Press release – ADAPT Seeks Senate Majority Leader’s Support on Legislation Advancing the Freedom of People with Disabilities

10/21/19 PRESS ALERT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For More information:
Anita Cameron: (585) 259-8746, anitacameron007@gmail.com
Josue Rodriguez: (915) 449-3834, Josue.adapt@yahoo.com
Scott Nance: (773) 793-6969, ssnance@hotmail.com

WHO: ADAPT
WHAT: ADAPT Seeks Senate Majority Leader’s Support on Legislation Advancing the Freedom of People with Disabilities
WHERE: 317 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
WHEN: October 21, 2019

The grassroots Disability Rights organization, ADAPT, is at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office today seeking his assistance in advancing their legislative priorities. The group is working to pass the Disability Integration Act (DIA). The bicameral, bipartisan legislation, which would ensure the rights of Disabled American’s to live in the freedom of the community, has 237 cosponsors in the House, and needs only 19 additional cosponsors in the Senate for a majority in both chambers.

ADAPT is working closely with Senator Gardner (CO-R), the Republican lead on DIA, to secure Republican support in the Senate. ADAPT believes that the powerful Senate Majority Leader is in a position to move the bill and may see passing the legislation as an opportunity in an election year to apply pressure to the Democrats who have held up the bill in the house.

“The right to live in freedom is not, and should never be a partisan issue, we are working with the people who are helping us get our freedom we will happily work with the other,” said ADAPT organizer Anita Cameron, of Rochester ADAPT.

ADAPT and McConnell are not without their history. On June 22, 2017, the alarming images of the arrest of sixty members of the organization at McConnell’s office was the start of the efforts to save the Affordable Care Act. In what many now call ‘Summer of ADAPT’ the organization went on to average three actions a day across thirty states for three months and is widely credited with defeating the efforts to repeal Obamacare. Still the group does not believe their past will prevent McConnell from working with them.

“Over the years, we have worked very successfully with many of the people we have protested,” said ADAPT organizer Dawn Russell of Denver/Atlantis ADAPT. “I was arrested is Senator Gardner’s office, but that didn’t stop him from understanding that people with disabilities are languishing in nursing facilities and becoming a champion for our freedom and the bill that will ensure it.”

ADAPT is also asking Majority Leader McConnell to support is the Empower Care Act, legislation that would renew the funding for Money Follows the Person (MFP). Created under the George W. Bush administration MFP has enabled thousands of disabled people to transition out of nursing homes and into the community by ensuring that the funding for their services would not be tied to a particular location but rather to the individual. “There are few pieces of legislation that have done more to ensure our freedom,” said ADAPT organizer Scott Nance, of Chicago ADAPT. “There is no reason not to continue this success story!”

ADAPT is asking Majority Leader McConnell to work with Senate Republicans to hold hearings for these bills and to sign on as a cosponsor.

For decades ADAPT has worked to secure for disabled Americans the same rights and liberties enjoyed by their nondisabled neighbors. ADAPT’s history, the issues we are fighting for and our activities can be followed on our web site at www.adapt.org, our ADAPT Facebook page and on Twitter – look for #ADAPTandRESIST