, many business groups proposed that
the ADA should preempt all other disability laws, so that there
would be no confusion between different statutes, and no
possibility for bringing multiple law suits for one violation.
     The business community, however, faced a significant problem
in educating and lobbying Congress: it had a much more difficult
time than the disability community in keeping its coalition
together.  By the end of the fall of 1990, the coalition had
begun to break down, as organizations focused on those provisions
that affected them most.  They were, therefore, unable to present
a united front to Congress.  Nevertheless, during the course of
the House deliberations, business groups succeeded in obtaining
many of the changes they sought.
     In response to a variety of objections posed by business
groups, some House members took the initiative in undertaking
vigorous publicity campaigns against the ADA.  Congressman Dan
Burton (R-IN), for example, sent out a flyer in which he
enumerated  some of the more onerous provisions  of the ADA. 
According to Burton, the ADA would  federalize American private
enterprise,   wreak havoc in the workplace,   crush small and
medium-sized businesses,  and  confer federal approval on
homosexual/ heterosexual  domestic partners.    He also attached
an editorial by Gene Antonio that characterized the ADA as  the
last ditch attempt of the remorseless sodomy lobby to achieve its
national agenda before the impending decimation of AIDS destroys
its political clout.  This bill simply must be stopped . . . and
will become law unless there is a massive public outcry
immediately. 
     The beauty of the ADA was it was an effort where people in
the grass roots were just as important, if not more important,
than people in Washington. 
          Liz Savage     Similarly, Congressman Ron Marlenee
(R-MN) issued a flyer to all the postal patrons in his district. 
The headline read:  Americans With Disabilities Act: Washington s
Latest Way to Crush Businesses, Schools, While Hurting The
Disabled.  A subheading announced:  ADA Bill To Give Federal
Endorsement For Homosexual  Partners  and  AIDS.    Congressman
Chuck Douglas (R-NH) distributed a letter that pictured a man
pointing a gun at the reader.   Berserkers: Time Bombs in the
Workplace,  the headline de clared.  Douglas favored the general
idea of the ADA, but said the bill  needs dramatic rewrit ing.  
He was especially with preventing per sons with mental illness
from endangering their coworkers and thus proposed excluding such
persons from protection under the ADA.
     The disability community was more unified than the business
community, but the heightened activity of the business community
during House deliberations demanded a strong response from the
disability community.   The beauty of the ADA,  said Liz Savage,
 was it was an effort where people in the grass roots were just
as important, if not more important, than people in Washington. 
To facilitate disability grass roots involvement, leaders such as
Marilyn Golden developed regional coordination networks: it was
too complicated for one or even a handful of people to manage the
calls for an entire nation.  While in some cases there was a
coordinator for an individual state, most states were organized
in groups under a regional coordinator.  The regional
coordinators were selected because they were well known in their
states.  They came from a variety of organizations, often from
independent living centers.
     During the House deliberations, the ADA coalition
coordinated its lobbying efforts with each of the scheduled
committee mark-ups.  As the bill went through each committee,
members of the legal team responded to virtually every business
position paper by issuing rebuttals.  They would proceed
point-by-point through amendment lists and either show how claims
were in error or why the disability community took a different
position.  ADA Lobbyists used this information in visiting
members of the House, presenting a  Disability Rights 101 
education course.  Lobbyists were not just Washingtonians.  Often
at their own expense, persons with disabilities flew and drove in
from around to be part of the Washington effort.  The National
Council on Independent Living (NCIL), for example, ensured that
at least one of its representatives resided in Washington
throughout the congressional deliberations.  On many occasions,
Liz Savage offered her apartment as a sort of boarding house for
out-of-town visitors.  Once they arrived in Washington, grass
roots advocates met with leaders in the ADA coalition to get
weekly briefings and plot strategy.  They also coordinated their
lobbying techniques to ensure that they were presenting a unified
message to members of Congress.
     Grass roots participation in lobbying helped humanize the
ADA.  Many members were seeing persons with disabilities for the
first time and viewing them as assertive citizens.  This helped
break down the stereotype of persons with disabilities as
dependent children.  It also illustrated that disabled people
could make a difference and offer valuable contributions to
society if only given the chance.  Only a minority of people with
disabilities, however, could make personal trips to Washington. 
Others did what they could in their local communities.  Kathleen
Kleinmann, for example, wanted to do whatever she could do from
her home in rural Pennsylvania.  She felt she simply had to be a
part of the action.   We had that urgency about us,  she said. 
 It was contagious. It spread through the whole country.   For
Kleinmann and many others, NCIL was the crucial link to
activities taking place in Washington.  Through it they could
learn when and to whom they should write letters.  Moreover,
people in various local committees applied pressure on the local
offices of their representatives.  They also contested erroneous
public statements about the ADA by calling into local radio shows
and making local television appearances.
     The President has endorsed it.  The Senate has
overwhelmingly passed it. Now it s up to you.  Don t weaken a law
that will strengthen America. 
          New Year s Postcard The largest single letter-writing
cam paign took place between the 100th and 101st Congresses,
during the winter of 1989-90.  The campaign was directed at
members of the House of Representatives, who were frustrating
many in the disability community by taking so much lon ger than
the Senate and proposing  weakening amendments.   Thousands of
 New Year s  postcards were mailed throughout the country with a
cover letter from James S.  Brady, soliciting individuals to mail
to them to their congressman.  The front of the card printed
 ADA  in giant letters for a background.  Set over it was the
statement:  Our New Year s Wish For Congress: Open the Doors to
America.  Pass the Americans with Disabilities Act.   On the back
it said:  The President has endorsed it.  The Senate has
overwhelmingly passed it.   And in larger letters:  Now it s up
to you.  Don t weaken a law that will strengthen America.  Space
was provided for people to add their own personal messages.  They
were encouraged to send cards to their own Congressperson,
committee members from their states, Speaker of the House Foley,
and Minority Leader Michel.
     In addition to lobbying, sending letters, and making phone
calls, persons in the disability community, both inside and
outside Washington, served the important function of presenting
testimony at congressional hearings.  As with the hearings of
1988 and the Senate hearings of 1989, the House s ADA hearings
included powerful testimony about the need for civil rights
protections for persons with disabilities.  Persons from the
disability community also offered their technical expertise on
specific issues and countered the claims of those who proposed
weakening amendments.
     A final way in which the disability community exerted
pressure on Congress and the Bush administration was through
demonstrations.  One of the most significant protests was
organized by ADAPT in September, 1989.  In a long ADAPT
tradition, the demonstration coincided with the annual meeting of
APTA in Atlanta, where Secretary of Transportation Samuel K.
Skinner was expected to present an address.  On Sunday, September
24, about 100 people throughout the U.S. and Canada, most of whom
were in wheelchairs, protested at the entrance of the Hilton
Hotel convention site.  Stephanie Thomas, a spokesperson for
ADAPT, said they were protesting APTA because of its opposition
to the ADA.
     We re here until the order gets signed.  They ll have to
carry everybody out or arrest them. 
          Mike Auberger  At about ten o clock the following
morning, on September 25, more than 100 disability activists
occupied the main floor of the Richard B. Russell Federal
Building and blockaded the main entrances.  Some attached chains
and bicycle locks to their necks and locked them to door handles
so that security could not simply lift them from their
wheelchairs.  ADAPT demanded that Secretary Skinner sign an
executive order requiring the purchase of accessible vehicles for
all new transit buses, which would take effect immediate.   We re
here until the order gets signed,  said Michael W. Auberger, one
of the co-founders and leading org anizers for ADAPT.   They ll
have to carry everybody out or arrest them.   Later that day, at
around six o clock, Atlanta police and security officers from the
General Services Administration (GSA) did just that. They used
bolt cutters to remove demonstrators from the building.
     About two hours later, only a few protesters still remained
in the building.  From inside the building, Marca Bristo
contacted Evan Kemp, who told her to call Boyden Gray directly. 
As she was on the phone with Gray, a police officer insisted that
she leave the building.  Bristo left, but only after she handed
the phone to the officer to prove she was talking to Gray from
the White House.  Gray subsequently contacted President Bush. 
Within minutes, police and other security officers began letting
the disability activists back into the building.  After speaking
with Gray, President Bush had personally intervened to inform
Gary C. Carson, Regional General Services Administration (GSA)
administrator, that the protesters should be allowed to stay. 
Carson attributed Bush s action to the president s  deep
commitment to the handicapped and their right to protest.  
Apparently, Bush was also concerned about the alternative of
having them stay overnight outside the building in a chilling
rain.  Auberger and others welcomed Bush s intervention, but
threatened to stay until Skinner signed the executive order they
demanded.
     The sit-in ended the following afternoon subsequent to an
agreement between the Urban Mass Transportation Administration
(UMTA) and leaders of ADAPT.  UMTA agreed to help facil itate a
process of identifying and interfering with transit operators
that were rushing to buy inaccessi ble buses before the ADA was
enacted.  UMTA also agreed to relay to Secretary Skinner ADAPT s
desire to see more effective implementation of the Air Carriers
Access Act of 1986, which required accessibility for air travel. 
The agreement fell short of ADAPT s demands.  Yet it appeared to
be the best possible action, since UMTA explained that Skinner
did not have the authority to issue such an executive order.
     ADAPT, however, was not finished with its demonstrations. 
The next day, Wednesday, September 27, protesters effectively
shut-down the Atlanta Greyhound terminal for several hours by
encircling the terminal and blocking buses.  They chanted:  We
Will ride!    Access is our civil right!   One protester even
climbed into the bus, sat in the driver s seat, and chained
himself to the steering column.  Only four buses carrying about
80 passengers left the terminal during the protest, compared with
a typical 20 buses carrying 600 passengers.  The purpose of the
demonstration was to urge Greyhound and other intercity bus
services to begin purchasing lift-equipped buses.  The protest
ended, however, with the arrest of over 20 activists, who
received $75 fines the following day.
     Five-and-a-half months later, amidst seemingly stalled House
deliberations, ADAPT organized another demonstration the  Wheels
of Justice  campaign.  Disability activists from around the
country gathered on Sunday night, March 11, to plan the week s
events.  Wade Blank and Michael Auberger, co-founders of ADAPT,
were there.  Other leading ADAPT organizers included Bob Kafka,
Mark Johnson, Stephanie Thomas, Dianne Coleman, Ben Freeman, and
Bernard Baker. At noon the following day, hundreds of activists
associated with ADAPT and other disability organizations
assembled at the White House.  From there they marched and rolled
to the Capitol, where they gathered at the west front to listen
to speeches from ADA supporters.  On the way, they chanted:  What
do we want?    ADA!    When do we want it?    Now! 
     At the Capitol, Justin Dart, now Chairman of the President s
Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities,
addressed the crowd as  pioneer patriarchs of the twentieth
century.   He likened the ADA to the Declaration of Independence
and urged those assembled to  go forward, in  We are American
citizens and we will be part of the American dream. 
          Justin Dartthe spirit of Ghandi and Martin Luther King,
with love, with reasoned truth, with unyielding insistence on
respect for the sacred value of each human life.   Concluding
with a demand for immediate passage of the ADA, Dart declared:
 We are American citizens and we will be part of the American
dream.   Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder and Congressman Major
Owens also spoke in support of the ADA, likening the disability
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