David P. Rundle: Dole a hero to disabled

The American with Disabilities Act turns 25 years old Sunday, having been signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990. Many articles I have read have noted its achievements and failures and speculated on its future.

But how and why did Congress pass it? Who led the charge for it? What can it teach us about how bipartisanship can lead to good government? And why do many see the Senate’s ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a continuation of the ADA’s work?

To help answer these questions, I did an e-mail interview with former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, who sponsored the bill along with former Democratic Sens. Tom Harkin and Edward Kennedy and former Democratic Rep. Tony Coelho.

These four men all had a personal reason for backing disability rights. Dole is a World War II veteran whose right arm was permanently disabled in Italy; Harkin and Kennedy had siblings with disabilities; and Coelho has had epilepsy since boyhood.

A few years ago, Coelho described how many Catholics used to view his condition as a curse from God, contrary to Rome’s official teaching.

Religious misunderstanding of the nature of disability is as old as humans. The Darwinian revolution did not help, giving rise to eugenics and the forced sterilization of the “feeble-minded.” The practice didn’t officially end in the U.S. until the 1970s.

By then groups representing people who were blind, deaf or who had other disabilities had formed an informal but strong and lasting alliance to ensure all Americans, regardless of mental or physical limitations, could, as much as possible, participate fully in society. At that time, this was a very radical concept.

The coalition’s first victory was Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This outlawed discrimination by entities receiving federal funds.

Dole told me that these groups asked Congress in the late 1980s to extend the same protection to the public sphere. It did so in a bipartisan fashion.

Two things stand out.

First, the disability rights movement did not have funds to contribute to campaigns or launch a media blitz but still got the bill passed. That would much harder, if not impossible, today.

Second, Republicans and Democrats in Congress broadly backed it. Dole said certain compromises had to be made in the bill, though most bills are like that.

I asked Dole about an incident during this time when a group of radicals occupied the Capitol rotunda. He said such actions slowed the passage of the ADA but did no real harm.

I knew Bush had promised to support the ADA during the 1988 campaign and asked Dole who the president’s point man was on the bill. He said attorney Boyden Gray was Bush’s “champion on disability rights.” Dole feels Bush should have touted the law in the 1992 campaign. Had he, in my view, the perception of the GOP today might be different.

Regarding the U.N. treaty, Dole said U.S. passage would help ensure Americans with disabilities the same rights when they travel abroad as they have here, a pragmatic point I like.

The ADA’s passage was momentous. It was the last civil rights act of the 20th century. By helping it through Congress, Dole, already a war hero, became a hero of the disabled.

This story was originally published July 25, 2015 at 7:02 PM with the headline "David P. Rundle: Dole a hero to disabled."