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VOR is the only national organization advocating for a full range of
residential and support options for people with mental retardation,
including Medicaid-certified Intermediate Care Facilities for the Mentally
Retarded (ICFs/MR) and home and community-based care. VOR supports choice.
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VOR Weekly E-Mail Update
September 28, 2006
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VOTE!!
1. Families USA Action Alert on SCHIP funding - time is short
2. Story on Midterm Elections
3. A "Do-Nothing Congress": Both sides have their say
4. Voting reform laws criticized as keeping some from the polls
Coming Up: There will be no VOR Weekly Update on Friday, October 6, due to
VOR travel.
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1. Families USA Action Alert on SCHIP funding - time is short
* SCHIP FUNDING SHORTFALL: Due to the way funding for the State Children's
Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is calculated, about 17 states will not
have the necessary funds to continue their
existing programs in 2007. Congress must pass additional funds to keep
children from being thrown off the program. The amount of money at stake
could provide coverage for orver 500,000 children. The Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities (CBPP) projects the following 17 states will suffer SCHIP
funding
shortfalls: ALASKA, GEORGIA, ILLINOIS, IOWA, LOUISIANA, MAINE MARYLAND
MASSACHUSETTS, MINNESOTA MISSISSIPPI, MISSOURI, NEBRASKA, NEW JERSEY, NORTH
CAROLINA, RHODE ISLAND, SOUTH DAKOTA, and WISCONSIN.
Call your members of Congress toll-free and tell them to pass additional
funds for SCHIP:
1-800-828-0498.
Find out who your Congressmen are at http://www.congress.org. Here you
will also find district numbers, direct DC numbers, fax numbers and e-mail
addresses.
Call early today, Friday, September 28, 2006 if you can. If not, consider
calling your District office. Congressional members will be coming back
home to their districts after today, when Congress recesses until after the
November 7 elections.
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2. Story on Midterm Elections
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Summary: Regardless of your party affiliation, the upcoming elections seem
to have everyone's attention. For the first time in recent years, there is
a chance that the party majority in the House and/or Senate could change.
The following article presents some interesting statistics that reveal just
how close some races will be this November.
Topeka ILRC
by Frank G. Bowe, Ph.D., LL.D.; and
Dr. Mervin Livingston Schloss, Distinguished Professor at Hofstra
August 18, 2006
Labor Day marks the traditional, if informal, beginning of the election
season. Between September 4 and November 7, voters will be deciding on all
435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, 33 seats in the U.S.
Senate, and scores of other offices, including state governors. AAPD's
Spring 2006 News focused on the primaries, urging Americans with
disabilities to be active in them. Now, with the general election right
around the corner, participation is even more urgent.
This year, more than most, change is in the air. There is a strong and
growing hunger to "return home" in the country. After three years in Iraq
and four in Afghanistan, with mixed results despite the deaths of 2,500
Americans and the wounding of 20,000 more, Americans increasingly are
saying "enough". One signal: political newcomer Ned Lamont's upset victory
over three-term U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's August 8
primary. Lamont ran on one platform: end the war in Iraq. Another signal:
polls showing that only 25% of Americans think the country is headed in the
right direction. A third: voters increasingly identify economic issues,
such as gas prices, health care costs, pension worries, the ballooning
federal debt, and the like, as most likely to influence how they vote.
For Americans with disabilities, this rising tide holds much promise. We
need to seize the day to push our agenda.
And what is that agenda? Different people will advance different views. For
me, it is a refocusing of policy and resources on long-neglected domestic
issues. The country's response to last year's Katrina and Rita storms is
illustrative. In both instances, the effort clearly has fallen short of
meeting the need. Meanwhile, health care costs are soaring. Most American
adults with disabilities, a distressing 70%+, remain out of the labor force
16 years after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Although a simplistic view holds that Democrats favor government support
for human and civil rights and for support programs for those who are most
vulnerable, while Republicans champion tax cuts and breaks for business, we
cannot fall into that partisan trap. The fact is that our friends, both
incumbents and challengers, are found in both parties. Some, too, are
Independents (Lieberman the newest of them).We need to look beyond partisan
labels to identify candidates who share our concerns, particularly those
who really listen when we talk about our priorities and needs.
Every candidate for Congress took note of Lieberman's defeat. Those
supporting the war feel vulnerable some are softening their rhetoric and
listening, as seldom before, to constituent worries about domestic issues.
Candidates opposing further hostilities in the Middle East feel emboldened
many are reaching out to seniors, persons with disabilities, and others who
need public health insurance to talk about Medicare Part D and other
"kitchen table" issues.
The Big Picture
The U.S. House of Representatives has had a Republican majority for 12
years. At present, there are 232 Republicans and 202 Democrats, with 1
independent. A net change of 15 or more seats in November would switch
control to Democrats. Of the 435 seats, most are not competitive. This fact
reflects the gerrymandering the reconfiguration of Congressional districts
-- of recent years. Analysts believe that about 192 seats are "safe
Republican" and another 189 are "safe Democratic". The total, 381, is a
remarkable 86% of all House seats. Accordingly, to be "heard," disability
activists need to focus upon competitive races. As of mid-August, experts
view 13 seats as "leaning Democratic," 27 as "leaning Republican," and just
14 as "toss up". The most competitive Congressional Districts (C.D.'s),
meaning the ones in which candidates are most receptive to voters' needs
and desires, are Arizona's 8th, Colorado's 7th, Connecticut's 2nd and 4th
C.D., Indiana's 2nd, Iowa's 1st, New Mexico's 1st, New York's 24th, Ohio's
6th and 18th, Pennsylvania's 6th, and Washington's 8th.According to Chris
Cillizza, who writes "The Fix" for the Washington Post, Democrats likely
will pick up the required 15 seats to capture control of the House. In
fact, if current trends continue through early November, it is even
possible that Democrats will win 40 or more seats. That would not be
unprecedented: in 1994, Republicans gained 54 seats in the House.
In the U.S. Senate, there are contests in 33 states. In those, Democrats
are trying to hold 18 seats and Republicans 15.Analysts consider 12 to be
"safe Democratic" and another 7 to be "leaning Democratic". The comparable
figures for Republicans are 7 ("safe") and 4 ("leaning).Three are
considered "toss ups" Missouri, Montana, and Rhode Island. For control of
the Senate to change from Republican to Democratic, there must be a net
pick-up for Democrats of six or seven seats. That is possible, but nowhere
nearly as likely as is change in the House. Advocates are most likely to
"be heard" in states having competitive races. In alphabetical order, these
are, as of mid-August: Arizona, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska,
New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington (in
addition to the "toss up" states of Missouri, Montana, and Rhode
Island).The Post's Cillizza thinks that Democrats have a shot in five races
(Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island) and a good chance
in three more (Arizona, Tennessee, and Virginia).
If you live in one of these C.D.'s and/or in one of these States, you are
particularly well-situated to make a difference this year. What to do?
First, research the candidates. Which are most in tune with our priorities
and needs? Which respond most effectively when presented with
disability-related facts and figures? Second, volunteer. These competitive
campaigns are incredibly expensive. The candidates will welcome your help!
Third, use TV, radio, newspapers and the Web to track political events and
activities. Show up, be visible, ask questions. Fourth, energize your
family, friends and neighbors. Your mantra: "This is a change election. Get
involved! "Fifth, write opinion pieces for your local paper. Talk about
local disability issues.
To keep up with the ever-changing electoral landscape over the next couple
months, I suggest two wonderfully helpful resources.
The first is an election guide in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/washington/2006ELECTIONGUIDE.html?currentDataSet
=senANALYSIS
The second is a similar resource, this one by the Washington Post:
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/elections/keyraces/map/
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3. A "Do-Nothing Congress": Both sides have their say
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By Carl Hulse
September 25, 2006
The New York Times
A Congress derided as do-nothing has a week to do something, and the
prospects are cloudy.
Procrastination, power struggles and partisanship have left Congress with
substantial work to finish before breaking for the elections. The
fast-approaching recess and the Republican focus on national security
legislation make it inevitable that much of the remainder will fall by the
wayside.
At best, it appears that just 2 of the 11 required spending bills will
pass, and not one has been approved so far, forcing a stopgap measure to
keep the federal government open. No budget was enacted. A popular package
of business and education tax credits is teetering. A lobbying overhaul,
once a top priority in view of corruption scandals, is dead. The drive for
broad immigration changes has derailed.
An offshore oil drilling bill painted as an answer to high gas prices is
stalled. Plans to cut the estate tax and raise the minimum wage have
floundered, and an important nuclear pact with India sought by the White
House is not on track to clear Congress. New problems surfaced over the
weekend for the annual military authorization bill. And numerous other
initiatives await a planned lame-duck session in mid-November or a future
Congress.
"It is disappointing where we are, and I think Republicans need to be
upfront about this," said Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of
Georgia and a member of the House leadership. "We have not accomplished
what we need to accomplish."
Given the practical and political realities, Republicans have chosen to
concentrate on legislation emphasizing their security credentials, like the
bill governing interrogations and trials of terrorism detainees, a National
Security Agency surveillance program, and spending on the Pentagon and the
Department of Homeland Security.
"With obstruction from the Democrats at an all-time high, we have focused
on four security issues in an effort to enact some solid, substantive
accomplishments," said Eric M. Ueland, chief of staff to Senator Bill Frist
of Tennessee, the majority leader, who is stepping down at the end of this
session.
While Republicans prefer to blame Democrats for the backlog, intramural
fights and sharp differences between House and Senate Republicans have been
chief impediments to major legislation. The recent fissures over terrorism
detainees and how far to go in changing immigration law are just the latest
and most public examples of serious policy differences among Republicans.
"I've seen some of that lately," Mr. Frist said recently as he pondered
whether Republican opposition would block a proposal for a 700-mile border
fence the chief piece of immigration-related legislation still standing
after a broader measure fell victim to Republican disputes. Because of
reservations from Democrats and Republicans who favor the broader bill, Mr.
Frist is having trouble rounding up enough votes for a showdown over the
fence this week.
Circumstances have changed in Washington from the days when Republicans
were famous for party discipline. President Bush, weakened by his sliding
popularity, has been unable to hold sway over Congress. The Republican
leadership in the House and the Senate is in transition and lacks the
muscle of Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader. Republican
lawmakers, many facing their most serious electoral opposition in years,
are fending for themselves.
"We have no central core of political authority driving things in
Washington," said James A. Thurber, director of the Center for
Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. "Individuals
and expressions of individual will by committees, and also by strong people
like John McCain, have dominated, and the result is internal fighting."
Democrats have made no secret of their intention to try to brand this
Congress as worse than lackluster. They said their case was made for them
last week as the Senate, despite time running out, did next to nothing on
the floor for three days in order to clear procedural obstacles to debating
the fence legislation.
"When we say this is the most do-nothing Congress in the history of our
country, this isn't just flippant," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the
Democratic leader. "This is true." Besides denouncing the legislative
output, Democrats are mounting an effort to chastise Republicans as failing
to conduct sufficient oversight of the war in Iraq.
Republican leaders dispute the notion that this has been an unproductive
session, pointing to legislation on bankruptcy, class action, highway
spending, energy policy and pensions, as well as to two Supreme Court
confirmations. And they say they already plan to be back on Nov. 13 to
finish whatever remains at the end of the week.
"This session of Congress is not over," Senator Mitch McConnell of
Kentucky, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, said Friday. "We are
not finished with our work, and some of these issues are still in progress.
What we are going to do Friday or Saturday is to take a timeout."
Democrats have been happy throughout the year to stand almost united in
both the House and the Senate against many of the Republican initiatives,
forcing the majority to find enough votes to pass legislation from its own
membership. That has often forced major concessions from the leadership. In
other cases, Republicans in the House and the Senate have simply been
unable to find common ground.
"In the 26 years I have been here," said Representative Barney Frank,
Democrat of Massachusetts, "I don't think I have ever seen so much tension
between the House and the Senate, and it is all among Republicans."
The immigration measure was a notable example as House Republicans refused
to entertain the bipartisan Senate bill that took a comprehensive approach
to the flood of illegal immigrants. Earlier, a push for a formal budget
plan collapsed because of irreconcilable differences over spending between
House and Senate Republicans.
A House-Senate Republican feud over the handling of a pension measure,
which ultimately passed, left a collection of tax breaks in limbo despite
nearly unanimous support in Congress. Those tax benefits included a
deduction for college tuition costs and a research and development tax
credit for businesses. The leadership has been reluctant to bring the
benefits to a vote independently because they could be used to help advance
more contentious legislation, like the cut in the estate tax sought by
Republicans.
A new struggle between rank-and-file Republicans and the leadership was
threatening to engulf the must-pass spending measure for domestic security.
Lawmakers were insisting that a provision allowing Americans to bring back
cheaper prescription drugs from Canada be added to the bill even though
House leaders and the pharmaceutical industry oppose the plan.
And on Sunday, a spokesman for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois said
that Mr. Hastert was insisting that provisions increasing security at the
federal courts and allowing for the deportation of gang members be added to
a pending Pentagon policy bill despite Senate objections.
"The speaker is not going to let the bill move until these critical
security items get in," said the spokesman, Ron Bonjean.
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4. Voting reform laws criticized as keeping some from the polls
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By Joyce Purnick
New York
September 26, 2006
Eva Charlene Steele, a recent transplant from Missouri, has no driver's
license or other form of state identification. So after voting all her
adult life, Mrs. Steele will not be voting in November because of an
Arizona law that requires proof of citizenship to register.
"I have mixed emotions," said Mrs. Steele, 57, who uses a wheelchair and
lives in a small room in an assisted-living center. "I could see where you
would want to keep people who don't belong in the country from voting, but
there has to be an easier way."
Russell K. Pearce, a leading proponent of the new requirement, offers no
apologies.
"You have to show ID for almost everything -- to rent a Blockbuster movie!"
said Mr. Pearce, a Republican in the State House of Representatives.
"Nobody has the right to cancel my vote by voting illegally. This is about
political corruption."
Mrs. Steele and Mr. Pearce are two players in a spreading partisan brawl
over new and proposed voting requirements around the country. Republicans
say the laws are needed to combat fraud, especially among illegal
immigrants. Democrats say there is minimal fraud, if any, and accuse
Republicans of suppressing the votes of those least likely to have the
required documentation minorities, the poor and the elderly who tend to
vote for Democrats.
In tight races, Democrats say, the loss of votes could matter in November.
In Maricopa County, Arizona's largest in population, election officials
said that 35 percent of new registrations were rejected for insufficient
proof of citizenship last year and that 17 percent had been rejected so far
this year. It is not known how many of the rejected registrants were not
citizens or were unable to prove their citizenship because they had lost or
could not locate birth certificates and other documents.
In Indiana, Daniel J. Parker, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said:
"Close to 10 percent of registered voters here do not have driver's
licenses. Who does that impact most? Seniors and minorities."
A law in Indiana requiring voters to have a state-issued photo ID is being
challenged in the federal courts, as are the voting laws in Arizona and in
many other states.
Republicans say the Democratic complaints are self-serving.
"Democrats believe they represent stupid people who are not smart enough to
vote," said Randy Pullen, a Republican national committeeman from Arizona
who championed a statewide initiative on the new requirements. "I do not."
The new measures include tighter controls over absentee balloting and
stronger registration rules. The most contentious are laws in three states
-- Georgia, Indiana and Missouri -- where people need government-issued
picture ID's to vote, and provisions here in Arizona that tightened voter
ID requirements at the polls and imposed the proof-of-citizenship
requirement for voter registration.
Several other states are considering similar measures, and the House of
Representatives, voting largely along party lines, recently passed a
national voter ID measure that is headed for the Senate.
The debate in Washington and the state capitals has been heated, with only
one note of agreement: that voting, once burdened by poll taxes and other
impediments, is as divisive an issue as ever.
"I have never seen such a sinister plot -- I won't say plot, I'll say
measure -- as to target a group of people to try to make it difficult for
them to vote," said Roy E. Barnes, a Democrat and former governor of
Georgia who is fighting the new identification law in his state.
Mr. Pearce, the Arizona Republican, said: "We know people are approached to
register whether they are illegal or not. We know the left side's agenda."
Underlying the debate is the fundamental question of voter fraud and
whether people who are not who they say they are -- impostors -- are
voting. Some suggest that the problem is so widespread that the standard
methods of proving identification, like a utility bill and a signature, are
no longer adequate.
"I know a lot of allegations of voter fraud, especially by non-citizens,
that may have been able to tip the balance in favor of one candidate," said
Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado and an advocate of
tough immigration laws.
The tighter voting rules appeal strongly to people worried about illegal
immigration, Mr. Tancredo said.
There is no data, however, to show more than isolated instances of
so-called impostor voting by illegal immigrants or others.
Experts in election law say most voter fraud involves absentee balloting,
which is unaffected by the new photo identification laws. Few people, they
say, will risk a felony charge to vote illegally at the polls, and few
illegal immigrants want to interact with government officials even people
running a polling place.
Of Arizona's 2.7 million registered voters, 238 were believed to have been
non-citizens in the last 10 years; only 4 were believed to have voted; and
none were impostors, plaintiffs stipulate in their lawsuit to overturn the
law, statistics the state has not challenged. Nor is there evidence of
impostor voting in Georgia, Indiana or Missouri.
Advocates for the new laws do not dispute the figures just their
relevance.
Thor Hearne, a lawyer for the American Center for Voting Rights, a
conservative advocacy group, who was President Bush's election law counsel
in 2004, says there is little proof of impostor voting because few have
looked for it.
Todd Rokita, the Indiana secretary of state, agrees. "Critics will say
there is no wholesale fraud, and to that I say you don't understand the
nature of election fraud," said Mr. Rokita, a Republican. "A lot of this
goes unreported. Until you have a mechanism in place like photo ID's, you
don't have anything to report."
Arizona's new rules were passed as part of Proposition 200, a referendum
that denies certain state and local benefits to illegal immigrants. It got
56 percent of the vote two years ago, after Gov. Janet Napolitano, a
Democrat, vetoed a Republican-backed measure passed by the Legislature.
Rooted in the state's debates over illegal immigration, the measure is the
broadest in the country, requiring a driver's license, a state photo ID or
two non-photographic forms of identification at the polls. Lawyers for the
Navajo Nation and other American Indian tribes say the provision
particularly discriminates against Indians, many of whom are too poor to
drive or are without electricity or telephone bills, alternative forms of
identification.
Because the Arizona measures have been in place for less than two years,
there is limited documentation of their impact. Lawyers fighting the rules
say the measures have prevented thousands of people from registering to
vote, particularly in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, a city with
many Latino voters.
Supporters of the measures say elections have gone smoothly. Critics point
to individual cases, like confusion at the polls in the primary elections
earlier this month. They say that people without adequate documentation
have been turned away or required to file "conditional provisional" ballots
that are counted only if voters follow up and that not all of them do.
Deborah Lopez, a Democratic political consultant in Phoenix, said that the
once simple matter of registering voters at a rally or a fiesta now
required labor-intensive door-to-door visits.
It was during a registration drive at her assisted-living center, Desert
Palms that Mrs. Steele learned she could not vote. Disabled, wit
h a son, an Army staff sergeant, on active duty, she left Missouri recently
to stay with her brother and subsequently moved into the center.
Lacking a driver's license, she could get a new state identity card, but
she said she had neither the $12 to pay for it nor, because she uses a
wheelchair, the transportation to pick it up.
"It makes me a little angry because my son is fighting now in Iraq for
others to have the right to vote, and I can't," said Mrs. Steele, who
submitted an affidavit in the suit against the Arizona law.
Asked if she was a Republican or a Democrat, Mrs. Steele said she was
neither: "I vote for the best person for the job." Or, she added, she used
to.
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Tamie Hopp
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