Disabled occupy
House offices;
59 are arrested


By Frank Wolfe and Sonsyrea Tate
The Washington Times 3/15/90

About 300 disabled demonstrators from 40 states occupied two congressional offices and the House Judiciary Committee room in the Rayburn House Office Building for about five hours yesterday before Capitol Police began making arrests.

The participants at times discarded wheelchairs and dropped to the floor in one representative's office as part of their demonstration for passage — without weakening amendments — of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Last night, 59 persons were arrested for unlawful entry when they refused to leave the building after the House ended its session about 8 p.m., Capitol Police said. The rest of the demonstrators left peacefully. Police, some wearing optional rubber gloves, carried the demonstrators out.

The protest began about 3:15 p.m. when the activists, including 101 arrested Monday in the Capitol Rotunda, occupied the offices of Reps. Hamilton Fish Jr., New York Republican, and Bud Shuster, Pennsylvania Republican. Members of the group also occupied the meeting room of the Judiciary Committee, which is slated to consider the bill. It has passed the Energy and Commerce Committee by a 40-3 vote.

But one of the amendments would make flexible the requirement that mass-transit authorities provide lift-equipped transportation for disabled people. Authorities could choose instead to provide “paratransit" services such as minivans.

Protest leaders are concerned that such flexibility would lead to “segregated busing" in many states, said Mike Auberger, co-founder of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation and one of the protest organizers.

Mr. Shuster was in a meeting of the House Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday afternoon and belatedly learned of the protest.

Mr. Fish, ranking minority member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, offered his support for the bill with no weakening amendments and said he would use all measures available to him to defeat any such amendments, according to Ed Tessier, a quadriplegic who helped to organize the protest. Those assembled in Mr. Fish’s office then left.

Later in the afternoon, demonstrators occupied Mr. Shuster‘s office, demanding to see the congressman and hoping to make it difficult for staff employees to leave.

Mr. Shuster, a member of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee, acknowledged the demonstrators’ grievances and said the proposed transportation budget is severely lacking in money allotted for mass transit.

“My heart goes out to them," the congressman told The Washington Times in a telephone interview. “I'm in a unique position. My mother was a double amputee in a wheelchair. I have more intimate experiences with the plight and problems of the disabled than perhaps any other member of Congress."

The bill is slated for two other House committees, the House Committee on the Judiciary and the House Committee on Public Works and Transportation — committees the two congressmen sit on - before reaching the floor of the House.

Mr. Shuster said that 100 percent federal mandate" wheelchairs would add 10 percent to the cost of buses and would provide “zero accessibility" for the thousands of disabled who need more comprehensive para-transit services, such as the minivan to transport them to bus stops.

"This is a feel-good bill," he said. “There is no money accompanying the bill to pay for the costs it is proposing." He cited New York City, where he said there is, on average, one wheelchair rider per 19 buses, as an example of the need for a mix of lift—equipped buses and paratransit services.

If there is a federal mandate on lift-equipped buses, he said, there would be a reduction in services for handicapped riders and for the general public.

Created on

Friday 12 July 2013

Posted on

Friday 3 July 2015

Tags

accessible transit, ADA, ADAPT, arrest, buses, Congressman Bud Shuster, lift-equipped, Mike Auberger, paratransit, Rep. Hamliton Fish

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