Ron Estes: “On March 21, our country and the world celebrated World Down Syndrome Awareness Day. This afternoon, I am happy to lead…”

“On March 21, our country and the world celebrated World Down Syndrome Awareness Day. This afternoon, I am happy to lead my colleagues in recognizing this important day and all of the contributions individuals with Down syndrome make each day to families, businesses, schools, and communities. From brothers and sisters to employees and businessowners, to artists and models, people with Down syndrome have an incredible impact on every part of society. They deserve our support, understanding, and full acceptance. Thankfully, there are many groups and programs that have made it their mission to support individuals with Down syndrome and their families. As Kansas State treasurer, I advocated for passage of the Federal ABLE Act and led the effort to implement it in Kansas. It is kind of one of those things that, several years ago, I didn't necessarily expect that I was going to be standing here today; so I was going through the process of how do we lobby, how do we make sure that a good program gets passed through the Federal legislative process that benefits so many people, and then having to take that initiative in my home State of Kansas and work through the legislature and making sure that we implemented it to help people's quality of life and enable them to live the lives that they wanted to live and make it more beneficial for them.…”