{"id":134613,"date":"2017-09-08T07:35:57","date_gmt":"2017-09-08T13:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=134613"},"modified":"2017-09-08T09:08:51","modified_gmt":"2017-09-08T15:08:51","slug":"businesses-seek-cripple-americans-disabilities-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/08\/businesses-seek-cripple-americans-disabilities-act.html","title":{"rendered":"Businesses seek to cripple the Americans with Disabilities Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ADA has been in place 27 years. It was landmark legislation, protecting the rights of people with disabilities in a way that reshaped businesses and communities. “Is this accessible?” became a key question asked around all design efforts, to make sure that all people can get to the places they work, the places they shop, and their community as a whole.<\/p>\n

Yet despite its great success (and extensive consultation and compromise with the business community during its drafting<\/a>), certain groups have always hated the added expense and effort around new construction and remediation, especially having to do so proactively. So we now have HR 620, the “ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017”<\/a>. It has a variety of provisions, but a key one is that, under Title III, businesses(“public accommodations”) wouldn’t have to do a bloody thing about accessibility until they were (1) informed of the matter by someone with a complaint, in detail as to precisely what provisions of the bill they were in violation of, (2) the businesses had a chance to respond with a plan, (3) the plan didn’t show “sufficient progress” for six months (an interval the business can extend just by arguing it is<\/i> making “sufficient progress” as opposed to actually providing access).<\/p>\n

Unlike the present ADA — or civil rights legislation dating back to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — people could no longer sue in the face of a violation to force a business to actively respond, but would have to go through an elaborate rigmarole of notifications and counter-notifications and plans making “substantial progress,” which all sounds very nice and polite, but means accessibility problems go unabated through that time. As a result, businesses could easily just shrug off accessibility issues until someone actually, formally complained, and only then<\/i> start the process of showing “substantial progress” over months or years to fix the problem.<\/p>\n

(Worse, it essentially punishes business that do<\/i> go to the expense of proactively ensuring their services are accessible, by letting others skate by without compliance.)<\/p>\n

The bill also seems to encourage the setup of arbitration (“alternative dispute resolution mechanisms”) to resolve such matters, rather than using the courts. While, again, that sounds like an increased efficiency, such arbitration proceedings tend to lean toward the business interests in the matter. And there are concerns that, if the ADA can be changed this way, then other civil right legislation might be similarly hamstrung.<\/p>\n

While there are a lot of reasons given and misrepresentations of HR 620<\/a>, it’s worth noting that a substantial amount of its support in Congress comes from both sides of the aisle, largely at the behest of a broad array of business interests that have a high stake in being able to make ADA compliance voluntary-until-notified, usually with the argument<\/a>\u00a0that the current setup, after almost three decades, allows too many frivolous law suits. It’s definitely worth a holler at your own representative, whatever the party, to confirm their stance on this legislation, and make sure they aren’t buying into that position.<\/p>\n


\n
\n<\/a>
\nCongress Wants to Change the Americans With Disabilities Act and Undermine the Civil Rights of People With Disabilities<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ADA has been in place 27 years. It was landmark legislation, protecting the rights of people with disabilities in a way that reshaped businesses and communities. “Is this accessible?” became a key question asked around all design efforts, to make sure that all people can get to the places they work, the places they … Continue reading “Businesses seek to cripple the Americans with Disabilities Act”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,350,374],"tags":[1172,1173],"class_list":["post-134613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plusposts","category-civil-liberties","category-money-politics","tag-ada","tag-disability"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-5.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9341,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/25\/laziness_reache.html","url_meta":{"origin":134613,"position":0},"title":"Laziness reaches new lows","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Jul-06 2:25pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that businesses are so kindly offering fully accessible premises and lots of electronic carts\/scooters for the mobility-impaired -- well, why not exploit them? On a recent afternoon at Walt...","rel":"","context":"In "Disney\/Pixar"","block_context":{"text":"Disney\/Pixar","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/disney"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132750,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/03\/its-good-to-have-friends-in-high-places.html","url_meta":{"origin":134613,"position":1},"title":"It's Good to Have "Friends" In High Places","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 3-Feb-17 4:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Dodd-Frank reforms were put in only a very few years ago, in a compromise attempt to keep banks from doing the screwball gambling that led to the Great Recession under the previous GOP President. But ...Quoth our new monied class President (emphasis mine): \"We expect to be cutting a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39560,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/11\/04\/hardly-shocking-news-on-enda.html","url_meta":{"origin":134613,"position":2},"title":"Hardly shocking news on ENDA","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 4-Nov-13 11:40am","format":false,"excerpt":"Did anyone actually expect John Boehner or the House GOP to support a law that prohibits, as federal law, discrimination against gays?What's only noteworthy is that it comes as the Senate seems to be solidifying to be able to bypass a threatened GOP filibuster there and pass the law. \u00a0If\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48528,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/25\/the-government-act-that-dare-not-speak-its-name.html","url_meta":{"origin":134613,"position":3},"title":"The government act that dare not speak it's name","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Nov-14 5:40am","format":false,"excerpt":"If a government action has become so controversial, so troublesome for participants, so in violation of ethics codes, and so problematic that for-profit businesses won't touch it... maybe you should reconsider doing it any more, rather than granting legal and professional immunity and making the whole proceeding all sooper-sekret. Just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7173,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/10\/14\/this_will_make.html","url_meta":{"origin":134613,"position":4},"title":"This will make me sleep better tonight","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Oct-04 9:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"In a nation ravaged by crime and trying to crack down on potential terrorist attacks, our fearless attorney general is out there making the biggest crooks of all a \"top...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17440,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/05\/22\/unblogged-bits-sat-22-may-10-0200.html","url_meta":{"origin":134613,"position":5},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Sat. 22-May-10 0200)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 22-May-10 12:00am","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... 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Tom the Dancing Bug: Nate - Oil Spill - Haven't I seen this guy as a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134616,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134613\/revisions\/134616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}