Episode 3: Making Democracy Accessible

Episode 3, Niaida Green, Making Democracy Accessible.

All right, welcome back to Making Blank Accessible. This is Disability Voting Rights Week, and today we're tackling the very foundation of our civic society by making democracy accessible. Voting and political participation are fundamental civil rights, yet millions of voters with disabilities face physical, digital, and legal barriers when trying to make their voices heard. Joining me today is Naida Green, CEO of the nonprofit Disability Community for Democracy and a fierce advocate fighting on the front lines of voting access. Naida is leading a crucial conversation around voter suppression, voting rights, and federal protections. Naida, welcome to The Accessibility Show.

Hi, how are you?

Doing well.

So thank you for the intro. Uh, it is interesting because today is The 14th of September, and we are about halfway through the month. And there is a lot of things that I wanna touch on today, but I just wanna kick off and say thank you for inviting me. And I also think it's important to really talk about civic engagement beyond voting, because there is so many ways to participate. Civically, I also serve on my city's disability commission as the secretary of the board. And I think sometimes we forget that voting is just the first step.

Yeah, for sure. To start us off, maybe, was there a moment, an initial experience experience for you that made you realize that civic engagement was so much more than just, uh, are we able to vote? Um, how did this become kind of the core of your advocacy work and leading you to found your, your nonprofit?

Well, it was a 20-year-plus journey, and so I always knew civic engagement was beyond voting. I, on my father's side, They're Black Americans, and my mother is Latina, Puerto Rican, Cuban. So on my father's side, they knew Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee and Malcolm X and Dr. King. And my aunt, who is about 10 years— is about 10 years older than me, but graduated 10 years before I did from high school and is Gen X. She met Jesse Jackson. So my So I come from a family who civic engagement was like in my face since I was a little kid. It wasn't like my aunts though, my aunts and my uncle and my father where they had to go like knock on doors and stuff. My aunt tells this story about she registered a Black woman in 1984. She was 17 years old and She never voted before. And this was Jesse Jackson who was running for president for the first time. And so she registers, this Black woman. She did not know how to read or write, so she signed with an X. And that just like blew her away. Now, mind you, my aunt was an honor student, you know, part of the honor society. You know, she ended up, you know, she could have gone to like any Ivy League school she wanted to. She went to the sister Ivies, you know, like— you know, she went to, you know, like the schools like Vassar and stuff like that.

Yeah.

And Brandeis. Like, my aunt went to Brandeis. One of my aunts went to Brandeis. The other aunt, the one I'm talking about, she went to Vassar. So, you know, the sister Ivies that women, you know, those were the schools that women could go to before the Ivy Leagues were co-ed. So she went to one of— that's the school she went to. And so I just grew up like knowing civic engagement was just beyond voting. It was just in my face all the time. What else? What else can I remember? Remember watching the presidential results as a little kid? Like, this was the '80s, so we still did not have a color TV in 1984 because my parents were still My, like, my mother and father were still married, so we didn't have a color TV. So we were still watching it like we were in the 1950s on a black and white television. But then by the time—

A little screen?

No, not a little screen. Actually, we had a big— because these TVs were from the late '70s, early '80s. So then we had these big, you know, regular travel-like TVs back, you know, in the '90s where they were heavy, but, you know, you You can carry them.

So they—

yeah, so they weren't like the big 1950 TVs that were pieces of furniture.

No.

Uh, but we had those TVs since the '70s, and people still did not have color. Not everybody had color TV. Color TV did not become, um, really a big, big thing, you know, until like the late '80s, early '90s, when they started making Cable-ready television.

Yeah.

So.

So yeah, you grew up learning and being involved in advocacy, so it was always part of your life. What maybe prompted you in founding Disability Community for Democracy?

Actually, what prompted me was the lack of engagement specifically with the disability community in the 2024 election. Now, people will always say, well, the disability community, you know, is about a 50/50 split between the political parties, which is true. There's data that says it, but you still need to engage with the largest marginalized group in the United States, and neither political party does. Now, they'll do it by race or sexual orientation, gender, identity, class issues, but that doesn't help when you can't even access—

Right.

The voting booth, or if you want to run for office and you're on benefits, you can't because it counts as work, like stuff like that. So So that was like my, my like saying, oh, we need to do more. And also, I started seeing how ableism bleeds into political campaigns. And because I have multiple disabilities, they really weren't talking about psychiatric issues. You know, people— and I, and I say this with the respect of the OGs and stuff like that, but they keep wanting to rely, like, to attach themselves to a political party. And I think that's a bad idea. I think we need to be free agents and hold both political parties accountable in the same way. And we just don't, you know. We still, on some level, especially the older people, still feel like, okay, the Republicans, we wouldn't You know, and it's true, we wouldn't have a lot of the disability access rights if it really wasn't for Republicans. It wasn't Democrats who did it. I mean, the reality is Section 504 sit-in happened under a Democratic president. Like, these are just like facts.

ADA was signed by a Republican president.

Yeah, it was a bipartisan— it was a bipartisan cooperation, but I remember the '88 election. I was in elementary school still, but I do remember that election.

Yeah.

And they— George H.W. Bush was the first person to say disability and talk about civil rights for people with disabilities before any other presidential candidate. I know Carter promised to sign the Section 504 regs, but he put somebody in place that wouldn't sign it.

Hmm, yeah.

That's why we had the Senate in the first place.

Right.

You know, the disability community was mad at Ford because he wouldn't sign the regulations and all of that, but they were written by— they were written— I think they were written by Nixon. You know, like the Bush administration. I think that might have been the reason why they didn't get signed. And I think people don't really understand how politics works. Nobody wants to sign somebody else's stuff.

Yeah, unfortunately, the divisiveness in politics— our disability issues transcend a party. Like you said, people need to be reaching to both sides, all sides of the aisle when it comes to people with disabilities. You actually, I believe, started to answer the next question that I was going to ask you. The typical election season, so we've got midterm elections coming up here in the United States. What is it that you think is probably the most inaccessible thing about civic participation that the public doesn't realize? Whether that's like the registration to vote process, researching a candidate down to, you know, casting the ballot itself. What barriers are there that the general public just aren't aware of?

I think it depends on your disability, so I can't speak for all disabilities. Like, I know someone who literally, because they have CP, they have to write with their feet. And in my state, we have what I like to call the standardized test Scantron.

ballot. Sure.

Do the ovals. So if, so if you're like needing either to vote, like, you know, you can't use your hands to vote, or myself, I'm dyslexic and I, and I struggle with and have dysgraphia. And so I struggle with like making sure our stuff is lined up.

Sure.

Use a ruler or a straight edge. It's absolutely ridiculous that the ballot— that's not accessible. That's not an accessible ballot for me to fill out. I mean, I fill it out, but I have to vote from home to be able to do that because I need the things I need to be able to vote. That's one of the main reasons why I vote by mail is that. And we have no excuse vote. By mail, but it's absolutely ridiculous. I've more than once had to call the Board of Elections. That's in my state. We don't have— okay, I want to say this correctly. A lot of places in my state don't have county government. And even if we do have county government, county government, there are certain, certain counties in my state that have county government, but the—

Massachusetts, right?

Yes.

Okay. Yeah.

But But county government, the county government does not run the elections. It's the cities and towns, and we have 400-plus cities and towns running the elections. And so that's one of the things that is also very problematic is that, for example, I'm just going to say this because it's a matter of public record. The notes is going to come out about this in a month. At my Disability Commission meeting on Thursday, we talked about the fact that the state hasn't picked machines, accessible voting machines, for years, and they keep breaking. And then when people file a civil rights complaint, either via the usually The state vehicle, the state gets fined, but they don't have the ability to buy their own voting machines. So to me, I basically said, this is— I'm going to just say it. I did say it in the meeting this way, but it's half-ass backwards. How are you going to hold a municipality accountable when they can't buy their own machines? And they have to buy the machines that the Secretary of State tells you to buy. So if the accessible— that's another thing that happens is that people who are blind and low vision and have other physical needs where they actually have to go vote in person because they can't see the Scantron, use the Scantron option, they can't because the machines are broken. Right? They break, they test them, it's fine. And then when somebody goes vote, they can't.

Wow.

Now they would— now they would say you have the option under federal law and state law to get somebody to assist you with your ballot.

Sure.

As long as it's not your employer or somebody who works for you or something like that. But how is that helpful? If you don't have anybody to do that for you, then you can't vote.

Hmm. Yeah, it's not completely thought through.

Yeah. So, so that's like, that's like my city's biggest issue right now. One of the biggest issues we're talking about is, is that like we have people who just cannot vote. They go to meetings, they do all the other things, but they can't vote. That doesn't make sense to me.

Everyone should be able to vote. It's a basic right of participation in our society. And it's terrible that there are so many inaccessible barriers to voting. You talked about mail-in voting being restricted in various places. I know there are some states that only mail-in vote. So I'm curious how some of those challenges are going to work themselves out in court.

I used to live in Washington State, so—

Okay.

So I know, I know. I mean, I know that was the only option to vote.

Sure. Yeah. So transitioning a little bit here, but kind of on the same topic, I want to dive into the phrase that you've used for some of your recent advocacy, and that phrase is Crip Crow. I know there's a definition on your website evoking Jim Crow voting laws and reclaiming that Crip phrase in the disability vocabulary. So talking about Crip Crow and highlighting some of these modern voter suppression tactics that are specifically targeting our disabled disenfranchised voters. Can you break down Crip Crow, what that looks like in practice, and what kind of restrictions and things you're seeing and why this campaign has been a focus of yours lately?

So I'm gonna just read from the site itself. Crip Crow is a term used in disability justice to describe Systematic discrimination against disabled people when laws, policies, or institutions create second-class citizenship, segregation, or unequal access. It intentionally echoes Jim Crow to emphasize that the discrimination is structural, not just individual. Here is shorthand. Here is— here it is. shorthand for disabled people facing forced institutionalization or unnecessary segregation, unequal access to housing, education, transportation, erosion of disability rights protections, policies that fully exclude disabled people from fully participating in society. And actually, just to explain a little bit deeper process of that, so of where Crip Crow came from, So there is a phrase, if you can Google it, called Crippin' Jim Crow, right? And it came from Black disabled individuals who were studying the intersection of being Black and disabled, and especially in institutional environments like prisons and jails and things like that.

Sure.

And I just was like, felt the phrase was so powerful. I was like, and I started using it Well, way before the campaign. If you read some of the stuff earlier in the year, I started talking about segregation of people with disabilities during the Texas Kennedy reinitiation of their lawsuit.

Right.

So I used that term and people asked me what it meant and I explained it. Explained it in another article, and then it built. No one's coming to save us, and we need to save ourselves. And the only way we can do that is to shake off crypto from our society. We need to fight back, and it's a term that makes sense, and it and it and and and it's always been in practice. We just never had a name for it. I mean, we had ugly laws. We you know we had ugly laws where. people with disabilities at the city, county, and state level were hidden. They were literally on the books until 1974. It's not that I wasn't born too much after that.

Sure.

We were still institutionalizing certain types of people in institutions, like people who were blind and low vision into the '90s, people with psychiatric, disabilities were kept in hospitals, especially state institutions, but also sometimes private institutions, more than like a week, you know, a week and a half.

Oh yeah.

It was 2, 3, 4. One of my exes was in the hospital for months in a private hospital when I was an undergrad in 19— In the mid to late '90s. I don't remember the year. And Olmstead, um, Olmstead case started in 1995. I was still in high school when that case started. Right. So, so I just, just want people to understand that they were still institutionalizing people because the vehicle that Medicaid and insurance companies would pay for back in the day was institutionalization or heavy outpatient institutionalization, AKA partial hospitalization.

Okay. Yeah, maybe for those of my listeners who this is all new to, can you give us a little bit more background on the Olmstead guidance and the Texas versus Kennedy and some of these other topics that you've mentioned? What are these laws and guidance in particular, and why is this important right now?

So I'm going to talk about Texas v. Kennedy first because they all build on each other. So Texas v. Kennedy actually started as a case, as a lawsuit under the previous administration. And what happened was First, they were challenging the constitutionality of Section 504, full stop, because of the updated regulations for Section 504, which finally caught up to the law, the case law that talks about integration mandate. And they really put it into effect. Now, they've been talking about the integration mandate since the '70s.

Mm-hmm.

Right? But the Biden administration, Biden-Harris administration, came out with these regulations. They became rules. And then in September 2024, Texas, as the lead case, surprise, surprise, you know, Right? Like, and I think it was like 20 other states, mainly southern states and western states, said, nope, we're challenging this. You're telling us how to spend our money. You're telling us how to do this, this, and this. There was a lot of political pressure. The lawsuit changed from, you know, the prior HHS Secretary to the current one. I will talk about him in a minute. And then it became Texas v. Kennedy. They dropped out. They negotiated that they were not going to enforce the integration— not the integration mandate. They weren't going to enforce the preamble around gender Identity possibly being a disability. Most of the states dropped out. Then in February, they decided to update their lawsuit. So now, now we're not going to declare Section 504 unconstitutional. Now we're saying that the regs themselves are a problem because now you're telling us that how to spend Money and keeping people in the least restrictive environment, et cetera, et cetera, right?

Yeah.

While that's happening, the Justice Department, I call it the Department of Injustice, just, it has still negotiating with states, especially around psychiatric institutionalization, forced institutionalization, Agreements. Stephen Miller, in his infinite wisdom, was like, nah, what you're doing is going against the spirit of, of the executive order from July of last year where they criminalized substance abuse disorder and mental health disorders, especially if you're homeless. Slash unhoused.

Right.

Yeah. And then of course they did, you know, prior to that they did, uh, EO on veterans, um, and conservatorships and how states— this and all of these puzzle pieces fit together at the end of the day, right? All of, all of these pieces fit together Then June 18th, day before Juneteenth, spit on my ancestors', uh, ancestors', uh, graves. They decided to sneak under cover of night this Olmsted memo that says that, uh, and it was officially for psychiatric—

psych—

I'm actually saying it wrong— mental Disabilities, did not apply to physical disabilities. Now, I say this all the time. I have 2 bridges that connect the city of Cambridge to the city of Boston to sell you if you think that was not going to apply to all disabilities.

Sure.

They said states, which includes our territories, are under no obligation under the ADA and Section 504 to provide the least restrictive environment. And the reason why they're saying that they decided to take— they decided to take the different opinions of the Olmstead case, which I will get into a little more detail after I explain the logic I'm going through here. It parsed the opinions apart. Then a month later, they decided to rescind the guidance that they had from 2011 due to the Chevron decision, which was a 40-year precedent around the administrative state. Then in August, the Department of Justice, they worked on this case for years. They sued the state of Florida and they said, nah, we're not— the case that they won that required the state of Florida to have children have access to community-based services, specifically home care, nah, we don't want you to enforce The judgment on the state, we want you to reverse it. So they're going. They've went to the the what's it called? The appellate court. It asks them to reverse themselves. Then, while all of this is happening, they're now negotiating with Texas. There's five states. Texas is still the lead. Louisiana, Florida. I just, it just, I'm not gonna list them all, but it's our usual red state suspects that hate anybody who is, who is not white, hetero— heterosexual presenting and wealthy and and non-disabled, or if you have a disability like the governor does, could afford to pay for their own pet care because of a lawsuit that he got money for because a tree fell on him.

Oh dear.

That's how he became disabled. And so I'm just gonna say this, that proposed resolution is saying that the administration, I call it the current occupant and his co-conspirators, agrees with the take that Texas and these other 5 states are saying, and they want to rescind all of the integration mandate guidance. Specifically, they want to get rid of all of the 2024 for regulations that were approved. So why is Olmstead important to Texas v. Kennedy? Texas v. Kennedy is pushing back on the integration mandate in 1995. The— how do I say this? Without like getting angry, because I— this, this part makes me angry. A Black woman, Lois Curtis, and a white woman, Elaine Wilson, decided to sue the state of Georgia saying, I want to go home. My doctor says I can go home. And they did. The case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and they kept winning, right? And then Olmstead, who was the commissioner in Georgia, decided to say, nah, I'm gonna fight it. That's why they call it the Olmstead decision.

Sure, yeah.

But it should really be called the Curtis decision.

Sure.

Because he was the one who sued the state in the first place to get us where we're at. And now they just want to take away everything. So that decision first started off with forcing people to be institutionalized against their will. There's 2 parts to it though. I need to explain why this is important. The doctor has to agree, and the person in the institution has to agree to want to go home.

Right.

And then, and the That's the first 2 parts. And that's why states have been forced to cover community-based services, even though, quote unquote, under Medicaid, they're not required to. It's still an optional service, but not really because of Olmstead. How this plays out in other realms. So number one, the VA is covered under Under 504, not Olmstead. Olmstead is a Title II case, which is states and territories.

Yes.

So it— but it applies to sheltered workshops, foster care.

Oh.

And, um, schools. So even though they had the IDEA Back when I was in school, yes, they had to now educate you, but they would segregate you and do unnecessary pullouts. So, so that's how Olmstead got expanded. States— the federal government would sue states because they were segregating students with disabilities, unnecessary pullouts, not keeping kids in the community. who might have psychiatric issues or other issues and saying, like, parents have to turn their kids over to the state. That actually happened to me 'cause I have, like, multiple disabilities. And when I was younger, my psych issues, especially when I was a teenager, were really bad. And my mom tried her best. We were not poor enough to get Medicaid. She worked. Thank God she worked in the system.

Yeah.

Because she knew if I was placed in the system as a teenager, And that she was looking out for me while in the system. Because they were saying no, you know, you know, because the system, of course, they resist like parents just dumping their kids, but they did not have therapeutic foster care in the '80s and '90s and even into the early 2000s. The only option is if your child had a psychiatric issue.

Mm-hmm.

You turn them over to the state. You didn't lose your parental rights. Mom's rights never got terminated.

Yeah.

But those were the options. And now that's why they're— why— so Olmstead played a role in all of this stuff. And now they want to go back to pre-1973. Now, I hope that gives everyone a lay of the land. I will say this. I spoke to my mom a couple of weeks ago. And she said she remembers in 1973. Now I'm doing math here. My mom was 13, 14 years old in 1973, depending on when she saw, saw the Gerardo Rivera, uh, exposé on 20/20. My mom is in her mid-60s now.

Okay. Yeah.

That was over 50 years ago. She remembers that video and how horrible it was with Willowbrook, which is— was in New York City, in Staten Island specifically. And so, like, come on, like, that's what they want to go back to. They want to go back to pre-Willowbrook days. Where they could just stick us and hide us. This is saying, oh, we didn't have autism. No, you just stuck us in institutions instead.

Right.

We didn't have mental illness. No, you just stuck us in institutions instead.

Exactly. Oh my gosh. Thank you for all of the background on the laws there. I know that was a lot. Um, but for our—

I'm sorry, I have to take another drink.

No, please, please take a drink. Let me talk for a moment. I'll switch gears a little bit, but I just wanted to say that that was very helpful for everyone to understand the background of what you're talking to— oh, Say No to Crip Crow. Is that one of those painted rocks? I love those. Do you put them out in the world or?

It was a gift from me.

Okay. I love that. We should paint some and put them out into the world and spread the message. So speaking of maybe spreading messages, again, like I said, we're coming up on our midterm elections in the United States. states. We're talking about access to democracy, to civic participation. Walk us through, maybe if someone comes to you and says, hey, Naida, I'm having trouble with my local elections here. I don't think they've been accessible. What do I do? How do I speak up? How do I, as a disabled person, make sure that my election is available and accessible to me?

So what I would recommend is first and foremost, if you have a disability commission or a human rights commission, go to them first.

Okay.

And you give them a heads up and say, this is the barriers that I'm facing. I've already, you know, make sure you speak to the Board of Elections first and let them know. Then you speak to the Human Rights Commission if you do not have a disability commission specifically. If you do, speak to your disability commission because they— those commissions are responsible for making sure that the other departments are enforcing the local, state, and— If you have county, county government, county, county laws and federal laws around access to the ballot. And so talk to them first. If you haven't gotten anywhere, file complaint.

Right.

File complaint with your state board of elections. Do it sooner rather than later. But in order to avoid all of that, make sure you have a voting plan. So make sure that if, let's say, you know, for example, your voting plan doesn't— like, for example, you can't vote because you are deaf or hard of hearing and you require sign language interpretation, you want to go vote But you wanna go vote in person, you let them know ahead of time so they can have access for you set up, and you document when you asked and stuff like that. It's important for any sort of accessibility request that you at least give them a month before elections, preferably 6 weeks.

Mm-hmm.

So they have time to figure out how they could help you access the ballot. If possible, I would ask if you have the option to vote by mail, do so.

Sure.

Do so. But I'm gonna do this caveat. But if you're going to vote by mail, my suggestion would be, unless you're gonna drop it in a box 2 weeks out or 10 days out, Go to a drop box. Or if they have early voting sites, I know my state, if you vote early, you can drop it off, the ballot itself, at an early voting site and they can process it there. I have done that. This year I actually mailed it, but I got it. I put it in the mail like 2 weeks prior to— Prior to primaries, we had— our primaries are late in New York. Yeah, like, like our primaries are late. Like Rhode Island had their primaries last week. So did New Hampshire.

Yeah.

And we had ours, you know, like in March. Not us.

Yeah. So every state being a little bit different. I know we have listeners all over the place. So Just getting involved. First of all, you said if you've got access issues in the past and there's a complaint to be had, definitely speak to the Election Commission. But then getting involved with your human rights, your disability rights commissions, making a plan for voting access and maybe alternate plans in case things don't go exactly the way that you had hoped. Luckily, in a lot of places there are multiple means, like you said, early voting, drop boxes, mail-in voting. So just the time is now to do your research, to make a plan for the November elections. Like you said, if you need access, a good 6 weeks to a month in advance would be good notice. So consider those access needs now and start contacting your public officials. Another question for you, still staying on the topic of disability voting. But I want to talk maybe about now that we've got people making a plan to vote, we're all showing up. How do we measure the success beyond just turnout statistics? What benefits are there when we see more disabled people voting? What is it? Why are we so passionate about this?

Why do you need to vote? Well, if you don't vote, they don't see you as a constituency.

Got it.

That if you don't want your human rights taken away, then you need to vote, right? Like, the reason why they ignore our needs, right? Like, and no shade to, like, I know ADAPT does a lot of great work. I know AAPD does a lot of great work. I know ADAPT played a huge role in making sure that the ACA did not— they didn't gut the ACA at all. And I know ADAPT does great work on getting people registered to vote. However, protesting isn't enough. We need to actually be at the table. And I'm just going to say this. And I might offend some people. Nobody gives a damn about how many spoons you have. They just don't. Nobody cares.

Yeah.

No one cares. I'm just, I'm gonna just keep it real. Nobody cares about how many spoons you have. You need to show up and, and to the best of your ability and, and stuff and, and say your piece. Make your phone— if you can't leave your house because of your disability, make your phone calls. to your elected, send your emails. No one cares if why you can't speak up. They just don't. And it's not— I'm not trying to be cruel. I'm not— it's not saying that I don't personally care, but the society's not built for, for a lot of different marginalized groups in a lot of different ways. And, and I say this all the time, People died for people to get the right to vote in this country. People went to jail to get the right to vote in this country. And sometimes, at least in my experience, and sometimes especially white disabled people who complain to me a lot, it is not fair, you know, oh, it's too difficult, I don't want to. I'm like, I'm sitting here like, I don't wanna hear it. Because, because at the end of the day, like, unless you were enslaved in this country, in the United States of America, and you had to build from nothing to be able to get your political rights, you're starting off with more advantages.

Yeah.

Like, historically, I mean, you still, you know, you have your parents' groups, you have all these different groups that will, if we play it right, and we haven't always, Advocate, right? Like, like, it— like, I think that's what people don't understand. The Republicans had the House, the Senate, and the presidency in 2017.

Sure.

What is the difference? Why were they able to get away with, with, um, With them passing the big thievery bill, as I call it. You know why? Because we haven't learned to change tactics. Protesting is great. Getting arrested is great. But people— that's not moving people anymore. We need to start running for office. We need to start making phone calls. We need to actually go beyond civil disobedience and demanding that these bigger movements take our issues seriously, regardless of where you are politically, and demand that these political parties take our issues seriously. Um, until we do that and say we are going to withhold our vote, or we're— you know what, why should we vote for you if you're not going to support us? We might as well vote for the other guy.

Sure.

Right?

Like, politics works, right? Yeah.

Well, you gotta play the game.

Yeah. All right. This has been such a wonderful conversation, and I know we've been at it for a little while now. As we're wrapping up here, maybe share some of the things that you're working on, some of the links and projects, and what Disability Community for Democracy is up to. I'll make sure I'll definitely share all the links in the resources for the podcast as well.

I would like Before we close, I really wanna talk about Say No to Crypto, because I think that's important. We talked a lot about voting, but we have not touched on the Say No to Crypto campaign.

Yes, please do.

So Say No to Crypto campaign started immediately after the DOJ Olmstead memo. It is, it is, the campaign itself is to get Olmstead codified into law. The phrase Say No to Crip Crow is beyond just the— it's a bigger, it's a bigger, it's our theme.

Sure.

But the campaign itself, it's, yeah, it's our theme, but there's also the campaign. So the campaign itself is about getting Congress to pay attention to getting Olmstead codified into law. Now, there's been different options. There's been the, like, just to say this, there's been different bills introduced by Congress. There's been this bill around, and this is really important to understand why, how our work plays into this. There has been a bill that was introduced around expanding access to home and community-based services under Medicare. That was in August. Then there was also another bill brought to the floor to make home and community-based services mandatory under Medicaid.

Okay.

Right? And then there was the Raise Freedom Act. I don't remember the person's first name, which is about Staying, being able to stay in your community, access to housing, things like that. There has never been support from leadership in both parties around that because there is a funding mechanism issue. There's a pay-as-you-go issue with a lot of these bills. What we're calling for is straight codification of Olmstead We're not asking for any money. Proposed legislation that Disability Community for Democracy has written is called the Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson Integration Act, and the objective is to formalize Olmstead v. LC decision concerning integration into statutory language of the Americans with Disabilities Act, hereby explicitly extending enforceable protections to public education, correctional systems, and the Veterans Affairs, the VA. And what we're asking is, we're not asking for people to spend more money, we're not asking the government to spend more money, we are Asking the government, though, to— the most important thing we are asking the government is to have penalties, withholding penalties if they don't, number one, and not requiring people to exhaust all administrative procedures first. And so that's what we're calling for. And it's also about shifting the burden of proof. We're also preserving the fundamental authorization defense for state and federal and, you know, all the different levels of government.

Right.

Because we don't want— what we don't want is, is because if you remove that, that automatically requires a score from the government in terms of cost. So if we keep that in and we just say, hey, we're not pulling any funding, we're literally saying, if you don't integrate people into society, you're going to get your funding withheld.

Okay.

That's what we're calling for. I hope, I hope so. I hope that answers like people's questions around why it is So important to have Olmstead codified, because if right now Olmstead is a Supreme Court decision, and I'm just going to say this, we have a Supreme Court right now that does not even respect its own precedent that they set with the same people on the bench.

Sure.

We did this with the Calais decision. They overturned themselves. On vote on this, on same set of facts, they overturn themselves because who the current person is in office right now. So, so, and we said, oh, Roe v. Wade will never be overturned, we don't have to worry about getting codified into law.

Guess what happened? Oh, look what happened there. Yes.

And do we want, do we want disability rights and just Human rights and civil rights to be, you know, for you to be able to access based on what state you live in? I don't think so. People are dying not being able to get medical care if they're having a miscarriage. If you live in a state like Texas, Texas doesn't value people who are miscarrying. So do you think they're gonna value people with disabilities? No. So That's why Olmstead needs to be codified, and thank God for those states that signed a letter saying saying that we are not going to we are not putting up with this. You're wrong. Calling them out, contacting the DOJ, but that's not enough. We actually need these protections. codified. So if you go for— tell people how to find it. If you say, say no to Crip Crow and the Curtis Wilson Act, you should be able to find a website. I know you're going to provide the links, the links. Yes, I will. Show notes. And I hope that answers the question. Also, please call your members of Congress, email them, The campaign to say no to— for the advocacy month ends on Friday. And I just want to talk a little bit about that before we—

Yes, please do.

So we have 3 options for people to sign up. Option number 1 is virtual phone banks. Option number 2 is seeing your members of Congress in person by appointment. Option number 3 is Unannounced visits to members of Congress. And members of Congress are going to be home in October because they're going to be campaigning. All 435 elected members of Congress seats are up for election, reelection. And also a third of the Senate is up for reelection. So just to put it out there, We need to stand on business and to fight for what we believe in as disabled people and hold the people who are still in office accountable. Just because they're running, they still— and a lot of these seats are, a lot of these seats are, especially in the House, are safe seats. You know, they, some of them don't even have a, have a Republican or independent challenger in the general slate. So like in my district, Congressman Pressley isn't facing anybody on the Republican side. So, so if, especially if your person in the House is not facing a primary challenger, say, look, you're coming back in 2027. Or what are you going to do?

Yeah, absolutely.

So that's—

yeah.

And so it ends Friday. Okay.

Yes, this episode will be out. We're recording on Monday. It'll be out sometime this week. So the Friday of the week, if you're hearing this episode on its live broadcast, ends the sign-up for the advocacy month. That will be the month of October. I know this. I have personally, to your point earlier, I use some of my own spoons for this. I stepped out of my comfort zone and I signed up to phone bank every single day that you had listed. So I will make 1 phone call, 2 phone calls a day until someone listens to me. I don't drive, so that it's harder for me to get places, but you had an option that was available to me, and I will use my spoons for that. So encouraging everyone listening to take a look at the Say No to Crip Crow information that we're going to link in the show notes and sign up for the advocacy month if that's something that you feel moved to do so after this episode. So to wrap it up then, a huge heartfelt thank you to you, Naida. Thank you for joining us for Disability Voting Rights Week and making democracy accessible. Your leadership and your passion for civic equity Reminders that our democracy is only as strong as its accessibility. So before you go, take a moment to support The Accessibility Show. If this episode has inspired you to protect voting access in your community, hit follow or subscribe in your podcast app. Following the show is the best free way to support us and ensures that you never miss an episode where we fill in the blank. So as always, a full timestamped accessible transcript of our conversation along with all of Naida's Voting resources, links to some Disability Voting Rights Week tools. All of that will be immediately available on our website over at accessibilityshow.com, A-1-1-Y show dot com. Thank you again for tuning in to Making Blank Accessible. We'll be back soon to discuss making another part of our world accessible. Until then, exercise your right to vote and keep building.

Thank you.

A more inclusive world.