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Tuesday,
Oct. 24, 1995

[Headline] Disabled seize state GOP offices
[Subheading] Lansing protesters want more funds for home care
By Mark Hornbeck
Detroit News Lansing Bureau

LANSING — Some 200 handicapped protesters seized the state Republican Party headquarters Monday for more than two hours and demanded to talk with Gov. John Engler and U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich about spending more federal money for home care.

Members of the militant American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT), many in wheel-chairs, arrived in vans at the GOP offices on Lansing's east side about 3 p.m. and crowded into the small building.

Eight staffers fled through the back door, and two others were trapped inside for more than an hour until Lansing Township police arrived to escort them out.

ADAPT leaders talked with aides to Engler and Gingrich. They cleared out of the building by 5:30 p.m.

Lansing Township Police Chief Jeff Ashley said one woman was arrested for kicking a police officer in the thigh. She was given a personal appearance notice and was released. She was identified as Leslie Cronk of Lansing.

"We weren't going to make mass arrests," Ashley said "We just waited them out."

No serious injuries were reported.

"They blocked the exits and made a few rude comments, but that was about it," said Lori Tomek, communications director for the state GOP, who was one of the two GOP employees trapped in the building.

Bob Liston of Ypsilanti, state organizer for ADAPT, said the aim of the protest was to draw attention to the plight of the handicapped in nursing homes. ADAPT wants 20 percent of the $65 billion in Medicaid flInds redirected from nursing homes to home or community care.

"Engler is helping Gingrich and (U.S. Senate Majority Leader) Bob Dole write the federal block grant legislation, so this seemed like the place to be to have impact," Liston said.

Engler, a national leader on welfare reform, was in Cincinnati Monday at a National Governors Association conference.

ADAPT leaders wrote him a letter requesting a meeting two weeks ago, Liston said. Engler spokesman John Truscott met with them at GOP headquarters and told them the governor would be unavailable for a meeting.

"We're not going to react to these kinds of threats," Truscott said.

"The irony of this is the governor supports private home care because it offers better care and is less expensive. So they came to the wrong place."

Mark Johnson, a national leader of ADAPT, said he talked with Gingrich aides on the telephone from the party offices. He said the speaker's aides promised there would be a bill calling for more money for home care, but they refused to say when it would be introduced.

"We'll stay in town until we get a chance to talk with Gov. Engler," said Johnson, who lives in Gingrich's U.S. House district in Georgia.

Johnson said the protesters, who carried signs that said "Nursing homes kill" and "Newt Gingrich doesn't get it," were from 20 states. They reportedly were registered in nearly 140 rooms at the Radisson Hotel near the state Capitol.

Earlier this year, ADAPT conducted protests in Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

State GOP Chairwoman Susy Heintz, who watched the protest from her car in the parking lot, said she was concerned about files and computer equipment in the building. But a check after the protesters left turned up no apparent damage.

"I don't think there was anything we could have done to satisfy them," she said. "This is an in-your-face kind of group."

Earlier Monday, the protesters temporarily closed down Walden book stores at two Lansing area malls and knocked Gingrich's books off shelves.

[Image]
[Image caption] Protesters jam the GOP offices in Lansing on Monday. Dale G. Young /The Detroit News

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