June 22^nd is the 22nd Anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1999 landmark Olmstead decision.

ADAPT of Texas, a statewide disability rights organization, is celebrating this anniversary which we fought so hard to see.  “Freedom, Liberation, Integration and Independence” are how ADAPT of Texas members describe the Olmstead decision.

Based on the integration requirement in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Olmstead decision said that people with disabilities have the right to live in “the most integrated setting.” Just because a person needs support services does not mean the state can closet them away in nursing homes, state developmental disability (known in Texas as State Supported Living Centers) or other institutions.

Lois Clark and Elaine Wilson were two Georgia women who had sat in institutions for years waiting on wait-lists for community services. They sued saying the state was paying for them to be stuck in institutions and could therefore afford to provide them services in the community. 

Though they were from Georgia, they could well have been from Texas as thousands of Texans were, and many still are, in this same situation.

In Texas, ADAPT fought for and in part using the Olmstead decision, won a policy called Money Follows the Person which has led to thousands of Texans getting out of nursing homes, and some state supported living centers and moving back into the communities they came from. 

President George W Bush, with a push from ADAPT, took the experience in Texas and carried it forward to the national level. Though Medicaid still has an “institutional bias,” people with disabilities of all ages now have a choice to live in the community with the supports and services they need. 

We still have more work ahead as there are over 100,000 Texans waiting in the community for services and supports; however, we should celebrate the victories along the way. 

For more background on Olmstead and a link to related resources click here

Danny Saenz reports: [yesterday] I rode a lift equipped Greyhound. And wheelchair accessible Uber brought me home.
WE WILL RIDE!

Sunday June 20th at 5:30 pm voting rights supporters from across the state will gather at the state Capitol to protest attempts by the Governor and state Republicans to limit voters access to the polls.  You need to be there! 

Although Democrats were able to kill the voting restriction bill (SB 7) by walking out of the Capitol in unison at the last minute, these efforts are not dead. The Governor is calling a special session to get the voting bills passed.  

Even though Republicans say these bills are to ensure voting integrity, there were less than a dozen cases of voter fraud found in a state with 16 MILLION voters. According to the Houston Chronicle fact checkers there are 43 pending voter fraud cases and “Only one of those pending cases stems from the 2020 election, in which more than 11 million Texans cast ballots.”

Some of the things being attempted to shove down the throats of Texas voters include:

Bills filed in the last legislative session had a pile of ways they attacked voting rights. They limited the days and hours of early voting severely, they almost did away with drop boxes for mail in ballots. They limited polling places in more populous counties by requiring all counties have the same number of polling places;  this of course means longer lines where there more people. The bills said no more 24 hour voting, or drive through voting. 

Poll watchers (partisan, untrained people “making sure” voting is legal) are allowed to come right up to voters, particularly anyone getting assistance voting (can you say disabled) and watch, listen and even film the person voting. Voter intimidation anyone? 

The attacks specifically on disabled voters were part of these bills. They started out saying you had to prove your disability with confirmation from a medical or governmental entity (though people voting by mail for other reasons don’t have to prove themselves.)  Disability advocates worked hard to tone that down so in the end they said disabled voters have to disclose the reason for voting by mail and needed to “not [be] capable of appearing at the polling place on Election Day without needing personal assistance or injuring the person’s health.” Also disabled voters would have to sign an affidavit they have a disability. 

Anyone who drives 3 or more people to the polls must sign a form saying they are not influencing the people’s vote with criminal penalties if it is in any way false. The driver must get out of the vehicle while people vote and election observers can get in the vehicle with the voters. 

Poll watchers who think something is wrong can challenge your vote and people assisting voters who are deemed directing the voter can be charged with a serious crime. 

If illegally cast votes are found a court can overturn the entire election. 

This morning (6/15/21) Texas Attorney General Paxton issued an opinion that Social Workers can’t be punished by their governing board for discrimination against people with disabilities. He said that the Texas State Board of Social Worker Examiners (TSBSWE) may not establish a Code of Conduct that prohibits discrimination based on disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. The Board had previously said it was ok for social workers to discriminate, but thanks to a huge outcry from the disability community, Texas Social Workers and others, the Board reversed it’s earlier position and said it was NOT OK to discriminate.  

Paxton today (in a luckily non-binding opinion) issued an opinion that the board had no right to take such a position.  Apparently, however, Paxton was cool with the board taking the original anti-disability position.  Paxton, protecting the rights of Texans — unless you fall in the wrong categories.  Texas, where the state will do all it can to prevent anyone from stopping social workers from discrimination — even in 2021.  There’s Texas Friendly for ya, according to Ken Paxton!

The opinion goes on and on and on about sexual orientation and gender identity and religious freedoms. 

On disability, just so you know how the TX AG thinks of your rights, it goes like this: if the state legislature doesn’t specifically say you can’t discriminate based on disability in a specific practices, service or whatever, other folks can’t prevent that discrimination.  What good are rights without enforcement?  That’s what he seems to be counting on.

To read the full opinion click here. 

Today, the Justice Department filed a Statement of Interest in a lawsuit in the Western District of Pennsylvania to clarify that where an alleged barrier—the height of a hotel bed—is not addressed by the ADA Standards, the ADA’s general nondiscrimination provisions still apply, including making reasonable modifications where necessary to provide goods and services to people with disabilities.  The lawsuit, Migyanko v. Aimbridge Hospitality, LLC, alleges that the world’s largest third-party operator of hotels provides hotel beds that are too high for individuals who use wheelchairs or other mobility devices to transfer into them.  The lawsuit is in progress but the Department of Justice has received so many comments on this issue they decided to file this clarifying statement with the court.  Here is a short excerpt:

Guests cannot fully or equally use a hotel room if they cannot get onto the bed.  Where an individual with a disability is unable to transfer from a wheelchair onto the hotel bed, the hotel may need to make reasonable modifications to accommodate the guest.  42 U.S.C. § 12182(b)(2)(A)(ii); 28 C.F.R. § 36.302(a).⁶  Of course, in the absence of specific requirements for bed height, hotels have some degree of flexibility in making reasonable modifications to provide usable beds for a person with a disability.  This flexible standard is inherently fact-specific.  For example, some hotels might be able to use a combination of lower profile mattresses, box springs, and bed frames to lower the beds permanently in some of their rooms.  Or, some hotels could perhaps provide lower beds upon request in a room by using rollaway beds, removable bed frames, adjustable height bed frames, or bed frames on removable risers.  Such flexibility could allow hotels to continue to use higher beds for guests that prefer them, if they so choose.

To see (download and print) the full statement: click here for DOJ Bed Statement

For more information on the ADA or this Statement of Interest, please visit ADA.gov or call the toll-free ADA Information Line at 800-514-0301 (TTY 800-514-0383).