Which of Your Congressional Reps Recognize Disabilities as an Issue?
Answer: Less than you think.
I reached out to my congresswoman during the passage of Kevin & Avonte’s Law back in December. Because I’m lazy, my first contact was via email (although subsequently phone calls, which I highly recommend). As some of you may know, contacting your representative via email requires filling out an online form at their .gov site which forces you to select from a dropdown list of topics that range from “Gun Rights” to “Deficit Spending”. Some lists are generic, but many appear to be customized to include dozens of important categories affecting your representative’s constituency.
However, my congressperson, Republican Rep. Mimi Walters, did not have a topic within her list of categories that my concerns for disabilities or special needs fit into. In fact, none of the topics came anywhere near labeling the potential reasons somebody with disabilities might be reaching out to their representative for assistance. This was bothersome, and also a little surprising. How do disability issues, which impact four million Californians, not have their own category? Surely this segment of society reaches out to congress, as there are routinely laws passed which impact their lives. Were children like my son & his issues being snubbed?
I began to wonder whether my representative was unusual in excluding the concerns of an estimated 12% of California’s population. However, when checking the next local representative, Republican Darrell Issa, I was surprised to see that he too excluded any mention of disabilities or special needs. Was this a Republican thing? I checked Democrat superstar Maxine Walters’ site. Again, no mention.
I decided to invest a few hours searching every member of congress within California to determine how many representatives felt it was worth including disability issues within the broad range of topics they’re interested in soliciting feedback on. This was not easy. If you’ve ever submitted an online form to your congressperson you know that the first step within the webform is a page requesting your zip code to verify your location within their district. Only after you’ve verified your location can you move on to the actual email form which requests your personal information and the reason why you’re contacting them. This authentication ensures that a constituent from Mobile, Alabama can’t attack a congresswoman in Jackson, Illinois.
It created a very laborious and time-consuming task of cross-referencing congressional districts to cities, then googling each city to pull a zip code (often times having to then use the Postal Service to pull a 4+ zip code if the representative’s district split across city lines), just so I could view the page containing their topics dropdown.
However, I was optimistic, and with my 90's playlist bumping “Steal My Sunshine” I invested a Saturday afternoon inquiring within each of the 53 congressional districts across the state. I looked for dropdown lists which included the terms “disabilities”, “disability issues” or “special needs”. Based upon this exercise, I was able to determine what percentage of your congressional representatives have a topic selection dedicated to anything resembling disability rights or issues. The results were fascinating. Check out the list below to see how your elected official did:
If number crunching isn’t your thing, here’s a visual representation:
Please note, topics such as “Smithsonian”, “Thanks” (i.e. you’re contacting them to thank them personally for how awesome they are), “Constitutional Issues”, “Telecommunications”, and “Intellectual Property” were all represented by at least one representative. Not unimportant issues. Not necessarily desperate issues though.
In case you were wondering, neither California senators, Dianne Feinstein or Kamala Harris, included this topic either. And if you’re wondering whether there is precedent for having a category like this included, please note that Senator Barbara Boxer did when she was in office as early as this past December. I guess Kamala’s transition team didn’t find it necessary to keep:
If there’s an explanation I’m missing, please post in the comments. Otherwise, I urge you to share this information. Post it to your congressperson’s Facebook. To their Twitter. Email them. Call them. Not in an attempt to shame them. But to remind them that perhaps a group of four million Californians whose lives are a web of unique challenges might need representation in the future, and having something related to “Disability Issues” added to their list of topics would be a great first step toward validating that this group of constituents have a cause that matters to them as deeply as “telecommunications issues” matters to others.
While this sounds like the most minute and perhaps petty of baby steps, without some kind of stepping stone we have no path on which to move forward. This group deserves to have a place to express their concerns, which touch everything from social justice to civil rights, health to crime, children to elderly, but don’t fit neatly into any of those buckets.
Besides, it would only take 30 seconds their IT guy’s time.
