20th Anniversary Of Enactment Of The Americans With Disabilities Act Of 1990

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, next Monday marks the 20th anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA is one of America's great civil rights achievements. In its scope and intentions, it ranks alongside major victories for equal justice, like the 15th and 19th amendments, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

I would like to recognize and congratulate my friend and colleague Tom Harkin for his instrumental role in authoring this legislation 20 years ago. He has been a steadfast advocate for people with disabilities, and with his leadership last Congress we passed the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 to restore the full promise of the ADA after it been distorted and diluted by a series of bad Federal court decisions.

I am deeply proud to have voted for the ADA in 1990 because this law produced changes in society--removing physical barriers, prohibiting discrimination, and changing attitudes--that we might take for granted today.

Before passage of this law, people with disabilities were too often denied the opportunity to fully participate in society. Back then, if you needed a haircut, if you had to see a doctor, if you just wanted to meet a friend for a cup of coffee, you probably had to rely on family, friends, or a social service agency. Very few transit systems in this country had buses or trains that were accessible to people using wheelchairs.

We passed the ADA to fulfill the Nation's goals of equality of opportunity, independent living, economic self sufficiency, and full participation for Americans with disabilities. Twenty years later, it is clear that this pioneering law is fulfilling its promise in many ways.

You can see it right outside on the sidewalk with curb cuts, ramps, Braille signs, and assistive listening devices. The physical changes the ADA has brought about benefit all Americans, not just those with disabilities. We have seen progress in public transportation and public accommodations. Because of the ADA and IDEA together, thousands of Americans with disabilities have gone to good schools, received good educations, and entered the workforce.

The Americans with Disabilities Act does not grant people with disabilities any special status or position. To the contrary, it simply removes certain barriers that for too long had made it difficult--if not impossible for people with disabilities to make the most of their God-given skills and abilities, and to participate fully in their communities and in the workplace.

Despite the important changes made by the ADA, we still have work to do to ensure that people with disabilities achieve the full promise of the law. Twenty years after enactment, people with disabilities still experience barriers that interfere with their full participation in mainstream American life.

The promise of equal employment opportunity for people with disabilities remains largely unfulfilled.

More than 60 percent of working-age Americans with disabilities are unemployed. Americans with disabilities who do work tend to be concentrated in lower paying jobs. As a result, individuals with disabilities are three times as likely to live in poverty as individuals without disabilities. That has to change. Most people with disabilities want to work, and have to work.

Many people with disabilities continue to live in segregated institutional settings because the support services they need to live in the community don't exist or aren't affordable. And many public and private buildings still aren't accessible to people with disabilities.

It is important to take the time today to recognize the barriers we have eliminated for people with disabilities, and recognize that we still have work to do. We need to continue tearing down the subtler barriers that prevent far too many people with disabilities from participating fully in our economy, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it is the smart thing to do.

When President George H. W. Bush signed the ADA in 1990, people on both sides of the aisle cheered and the President proclaimed: ``With today's signing of the landmark ADA, every man, woman and child with a disability can now pass through once-closed doors into a bright new era of equality, independence and freedom.''

That remains our vision, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to widen that door even further so more Americans can pass through.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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