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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
HONORING THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SIGNING OF THE AMERICAN DISABILITIES ACT (ADA)
WHEREAS, our nation committed itself to the elimination of discrimination against people with disabilities on July 26, 1990 when the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law; and
WHEREAS, in 1986, the National Council on Disability (NCD) recommended enactment of an ADA, and drafted the first version of the bill which was introduced in the House and Senate in 1988; and
WHEREAS, after the spectacular Senate vote of 76 to 8 on September 7,1989, the Bill went to the House where it was considered by an unprecedented four Committees and later approved and signed as a law; and
WHEREAS, modeled after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin - and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 -- the ADA is an "equal opportunity" law for people with disabilities; and
WHEREAS, the ADA is a wide-ranging civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability and offers similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal; and
WHEREAS, the ADA began with the establishment of the independent living movement which challenged the notion that people with disabilities needed to be institutionalized, and which fought for and provided services for people with disabilities to live in the community; and
WHEREAS, the hard work and the coalescing of lawyers and advocates, top level negotiators and policy analysts, disability organizations, lobbyers, protesters, witnesses, and many more groups from all areas of the Country formed the disability rights movement to help the passage of the ADA; and
WHEREAS, people with disabilities went to Washington D.C. to talk to members of Congress, to advocate for the B...
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