CRPD: Five Days Left to Secure Ratification

To hear CNN tell it, there are three things happening in the world: reactions to President Obama's strategy to destroy the Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISL, and who knows what other acronym); the unfolding story in Furgeson, MO; and whether the NFL Commissioner should be fired. All are legitimate stories. One affects our future with the likelihood of mission creep and another protracted war. Another reminds of us our failure to help, support, and celebrate young men of color. And the last, suggests that there are a lot of guys out there with big bucks that think domestic violence against women is a misdemeanor at most.

Is there room for anything else? Things of long lasting importance, perhaps? Here's hoping that the Senate can a take the time to ratify the resolution on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities a (CRPD). Those of us that have promoted such action have done what we have been told to do. We have contacted and met with Senators and staff over and over again. We have addressed with facts all of the points raised by the opposition. We have detailed all the benefits ratification will trigger. And we have outlined the adverse effects if we do not join the 145 + nations that have ratified the CRPD.

If we've learned anything from CNN this week, it is this: context is important, balance is a challenge, and video can change they nation's mood on a dime. So what do we need to do? Ask 1,000 wheelchair users to crawl up the Capitol steps? Go home, forget about ratification of the CRPD, because it's not our turn, not our time? There's got to be a third, reasonable option -- like, Senators Reid and Menendez carving an hour out of the Senate calendar and having a vote on the CRPD. We need it. We deserve it.

If we are a nation founded on freedom, opportunity, and human rights, then taking a few minutes of Senate time to ratify the CRPD, would bring an element of credibility to all the calls for coalition building, don't you think?

Thank you.
Common Grounder

Now Parents, Who Homeschool Their Children, Should Support Senate Ratification of the CRPD: New Senate CRPD Resolution Addressed Their Concern

The Senate will recess on September 23^rd, and not return until after the elections, November 4^th. In the lame duck session that begins after the elections, there’s not a snowball’s chance that the Senate will schedule a floor vote on the resolution on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). So our best chance is from now until September 23^rd.

The group who could help us get to a floor vote and get at least the 67 votes we need to ratify the CRPD are parents who homeschool their children. They have been a visible, effective force in opposition to the CRPD. The principle reason for this is that the text in the first resolution, which failed to pass in the Senate on December 4, 2012, did not clearly express their right to homeschool their children. Well, Senator Barrasso, a supporter of the CRPD, heard them loud and clear. He offered text to the CRPD resolution in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee mark up. It was accepted and became part of the final resolution on July 22, 2014. You can read the words below. The changes made in 2014 are highlighted.

Best Interests of the Child Understanding in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, July 31, 2012	Best Interests of the Child Understandings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, July 28, 2014
(8) The United States of America understands that, for the United States of America, the term or principle of the ‘‘best interests of the child’’ as used in Article 7(2), will be applied and interpreted to be coextensive with its application and interpretation under United States law. Consistent with this understanding, nothing in Article 7 requires a change to existing United States law.	(8) The United States of America understands that, for the United States of America, the term or principle of the ‘‘best interests of the child’’ as used in Article 7(2), will be applied and interpreted to be coextensive with its application and interpretation under United States law. Consistent with this understanding, nothing in Article 7 requires a change to existing United States Federal, State, or local law.
	(9) Nothing in the Convention limits the rights of parents to homeschool their children.

There are so many provisions in the CRPD that are in line with what parents, who homeschool, want for their families and children. These parents love the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, celebrate the Americans with Disabilities Act’s birthdays, and are likely to embrace the newly reauthorized Rehabilitation Act. These are laws that would be our basis for complying with the CRPD.

I think many do not realize the victory they achieved through Senator Barrasso’s text. Its specificity is unprecedented. If the CRPD were to be ratified by the Senate, these parents could suggest to parents in other countries, which do not allow parents to homeschool, to consider using such language to secure permission to homeschool.

I urge you to share the Barrasso text with parents who homeschool and ask them to join us in securing Senate ratification of the CRPD. There’s not a minute to waste.

Thank you.

Common Grounder

The CRPD and the Final Push

We all have faced situations where the odds were against us. Yet, we knew if we didn't try, we would never know if we could have affected the outcome. Put another way, if we took no action, we knew what the outcome would be. But, if we took action, however it turned out, we knew we had tried. We are in such a situation now with regard to ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Senators return tomorrow to Washington, D.C. Mondays and Fridays are usually travel days and a Jewish religious holiday begins sundown September 24th. So the way I calculate things, we have eight days to work with. After that, the Senate breaks until after the elections on November 4th. After the elections, the Senate will probably return for a lame duck session. The climate then will be highly charged, because control of the Senate may be changing in January 2015. Will we see evidence of bipartisanship this year in November and December after the elections? No way! And, if control of the Senate shifts to the Republicans in January 2015, we can kiss good-bye any action on the CRPD for two years, for sure.

This blog has had over 16,000 views since it's start in August 2013. That's a lot of eyes, a lot of spectators. I am very pleased. How many different spectators read this blog, we'll never know. We do know the eyes that have read this blog are from all over the world. Most are from the U.S. The next largest views outside the U.S. are from China (603), Ukraine (369), and France (342).

Well, in September we don't need U.S. spectators, we need U.S. players, people willing to barrage Senator Menendez, Chairman of the Senate a Foreign a Relations Committee, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and demand a vote on ratification of the CRPD BEFORE SEPTEMBER 24th. It's that simple. The facts have been disseminated. The points and counterpoints have been made. The fear spreaders have been exposed. The absurdities in the anti-CRPD arguments have been explained away.

It comes down to whether we have it in us to make this final push and, when we do, will the Senate leadership take us seriously and give us a vote.

Please begin your contacting tomorrow and keep it up till sundown on September 24th or until we get what we want, which ever comes first.

Here are the numbers:

Senator Menendez:  202.224.4744
Senator Reid:  202.224.3542

Thank you.
Common Grounder

CRPD and Senator Hatch

On July 10, 2013 Senator Hatch made a statement on the Senate floor that took a lot of us by surprise – he opposed ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). He has always been a stronger supporter for and an influencer of U.S. disability policy. He was one of the first Senators, if not the first, to have a standing committee of disability experts and advocates back home in Utah, led for a long time by Dr. Marvin Fifield, which advised him on disability policy. Senator Hatch had a staff member, Chris Lord, who was directly involved in much of the major disability legislation, including the Americans with Disabilities Act. Committee staffers, like me, saw Senator Hatch, as a smart man who could be counted on to find the words to resolve many legislative impasses. He was like Smith-Barney (an investment firm) that had as its tag line – “When Smith-Barney speaks everyone listens.”

Recently there has been pressure on Senator Hatch to join the pro-CRPD ratification team (http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/58293709-82/treaty-disabilities-veterans-support.html.csp). This is for two reasons. First, he understands and has helped draft most disability law that is on the books. Second, as a legal expert, with extensive experience on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including as its Chairman in the past, he knows inside and out how our Constitution, laws, and system of government work.

Well, he’s given us another surprise. He had an op-ed piece in the Salt Lake Tribune on August 29, 2014 -- Disabilities treaty would put U.N. in control of U.S. (http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/58348861-82/treaty-crpd-disabilities-nations.html.csp).

Senator Hatch says –

Actions speak louder than words. For more than 40 years, the United States has led the world in protecting the rights of persons with disabilities by enacting and implementing laws that set real standards and help real people. Countries around the world have adopted legislation modeled after American statutes such as the Americans with Disabilities Act. We should continue to lead by example.
 

I agree with that. Although, it will be increasingly difficult “to lead by example” going forward if we do not join the CRPD ratification club. One hundred and forty plus nations, which have ratified the CRPD, aren’t afraid of losing by joining together to promote disability rights.

Senator Hatch says –

Some advocates are urging… the United States to go down a different path by ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, or CRPD. According to the U.N., nations that ratify the CRPD are legally bound to implement domestically the treaty’s "global legal standards" for the "civil, political, economic, social and cultural spheres." The CRPD creates a committee of "experts" to interpret the treaty and tell ratifying nations what they must do to implement its global standards.

Multiple federal departments analyzed the CRPD and U.S. laws and determined that U.S. laws, federal and state laws, are sufficient as they are. In essence, our current domestic laws allow us to meet the standards in the CRPD. This fact is outlined in excruciating detail in the report President Obama sent to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in May, 2012.

As for the U.N. CRPD Committee, the CRPD resolution that was passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 22, 2014 includes an understanding that flat out says “…does not consider conclusions, recommendations, or general comments issued by the Committee [the U.N. CRPD Committee]…to be legally binding on the United States in any manner.” You can’t get much clearer than that. Senator Barrasso, a Republican member of the Foreign Relations Committee, proposed this text, which was approved by the Committee.

So no new laws are required. No U.N. Committee is going to tell us what to do.

Senator Hatch says –

Ratifying the CRPD would be a mistake for three reasons. First, the cost to American sovereignty and self-government outweighs any benefit to Americans or American national interests. Ratified treaties are "the supreme law of the land" with the same legal status as federal statutes and the Constitution. Ratifying the CRPD would endorse an ongoing role for the U.N. in evaluating and telling us how to conduct virtually every area of American life.

What Senator Hatch doesn’t acknowledge is that the CRPD is mostly about outcomes such as – non-discrimination, freedom, choices, and access and opportunities available to people with disabilities that are available to people without disabilities. The CRPD leaves to the nations that ratify it the flexibility to determine how they will achieve outcomes. Our laws, the ones we have now, will allow us to achieve the outcomes spelled out in the CRPD. So you could say the CRPD would become the supreme law of the land with regard to outcomes, but our specific laws would be how we show we achieve the outcomes. It is not an either-or circumstance or an override or replacement circumstance as Senator Hatch suggests.

Senator Hatch says –

In addition, the CRPD’s global standards would apply to every level of government – federal, state, and local. This conflicts with the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment which delegates certain powers to the federal government and reserves the rest to the states. Washington already imposes too many mandates and obligations on the states; we should not invite the United Nations to join in.
 

The CRPD resolution voted out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 22, 2014, includes a reservation that recognizes and lays out how our federalism system would respond to the CRPD. Some authority is in the hand of states, some in the hands of the federal government. Ratifying the CRPD will not undo or alter this balance of authority. As Senator Hatch knows well, any change in this balance would require legislation that would need to make it through House and Senate committees, the two chambers of Congress, and then make it to the President’s desk. And even then it could be subject to legal challenges and review by the Supreme Court, which won’t look favorably on challenges to the balance of power as spelled out in the Constitution. So, the probability of something like Senator Hatch describes happening is less than .01 percent.

Later in his opinion piece Senator Hatch says –

Second, the CRPD’s flaws cannot be corrected by adding caveats or conditions but only by removing some provisions and fundamentally changing others. The U.S., however, cannot re-negotiate the treaty’s provisions. The resolution of approval sent to the Senate by the Foreign Relations Committee, however, does include a list of caveats or conditions. These say, in effect, that the U.S. will define key terms such as "disability" the way we want, interpret the CRPD’s provisions the way we want, and accept only the obligations that we want. Why give the U.N. authority to say what our laws and practices should be if we plan to do what we want anyway?
 

Here too Senator Hatch fails to acknowledge the powerful and appropriate distinctions between outcomes and the means to achieve them. At the U.N. in the debate on how or if to define the term disability, there were hours of discussion about the value and need to allow nations to define disability through their laws. Here, as much as anywhere else, the U.N. understood the need to give nations flexibility.

Senator Hatch says –

 
Third, U.S. ratification is not necessary for continued U.S. leadership. In the two years that the CRPD has been before the Senate, 34 nations around the world have ratified it. Treaty supporters say that the treaty is modeled after the ADA and that nations will need help to implement it. The United States enacted the ADA in 1990 and revised it in 2008, years before the CRPD was sent to the Senate. The U.S. Agency for International Development has actively implemented development programs to help people with disabilities around the world for nearly two decades. We have been leading by example and helping other nations develop and implement sound disability policy long before the CRPD existed and will continue doing so without ratifying the treaty.

If the world were static, maybe this point made by Senator Hatch would have merit. But the world is not static. More and more countries have passed laws to facilitate their response to the CRPD. More and more committees are being formed to address specific issues. Just visit the U.N. Enabled website for confirmation (http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/TreatyBodyExternal/Countries.aspx?CountryCode=THA&Lang=EN). Disability NGOs are being given a greater say in how money is being spent by governments to improve the condition of persons with disabilities. If the U.S. ratifies the CRPD it will continue to be a player as Senator Hatch suggests. However, if it does not ratify the CRPD, its role and influence will diminish. Why? It comes down to perceived blatant arrogance. Other nations will think the U.S. doesn’t need to sign up, sign on, because the U.S. thinks it has all the answers. The U.S. thinks it can get others to listen, to do what it wants, because of potential financial rewards from U.S. coffers. It is in our national interest to make these perceptions go away.

As you look around the world and see the range of conflicts, do you think the U.S. has control? Influence? Perhaps if we were to ratify the CRPD we would discover we do have influence in new creative ways and bring about some peace.

I truly hope Senator Hatch finds his way to our side.

Thank you.

Common Grounder

Reasons You Should Borrow or Buy one Book on the CRPD

On September 8, 2014 Senators will return to Washington, D.C. Everyone, who has not gotten what they wanted from Senators, will be nipping at their heals asking for their legislation to be considered and passed during the precious few weeks left in September. Crises around the world will demand and absorb much of that time. Race relations and immigration issues will consume much of the domestic political oxygen. Budget and appropriation issues will need to be resolved. And finally, passing a treaty, any treaty (except for those dealing with fishing) is a daunting task. Read Joshua Keating in Slate, The U.S. Will Not Ratify any Treaty Unless It Has to Do with Fish (http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/08/28/obama_s_new_international_climate_change_strategy_how_do_you_negotiate_treaties.html).

So promoting ratification of the Convention in the Rights of a Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is not for whimps. Now you might say that it's not your job, the government relations people at the associations to which you pay mega bucks should take care of the end game. After all, they know the details. They know who to press. Besides, you're busy, with the start of the school year and everything else.

I understand. However, in all honesty, it is going to take something from all of us, each of us, to secure ratification.

One thing may help you stay with the ratification campaign. You've been with it, even as a spectator, if you have read my posts. There is nothing out there like my book, A Moral Imperative: U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (http://t.co/Vigyant7aM, $2.99 at the KindleStore, which has an App so you can read a Kindle book on any device). If you need a "person-on-the-street" explanation of the points of contention, it's in the book. If you need profiles of key Senators with contact information, they're in the book. If you need talking points, they're in the book. If you need to know why some parents who home school their children with disabilities are scared witless, the answer is in the book. If you want to know why ratification is a very good idea, the answer in the book. Think of my book like a one-stop shop. The information will quickly, easily fortify you, so you can take that few minutes to contact your Senators and be credible. Every Senator needs to hear from us. They need to put the CRPD ON THE FRONT BURNER IN SEPTEMBER.

All of my earlier predictions have come to pass. With that fact behind me, let me make one more -- September may represent the last chance to ratify the CRPD.

I have maintained this blog for you, in good faith, since August 9, 2014. When the Congress breaks at the end of September, I plan to shut it down or shift it to other things. Here's hoping and praying that each of you will help make ratification happen and bring real meaning to the 15,860 plus hits this blog has received.

Thank you.
Common Grounder

My Letter to Senator Menendez

August 26, 2014

Dear Senator Menendez:

The views in this letter are my own.

We face challenging times. In September I know your time will be consumed by how to respond to the projected growing threat from ISIS, the crisis in the Ukraine, and the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. Therefore, there will be scarce time to pursue and manage a vote on the resolution to advise and consent on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Nonetheless, I plead with you to find the time.

Word on the street is that you need tons of phone calls. Again? We will do that if we must, but I have three questions for you and look forward to receiving your answers:

1.    Are floor amendments to the CRPD off the table?
2.    Are you willing, with a member-to-member effort, to get a vote count? There are 60 Senators who would help you if you asked.
3.    Are you willing to ask Majority Leader Reid to schedule a floor vote in September, regardless of the estimated vote count?

I maintain a blog on the CRPD, which has had 15,000 plus views from around the world (www.wecandothisifwetry.blogspot.com); have written a book on the CRPD, A Moral Imperative: U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (A Kindle book, http://t.co/Vigyant7aM, which has been ranked #1 in its category five times over the last seven weeks); and maintain a Facebook page to promote ratification (www.facebook.com/RatifyCRPD, with over 10,000 “likes”).

Clearly there is interest and support for ratification. Many, many people are prepared to be resources if the U.S. has the good sense to use ratification as a diplomatic tool. There are thousands of people and hundreds of companies ready, willing, and able to share human/disability rights expertise and accessibility-related products with the rest of the planet, and many countries are waiting to accept them.

Please take the time to make a Senate floor vote happen in September. We can live with the consequences. We will know where we stand with each of the 100 Senators. We will know what to do after the vote.

Sincerely,

Patricia Morrissey, Ph.D.
A member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations when the CRPD was being drafted
Board Member, U.S. International Council on Disabilities

CRPD: 5 Things You Can Do Right Now to Promote Ratification

September 8th, when the Senate reconvenes, will be here before we know it. The question on our minds is, what do we do in the meantime? Here are a few suggestions:

1.  Create a mini call center with your friends and make calls to within-state offices of your Senators of BOTH PARTIES urging support for ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Senate comes back to Washington, D.C. in September. Then the Senate will be in session for three weeks and after that Senators will go back home, at least until after the fall elections on November 4th.

2.  Write an op ed for your local paper, by yourself or with friends, telling everyone that ratification is a good thing. My book, A Moral Imperative: U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, is a good resource on deciding what to say. Here's the link -- http://t.co/Vigyant7aM.

3.  Make a resource folder. Include a list of links to useful resources, such as www.disabilitytreaty.org or www.Facebook.com/RatifyCRPD; Senators' telephone numbers, office addresses, calendar of events where they will be in attendance, Facebook, Twitter, and website addresses and staff names and roles; fact sheets; press clips and links to online media and social networks. Make a few copies of your folder and share with friends.

4.   Use social networks with your friends to create mini campaigns to get out messages to inspire others to get involved in the CRPD ratification campaign. My Twitter account (@AuntPip) has over 1,000, 140 character messages that will give you ideas.

5.  Start an action diary or log and keep track of what you do and when.

Efforts like these will lay the ground work for our final push in September and be the catalyst for real momentum nationwide.

Thank you.
Common Grounder