By Aaron Bloom
10/28/2004
AB 772 (2001)
The intention of the Federal Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) was to limit “barriers to employment, transportation,
public accommodations, public services, and telecommunications” (U.S. Dept.
of Justice, 1990) based on the mental or physical disability of a person.
Title II of the Act goes further to address specific access to public
entities (Government Buildings) of a disabled person.
Known nationally as a fairly progressive state,
California in many ways has
been a leader in the movement to comply with ADA regulation. Expansive
state legislation including; structural code regulation, education
curriculum adjustment, and regulation enforcement law, have all improved our
ADA record. Impressed with our progress, Assembly Bill 772 (Pacheco, 2001)
was headed to be another code on a laundry-list of legislation to better our
state. The following essay will address AB 772 fate in the California
Legislature, history of the topic it represents, and the outcome of the
policy issue.
Introduced to the Legislature in 2001, Assembly Member Robert
Pacheco authored AB 772 to simply impose further disclosure of the State
Legislature and “require that all meetings of the Senate and the Assembly,
or of a committee of the Senate or Assembly, be open and public…”(AB 772,
Pacheco, 2001). Supported by the California Coalition of Agencies Serving
the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the bill would mandate the Legislature to
provide closed-captioned and live-captioned broadcasts to all legislative
meetings, thus complying with
ADA regulation. Sounding simple enough, the bill
should sail through the legislature and receive the Governor’s signature,
right? Wrong, the bill never saw the light of day.
According to the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) “by 2006,
virtually all new broadcast programming will be captioned” benefiting some
28 million deaf Americans and an additional 28 million U.S. non-English
speaking Americans (NAD, March 2000 Current Population Survey). Given this
clear demand for captioned programming, the fate of AB 772 grew increasingly
troubling as research continued. Does this bill represent the struggle for
equal rights for people with disabilities, could this specific issue of
closed-caption meetings symbolize a larger problem?
With over 5.5 million eligible voters with disabilities in
California (American
Association of People with Disabilities,
US Census SIPP 1997) it’s a mystery why the Legislature would
prevent this large constituency group from equal access to legislative
information? Unfortunately, the mystery will go unsolved. With no
committee hearings or floor votes, the Legislature killed AB 772 before
public debate could be heard. Frustrated with AB 772 research, I begin to
question other obstacles the deaf community must face, if even a federal
regulation in a government building could not be enforced.
Ideally, all people would have ability to gain access to all
common good. Understood by a majority to not realistically be the case for
many, I would hope this specific issue of one access point could be
reformed. AB 772 should be in place today, and all people of
California (deaf or not)
should be able to read on their televisions what law makers are saying in
committee or on the legislature floor. In conclusion, I find it amazing
that in the mere few hours spent researching and writing this essay, an
issue of clear wrong can so easily be found. Fortunately, in AB 772’s
death, one person was affected enough to call Assembly Member Pacheco and
inquire the re-introduction of the Bill (I’m still waiting for a
response…).
References
American Association of People with Disabilities,
US Census SIPP 1997
http://www.aapd-dc.org
National Association of the Deaf, March 2000 Current Population
Survey
http://www.nad.org
U.S.
Dept. of Justice, Federal Americans with Disabilities Act
http://www.usdoj.gov
California State Assembly, Assembly Member Robert Pacheco http://www.assembly.ca.gov/defaulttext.asp
AB 772, Legislative Bill Research http://www.leginfo.ca.gov