Tom Harkin: “Last Thursday, July 26, 2007, was the 17th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. On that…”

“Last Thursday, July 26, 2007, was the 17th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. On that day in 1990, thousands of people gathered on the south lawn of the White House. It was the largest gathering at least to that date--it may still be--for the signing of legislation. It was a beautiful sunny day. President Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law. That bill had taken a long time to develop, years to develop. A lot of hard work and effort went into it. As the chief Senate sponsor of that bill, getting that bill passed was the proudest day in my life, having been raised with a brother who was disabled. Seeing how he was discriminated against all his life compelled me when I first came to the House and then to the Senate to work on these issues, the issues of the discrimination against Americans with disabilities and how people with disabilities had been kept out of the mainstream of American life, how they had been shunted aside, warehoused, categorized in ways that demean their personhood in ways that prevented them from contributing all they could to our American society. So the Americans with Disabilities Act was a major civil rights act-- a major civil rights act--to ban discrimination, just as we did against people of color, against women, national origin, sex, for example. We now include people with disabilities under a broad civil rights umbrella. We have made great advances since that time. It is all over.…”