Over 43 Million people with disabilities plus their friends, family, co-workers, and caregivers will suffer if Alito is allowed to continue to push his agenda to dismantle the ADA.
Where is the media coverage, the outrage?
Disability organizations opposed to Alito iclude: ADA Watch/National Coalition for Disability Rights, Alliance of Disability Advocates, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, National Council on Independent Living, World Association of People with Disabilities, and many others.
ADA Watch has a petition that I signed which is listed below:
To the United States Senate:
As individual and organizational supporters of the civil rights of people with disabilities, we strongly oppose the confirmation of Judge Samuel A. Alito to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Judge Alito's record places him well outside the mainstream of legal and public opinion and clearly to the right of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a frequent swing vote on cases involving disability rights. In Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, for instance, Alito's fellow judges said that Alito's standard for proving disability-based discrimination was so restrictive that "few, if any cases would survive summary judgment." [Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1991].
Judge Alito has demonstrated a narrow view of Congress's power to pass civil rights laws to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantees of equal protection, due process of law, and other critical rights.
Judge Alito's record repeatedly demonstrates his narrow interpretation of the powers that authorize Congress to pass civil rights laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Fair Housing Amendments Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and other laws of importance to people with disabilities. His rulings demonstrate cramped views of Congress's powers that would put critical disability rights laws at risk.
The undersigned joins national, state and local disability organizations and individual supporters in calling on the U.S. Senate to oppose the confirmation of Judge Samuel A. Alito to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.
To sign the petition, please go to: http://www.democracyinaction.org/...
To learn more go to: http://bazelon.org/... and http://www.aapd-dc.org/News/SCvacancy/NCILalitoopposition.htm