‘Think tanked’ for disability rights

Meeting for a joint “Coalition of Texans/Brain Injury Association of Texas Think Tank 2007” convention, 500 delegates advocated for change to respect the needs of Texans with disabilities.

Our state is actually trying to exempt itself from ADA compliance, restrict the sales of accessible motor vehicles, and keep attendant care wages pitifully low compared to fast food workers. Hardly glowing accomplishments for the history books!

One of this convention’s more memorable stories came from another delegate. I was told that Representative Susan King believes that former state school residents are actually incapable of thinking. Because the convention delegate that was told this was herself a former state school resident, she was first genuinely taken aback by her elected official’s comment and then by the underlying sentiment lurking behind it: “I do not have to be accountable to people with disabilities even if they are my constituents.”

King’s stereotypes, certainly not to mention the deplorable living conditions inside the state schools themselves, can only be challenged when people with disabilities are ourselves proactively and continuously telling our elected officials our own life stories. We, better than anybody else, are the experts on special education, attendant care, consumer directed services — the ‘everyday’ experiences which form our own lives.

To this end, the conference included a ‘Lobby Your Elected Officials Day’ at the State Capitol. Personal testimonies of community engagement and victory were also chronicled for a video project set up at the conference hotel. Sharing these seemingly disparate stories, we delegates effectively united through a common thread of wanting this State’s oft-touted rhetoric of ‘democracy’ to match up with our less than democratic realities.

Living at or below the poverty level, people with disabilities hardly are a ‘bourgeoisie elite’. We already rely on public assistance to help us with our own rent, medical expenses, food, and other basic needs.

With perfect timing, the U.S. Democrat Disability Issues mailing list of which I am a member simultaneously discusses how to effectively increase the political participation of people with disabilities throughout the Party structure. Certainly happy with past successes, we also believe that the Party can and should do more intra-community outreach.

Creating liaisons to the disability community in all 2008 presidential campaign organizations will bring to light our 18% voting clout — EVERY vote counts. And, no, I don’t buy for a second that ‘liaisons’ translate into ‘tokenism’; we are full citizens who would be represented by our candidates and elected officials.

Whether we're talking about assisted care or independent living programs, people with disabilities advanced our interests in the public policy process out of real-life experiences and practical necessity. We need more state parties to join our work.

In the long term, they must develop and implement their own outreach plans to voters with disabilities. Though it currently lacks a disability constituency, the Texas Democratic Party should take a page from places like Iowa, which already has a Disability Caucus in State Party structure; with an established record against extremism, the party is primed to meet this call.