Voters with Disabilities

 In The Politics of Autism, I write:  "Support from the general public will be an important political asset for autistic people. Another will be their sheer numbers, since a larger population of identified autistic adults will mean more autistic voters and activists."

Trump has a horrible record on disability, both on policy and his personal behavior.

KENYA HUNTER and AYANNA ALEXANDER at AP:

A new report from Rutgers University estimates that about 40.2 million eligible voters in the quickly approaching U.S. presidential election are disabled. Add those who cohabitate with people who have a disability, and you’re looking at close to one-third of the voting population for an election in which health care is among the key campaign issues.

The disabled voting bloc is growing as the U.S. population ages, but voters and advocates say the hurdles that make people feel excluded from the electoral process aren’t being addressed. That ranges from inaccessible campaign materials to former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris seldomly mentioning how issues like COVID-19 impact the disability community, as well as Trump making a statement at a rally last month that advocacy groups considered discriminatory.

“They should be treating us like we’re their path to victory because we are, frankly,” said Dom Kelly, the founder and CEO of New Disabled South, an advocacy group that focuses on disability rights in the South. “You win or lose because of disabled people, and if you don’t take our community seriously, that will reflect on the outcome of your campaign.”

Lisa Schur and her husband Doug Kruse lead the Program for Disabilities Research at Rutgers and co-wrote the new report, which also shows there are 7.1 million disabled voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

...

The Harris campaign recently hired Anastasia Somoza as its disability engagement director. Somoza, who has cerebral palsy and uses a motorized wheelchair, said the Harris campaign will host an event with disabled entrepreneurs in Pittsburgh on Monday. Somoza also said she tries to make sure there’s a virtual option for all campaign events.

In 2023, the vice president met with leaders in the disability space about transportation issues, and she has proposed paying for home care with Medicare and eliminating subminimum wage for disabled workers.

But the two presidential campaigns could do more, said Holly Latham at #MEAction, which advocates for people with chronic fatigue syndrome. She said ads, fliers and events need to be accessible to all disabled people.

Lisa Schur and Douglas Kruse, "Projecting the Number of Eligible Voters with Disabilities in the November 2024 Elections"

The number of eligible voters with disabilities is growing with the aging of the population and advances in medical technology. This brief report summarizes projections of how many people with disabilities will be eligible to vote in the November 2024 elections, based on analysis of data from the Census Bureau’s 2018-2022 American Community Survey combined with Census Bureau population projections for 2024. The methodology is described at the end of the report. 

The key findings, as shown in Table 1 and pictured in Figure 1, are: 

• A projected 40.2 million people with disabilities will be eligible to vote in the November 2024 elections, representing close to one-sixth of the total electorate. 
• The number of eligible voters with disabilities has increased 5.1% since 2020, compared to an increase of 2.5% among eligible voters without disabilities. 
• There will be 72.7 million eligible voters who either have a disability or have a household member with a disability, almost one-third of the total electorate.

Trump Despises People with Disabilities

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns. In this campaign, a number of posts have discussed Trump's support for the lie that vaccines cause autism. He also has a bad record on disability issues more generally.  He told his nephew Fred that severely disabled people -- such as Fred's son -- should "just die."

He has also used the r-word, and Lordy, there are tapes.

Maegan Vazquez and Sabrina Rodriguez a WP:

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’s mental capacity Saturday, falsely claiming she was born “mentally impaired” and comparing her actions to that of “a mentally disabled person.” The remarks prompted criticism from advocates for people with disabilities.

Disparaging Harris’s actions on border security as vice president, Trump told the crowd in Prairie du Chien, Wis., “Kamala is mentally impaired. If a Republican did what she did, that Republican would be impeached and removed from office, and rightfully so, for high crimes and misdemeanors.”

He later suggested Harris “was born that way,” prompting cheers in the crowd.

“Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way. She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country,” he said, elaborating on a claim backed by no evidence. He called Harris “a very dumb person,” and repeatedly mispronounced her first name, an action some supporters see as demeaning and racist.

Biden’s faltering debate performance prompted criticism about his mental acuity and his eventual decision to drop out.

The comments, which were part of what Trump acknowledged was “a dark speech,” drew swift criticism. Maria Town, CEO and president of the American Association of People with Disabilities, said in a statement to The Washington Post that Trump’s comments “say far more about him and his inaccurate, hateful biases against disabled people than it does about Vice President Harris, or any person with a disability.”

“Trump holds the ableist, false belief that if a person has a disability, they are less human and less worthy of dignity,” she added. “These perceptions are incorrect, and are harmful to people with disabilities.”

Kamala Harris on Disabilities

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the issue's role in presidential campaigns.

Biden has chosen Kamala Harris as his running mate.  During her own campaign, she released a position paper on disabilities.

Kamala Harris, Medium, August 29, 2019:

Recommitting to building inclusive economic opportunity in America

According to CDC data, about a quarter of people in the United States have a disability. Kamala believes in an America that is fully accessible and inclusive for everyone and her administration will fight to make this a reality across all parts of our society. As president, Kamala will have diverse leaders with disabilities developing all the policies her administration champions, including priorities that will lift up people with disabilities.

To do this we must expand economic opportunity and security for people with disabilities. In 2018, the unemployment rate for workers with disabilities was more than twice that for workers without disabilities. Only 32 percent of people with disabilities who are working-age are employed. On the other hand, 73 percent of people without disabilities in the same age group are employed. Just as we fight to finally eliminate practices that lead to people with disabilities being paid subminimum wages, we also have to speak the truth about how we need to eliminate barriers that make it harder for people with disabilities to fully participate in our workforce.

Under Kamala’s leadership, in partnership with the disability community, we can build an America that lives up to the promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Our country is stronger when everyone is valued, everyone has dignity, and everyone can be part of the competitive labor force.

WHAT SHE’LL DO:

She’ll fight to create inclusive emp loyment opportunities that pay people with disabilities their full value.

She’ll pass the Transformation to Competitive Employment Act, which will establish a grant program for states to help redesign business models and strategies to increase employment of people with disabilities in competitive integrated employment.

People with disabilities are both more likely to work in low wage fields as well as be paid less than the minimum wage. That’s why she’ll pass the Raise the Wage Act, which will not only raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour but will also phase out the “subminimum” wage.

She’ll remove barriers that make it harder for people with disabilities to take advantage of job opportunities.

Kamala will make changes to the vocational rehabilitation system at the Department of Education, which gives grants to states to help people with disabilities prepare for, secure, and retain employment. Kamala will make sure that the grant program covers a wider range of services and supports for a greater number of people to help more people with disabilities get the workplace accommodations, adaptive technology and devices, and other things that can be barriers to finding and maintaining a job.

And she’ll fight to increase funding for the program so that it can serve everyone who would benefit from assistance under it.

She’ll expand accessible, affordable transportation and housing options, which are key supports for anyone participating in the workforce.

Federal civil rights laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act already require that our transportation systems and housing projects be fully accessible. However, these accommodations still have accessibility issues because efforts to make the projects fully accessible are frequently not done at the front-end of the project.

For example, more than a quarter of rail stations across the country are not fully accessible to people with disabilities. The same is true of 12% of the U.S. rail fleet.

Kamala will address this by taking executive action to direct the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to require that funding recipients submit plans detailing how their projects will be fully accessible prior to receiving funding.

She’ll fight to pass the IDEA Full Funding Act to make sure that students with disabilities are learning in classrooms that have funding to ensure they can get the education they deserve, which is key to ensuring long-term economic opportunity.
And she’ll direct her education secretary to increase enforcement of civil rights laws designed to protect that right to an education.

And she’ll work to increase resources to better prepare teachers to meet the needs of students with disabilities in inclusive classrooms and expand access to post-secondary education for people with disabilities.

She’ll fight to finally ratify U.S. participation in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to affirm American leadership in fighting for the civil rights of people with disabilities around the world.

She’ll fight to pass the Working Families Tax Credit to allow people without dependent children to take advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit. And she’ll make the Child Tax Credit fully refundable which would be particularly beneficial to families who have children with disabilities.

Because quality, affordable health care is core to economic security, she’ll fight to pass her Medicare for All plan which addresses the significant barriers to quality health care that children and adults with disabilities face.

Kamala’s plan fully covers comprehensive long-term services and supports, as well as assistive technologies and Early Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) services that are critical to children with disabilities. It also ensures that those long-term services and supports are consumer-directed and are provided in home- and community-based settings.

And it ensures that when families move, or people with disabilities change jobs, their coverage moves with them so that they have uninterrupted access to the care and services they need.

She’ll ensure that people with disabilities impacted by disasters have the services and other civil rights protections they are entitled to under the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, so they can return home, to work and school at the same time as the rest of the disaster impacted community.

And, she’ll make sure the federal government leads by example.

Kamala will recommit us to the goal President Obama established in 2010 to make the federal government a model inclusive employer and strongly enforce Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act. She will direct agencies to create updated plans for how to make the recruitment, hiring, and retention of people with disabilities a priority in her administration. And she’ll make sure this diverse leadership is represented in senior positions and that there are opportunities for promotion.

Kamala will also take executive action to ensure that the technology the federal government buys, develops, or uses is fully accessible, as is currently required by federal law. This will include requiring each agency to implement a plan to ensure that any new technology developed or acquired is fully accessible before it is deployed, as well as doing an analysis of existing technology that is not compliant and develop a timeline for updating it.

And Kamala will create new senior-level positions in the White House to make sure that the priorities for people with disabilities are incorporated across all of her policymaking, particularly on the Domestic Policy Council and the economic work of her administration.

• Disability
• Kamala Harris
• Disability Community