1) What’s Happening in the Nation’s Capital?
Senate Confirms Elena Kagan's Nomination to Supreme Court
NCIL Welcomes New Policy Analyst Austin Walker!
2) National News
Rosa’s Law Passes the Senate; On to the House!
Social Security’s 75th Birthday: Protect It from Efforts to Reduce the Federal Deficit
National Pollster Says ADA Voters are a Key Constituency
Disingenuous Peter Singer Tries to Wiggle Out of Infanticide Scorn
3) State News
Disability Scholar and Activist Paul K. Longmore Dies at 64 at His Home in San Francisco
4) Announcements and Additional Resources
Call for Blogs by People with Disabilities on International Experiences
Veteran Caregiver Study
Senate Confirms Elena Kagan's Nomination to Supreme Court
Source: Washington Post, by Paul Kane and Robert Barnes
The Senate confirmed U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan on Thursday as the 112th justice to the Supreme Court, making her the fourth woman to sit on the court.
On a vote of 63 to 37, Kagan, who will succeed retired justice John Paul Stevens, became the second member President Obama has placed on the high court. One year ago, Sonia Sotomayor won confirmation as the court's first Latina.
Some Democrats have said they hope that the lifetime appointment of Kagan, a consensus-building liberal, will nudge the court slightly to the left.
Her confirmation is considered unlikely to immediately shift the court's ideology, however. Although she is expected to fit comfortably within the liberal wing of the court, she does not seem to be as liberal as Stevens was during his final years on the bench. Read More.
NCIL Welcomes New Policy Analyst Austin Walker!
We are very pleased to announce and introduce you to NCIL’s new Policy Analyst, Austin Walker. The target issues Austin will be working on will be determined and announced soon. In the mean time, please help us welcome the newest member of our team! Here is a short introduction:
My name is Austin Walker and I recently started work as a Policy Analyst for NCIL in Washington, DC. My previous IL experience comes from working at Paraquad, a CIL in St. Louis, Missouri, where I specialized in grassroots advocacy and employment for people with disabilities. I am very excited to begin working on issues important to NCIL advocates, and look forward fighting alongside you for civil rights and equal opportunity.
Rosa’s Law Passes the Senate; On to the House!
Last year, Senator Barbara Mikulski introduced Rosa’s Law (S. 2781), which will eliminate the terms “Mental Retardation” and “Mentally Retarded” from all federal laws and replace them with the terms “Intellectual Disability” and “individual with an intellectual disability”.
At the beginning of this month, S. 2781 was passed by the Senate with unanimous consent. It has now been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Education and Labor Committee.
NCIL encourages you to contact your Representative and urge them to co-sponsor this important legislation. Find your Representative by entering your zip code on the House website. Tell them the importance of Rosa’s Law and how this change will make a difference to more than 7 million individuals with intellectual disabilities, 3% of the population.
Social Security’s 75th Birthday: Protect It from Efforts to Reduce the Federal Deficit
As the nation celebrates the 75th birthday of the Social Security system, a presidentially appointed bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is working to identify policies to improve the nation’s fiscal situation, including ways to reduce the federal deficit by 2015. One work group is discussing issues related to mandatory spending, which includes Social Security benefits. The Commission’s final report and recommendations are due no later than December 1, 2010 and they will require approval of at least 14 of its 18 members. The Commission members are listed on its website: http://www.fiscalcommission.gov.
What You Can Do: We need your help to educate Members of Congress and the public about why Social Security is so important to eligible people with disabilities and their family members. Both the House and Senate will be in recess until Tuesday, September 14.
- Call your Senators and Representatives at their home / District offices or attend any local events that they are holding in your area.
- Remind them that Social Security has been a critical foundation for families for 75 years.
- Urge them to remember that Social Security is a promise made to all workers to provide a guaranteed basic income when they retire, become disabled, or leave loved ones behind.
- Urge them to ensure that the promise of Social Security will continue to be there for people who work and pay into the system.
The Message: Social Security provides people with disabilities and their families a guaranteed monthly payment that is adjusted annually for inflation. Social Security must continue to provide insurance against poverty in retirement years and against disability limiting a person’s ability to work. Social Security’s funding is not part of the deficit problem; in fact, the Social Security trust funds have a surplus of $2.6 trillion for paying future benefits. There is no need to cut Social Security benefits.
National Pollster Says ADA Voters are a Key Constituency
Source: AAPD, The Hill
Mark Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982. Current clients include the majority leaders of both the House and Senate. In a recent article in The Hill aimed at pollsters, campaign professionals, and candidates Mellman wrote:
We often forget, though, that people with disabilities are also voters. They rarely show up on our cross-tabs (cross-tabulations being comparisons of polling data) or campaign plans, but more than 30 million Americans with disabilities are of voting age, and some 15 million actually turned out in 2008, despite physical impediments at over a quarter of the national polling places, according to a Government Accountability Office study.
To put those numbers in perspective, the "disabled vote" is nearly as large as the African-American vote, 50 percent larger than the Latino vote and many times larger than the Jewish vote - all segments that do receive substantial attention from campaigns.
The disabled vote is not only large, it's also swing - supporting George W. Bush in '04 and Barack Obama in '08. Campaigns as well as lawmakers would do well to devote more attention to this overlooked but important segment.
The article is available on The Hill website:
- In this year's elections, turnout will drop 25-60% depending on the race.
- The census will document disability turnout for the first time in a nonpresidential election.
- Voter drop-off is largest amongst first time and infrequent voters.
- More than 4 million voters with disabilities are first time or infrequent voters.
Organize Get Out the Vote drives now!
Disingenuous Peter Singer Tries to Wiggle Out of Infanticide Scorn
Source: First Things First Blog, by Wesley J. Smith
In [a new video called “The Case for Allowing Euthanasia of Severely Handicapped Infants”], Peter Singer pretends that his call for allowing infanticide is merely about preventing the suffering of infants with ultimately terminal conditions, and limited to situations in which a decision has been made by parents and doctors to let them die by withdrawing life-extending medical treatment. At that point, he says, he supports taking actions to end their lives “swiftly and humanely” since they are going to die within a relatively short time anyway after a miserable life. And he can’t understand why disability rights groups would oppose such humane ideas when they should support eliminating the suffering of their doomed brothers and sisters.
But that is lying by omission. Singer believes infants are not persons and thus, do not have a right to life. But knowing most people would not support killing “normal” infants, he uses examples of killing a disabled baby to promote the morality of infanticide based on utilitarian equations. And this is a very calculated strategy to make the odious concept more palatable (which it shouldn’t) to general society. Read the rest of the blog and watch the video (uncaptioned, but the full text of the interview is available at BigThink).
Disability Scholar and Activist Paul K. Longmore Dies at 64 at His Home in San Francisco
Source: Los Angeles Times, by Valerie J. Nelson
Unable to use his hands because of a childhood bout with polio, Paul K. Longmore wrote his first book by punching a keyboard with a pen he held in his mouth. It took him 10 years, and when he was done, he burned a copy in front of the Federal Building downtown.
By taking a match to "The Invention of George Washington" in 1988, the scholar brought national attention to a campaign to reform Social Security policies that discourage [professionals with disabilities] from working.
Some of the most restrictive penalties were soon lifted — including one preventing him from earning royalties on books — in a policy change that became known as the Longmore Amendment.
Longmore, a leading disability scholar and activist who taught at San Francisco State, died Aug. 9 of natural causes at his San Francisco home, said his sister, Ellen Brown. He was 64.
"He devoted his life to making this a better and more just world," Robert A. Corrigan, the university's president, said in a statement. "Legendary, inspirational, pioneering, irreverent … many words are needed to sum up this remarkable man."
As a major founder of disability studies, Longmore helped establish it as a field of academic research and teaching. In 1996, he helped start San Francisco State's Institute for Disability Studies and was its director. Longmore worked to bring the discipline to other college campuses and provided leadership at disability rights rallies across the state and nation. Read More.
Call for Blogs by People with Disabilities on International Experiences
People with disabilities are invited to send in personal blogs about participation in international exchange programs by September 1, 2010. Please share this paid opportunity with people with disabilities currently residing in the United States (all nationalities welcome).
Do you keep an international travel blog? Would you like to share it with other people with disabilities who are interested in going abroad? If you are a person with a disability and have either studied, interned or volunteered abroad, the National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange (NCDE) would like to hear from you. Qualifying authors will earn $50 and their blogs will be posted to NCDE’s Stories and Blogs page!
Visit http://www.miusa.org/ncde/ncdenewsevents/storiescall to learn whether you qualify.
Veteran Caregiver Study
The National Alliance for Caregiving is conducting a study to learn about the types of resources, programs, and supports that family caregivers need to adequately assist our nation’s veterans. Information is being collected through focus groups, telephone interviews and an online survey. Family caregivers of veterans from all eras are needed to participate in the study.
This study will provide an opportunity for family caregivers of Veterans to be heard and to improve services for caregivers of Veterans now and beyond. The National Alliance for Caregiving is a non-profit research organization and has conducted many national research studies on caregiving.
If you wish to take part in this study, please log on to: www.gwsurvey.com/caregiversofveterans.html. Survey ends September 15, 2010. Cash incentives will be available for caregivers who complete telephone interviews and for Veterans who refer them. Online survey participants will be eligible to win one of ten $100 cash prizes.
Caregivers are: relatives, friends, and neighbors providing unpaid assistance to Veterans helping with everyday activities, including personal care—help with bathing, dressing, or feeding assisting with medications and other treatments, transportation to doctors’ appointments arranging for services, and assisting Veterans with PTSD or TBI. Caregivers of Veterans from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and other conflicts through the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will be included in the study.
For more information, please contact Kathy Cameron at kathleen56@caregiving.org or 703-585-6607. For caregivers who do not have Internet access, the online survey is also available in a paper version to complete and return via regular mail.
Information obtained from the focus groups, telephone interviews, and Internet survey will be completely confidential and will not be connected to the individual caregivers participating in the study. This project is funded by a grant from the United Health Foundation.
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August 16, 2010