Watertown Commission on Disability

The late and legendary Speaker of the House in Congress  Tip O’Neil (who represented Watertown for many years) often said, “All politics are local”.... on this website I’ve been occasionally reversing that concept to bring the wider state/national and even global sphere of disability and access issues to the local level.

In my previous post you’ll find updates on the status of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and disability access 17 years later.   On that same date—the ADA’s 17th anniversary and publication of the reports—Congress introduced  the ADA Restoration Act of 2007: H.R. 3195 S. 1881 to fill in gaps overlooked in the original Act and to restore critical areas chipped away by conservative Supreme Court interpretations over the years.  The bill’s sponsors and the American Association of People with Disabililities (AAPD) have established a blog with the full text of both House and Senate bills and updates on the bill’s progress through the legislative process. 

The oft quoted statistic of 50 million individuals with disabilities in the United States is growing daily with the aging of the boomer generation and the return home of our veterans from the Afganistan and Iraq wars, and the ADA is more relevant than ever….