August 05, 2020

Duckworth Condemns GOP Attacks on Disability Community in Republican COVID-19 Proposal

 

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] — U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) spoke on the Senate floor tonight to condemn the latest Republican attacks on the disability community in their COVID-19 proposal, the HEALS Act, which includes several provisions that would gut the ADA, fail to provide desperately-needed funding for Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services and threaten to deprive Americans living with disabilities of their fundamental rights to live independent, regular and productive lives. Video of the Senator’s speech is available here.

Key quotes:

 

  • “I speak out of a sense frustration as I watch my Republican colleagues—including ones who once championed the ADA—attempt to reconstruct, brick by brick, the shameful wall of exclusion that Congress sought to tear down three decades ago. Less than a week after celebrating the 30th anniversary of a Republican President declaring that the ADA would bring us ‘closer to that day when no Americans will ever again be deprived of their basic guarantee of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ Senate Republicans put forward legislation that threatens to deprive our community of those same fundamental rights.”
  • “If Senate Republicans want to demonstrate that they value life… that they value the civil rights of all Americans… they must join Democrats in supporting two measures that would show the disability community that their party actually gives a darn about them. First, we need to save lives by preventing mass institutionalization. Second, Senate Republicans must abandon efforts to gut the ADA, once and for all.”
  • “Disability rights are human rights, and these civil rights must never become optional benefits that can be taken away whenever it’s convenient or cheaper for employers and those in power. Allowing businesses to exclude employees with disabilities from reopening plans is exactly the type of discrimination that the ADA sought to abolish. Yet the GOP’s HEALS Act seeks to relegate millions of Americans back to second-class status… sending the offensive message that our community can be cast aside if the costs to companies are too high.”

Duckworth’s full remarks as delivered are below:

I’m speaking tonight on behalf of the millions of Americans living with disabilities… and on behalf of the many more who—whether they know it or not—are just one day… one split second… away from acquiring a disability as well.

I’ve come to the floor on their behalf. Because I came to the floor by rolling through the Capitol’s corridors in the wheelchair you see behind me.

And I could come to the floor because 30 years ago, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, granting millions of Americans like me better access to the full, independent lives we deserve.

That landmark legislation only passed because of the dedicated activists who crowded in front of this very building in 1990 to demand that their country finally give those with disabilities the basic rights the Constitution promised…

It only became law because dozens of them got out of their wheelchairs… set down their crutches… and crawled up the 83 stone steps of the Capitol….

Because Jennifer Keelan, an eight-year-old with cerebral palsy, pulled herself to the top of those steps, saying: “I'll take all night if I have to.”

And because those around her refused to leave a fellow American behind… offering Jennifer support when she needed it… one step, one shoulder to lean on at a time.

Thirty years ago, those activists changed Senators’ hearts, minds and, most importantly, votes.

Thirty years ago, this legislative body said people like me mattered.

But last week, the Republicans in this chamber proposed a bill that said we don’t.

I speak out of a sense frustration as I watch my Republican colleagues—including ones who once championed the ADA—attempt to reconstruct, brick by brick, the shameful wall of exclusion that Congress sought to tear down three decades ago.

Less than a week after celebrating the 30th anniversary of a Republican President declaring that the ADA would bring us, quote: “closer to that day when no Americans will ever again be deprived of their basic guarantee of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Senate Republicans put forward legislation that threatens to deprive our community of those same fundamental rights.

Many interpreted the timing of the HEALS Act as confirmation of an alarming fact: The GOP has declared war on the disability community and the ADA.

I hope this is not the case, and that the timing was a deeply unfortunate coincidence. But at the end of the day, actions speak far louder than words.

If Senate Republicans want to demonstrate that they value life… that they value the civil rights of all Americans… they must join Democrats in supporting two measures that would show the disability community that their party actually gives a darn about them:

First, we need to save lives by preventing mass institutionalization. Placing individuals with disabilities into congregate care facilities where the risks of serious illness and death are high is reckless and unacceptable.

To achieve this goal, we must increase the Federal Medicaid Assistance Percentages—or FMAP [F-MAP]—by 10% for Medicaid Home and Community Based Services.

Republican and Democratic governors alike desperately need this change. The House already passed this 10% FMAP increase months ago, and the Senate must follow suit in any COVID relief deal that is reached.

Real world experience has tragically demonstrated how vulnerable congregate care settings are to deadly super-spreader events.

And we know from existing data that Americans with intellectual and developmental disabilities are killed at far higher rates than other Americans when infected with COVID-19.

So investing in State efforts to provide Medicaid services to vulnerable populations in the safety of their own homes is just a commonsense policy that would save countless lives.  

Second, Senate Republicans must abandon efforts to gut the ADA, once and for all.

Disability rights are human rights, and these civil rights must never become optional benefits that can be taken away whenever it’s convenient or cheaper for employers and those in power.

Allowing businesses to exclude employees with disabilities from reopening plans is exactly the type of discrimination that the ADA sought to abolish.

Yet the GOP’s HEALS Act seeks to relegate millions of Americans back to second-class status… sending the offensive message that our community can be cast aside if the costs to companies are too high.

But the harsh reality is that these efforts are anything but new.

Decades ago, when my friend Judy Heumann passed her exams to earn a teaching license, she was nevertheless denied the license by the School Board—all because of so-called concerns about legal liability in the workplace.

They said that because Judy used a wheelchair, she represented a fire hazard and couldn’t safely teach in a classroom. Do these types of concerns sound familiar?

The passage of the ADA was supposed to relegate such workplace discrimination stories to the history books. Those outrageous examples of injustice were supposed to represent the nightmares of yesterday, not the reality of a tomorrow made possible by a Republican proposal today.

Yet here we are in 2020, and Senate Republicans are shamelessly using a deadly pandemic as cover to gut the ADA and hoist that brick wall of exclusion right back up.

No one is asking for special treatment. What we are asking for is to not take away those basic rights the Constitution promised all those centuries ago and this chamber affirmed three decades ago.

So as we debate this next relief package, the questions that every member of this body must ask themselves are simple:

Are we going to leave Americans with disabilities behind?

Are their lives worth saving? Are their jobs expendable?

For anyone with a conscience… for anyone with an ounce of compassion or even just a lick of respect for the rule of law… the answers to those questions should be obvious.

In the Army, our Soldier’s Creed included never leaving a fallen comrade behind. And I’m alive today because of my buddies in Iraq who risked their own lives to recover my body when they thought I was dead, refusing to leave me behind.

The activists who crawled their way up the Capitol steps did much the same for each other: helping one another make their way up, inch by inch, closer to the Chamber I am in right now, refusing to let any one of them struggle… to let any one of them fall behind.

I’m here on the floor tonight because of those two acts of courage from two different groups of people continents away and a decade a half apart.

And now, as a Senator, my North Star is paying that debt of honor forward and trying to live up to the sacrifices they made for others.

So today, tomorrow and the tomorrow after that, you better believe that I’m gonna keep fighting to hold the Senate accountable for living up to the motto of the nation we serve: E Pluribus Unum, Out of Many, One.

Because this country was built on that idea. It was born from the phrase “We the People.” And it grew out of the belief that there’s nothing more powerful than the will of the citizenry when the citizenry works with each other and for each other.

Our response to this pandemic is a test of our faith in that founding doctrine. If we focus on the we—if we think about uniting the many into the one—then we can save lives and move past this national trauma together.

But it’s up to each one of us to act in a way that protects all of us… to act in a way that ensures no one—nobody, disabled or otherwise—will be left behind.

With that, I yield the floor.

 

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