9 Hour StandOff as Disability Rights Activists Challenge McCain-Republicans
- From: Old Tom <rascal_51@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:09:42 -0700 (PDT)
Gather on the Land-Protest in the City
Old Tom
====================
For Immediate
Release
May 1, 2008
For information
contact:
Bob Kafka 512-431-4085
Marsha Katz 406-544-9504
http://www.adapt.org
Disability Rights Advocates Challenge McCain and Republicans on Lack
of Support for Community Choice Act: McCain’s Office Responds by
Arresting Over 40
Washington, D.C.--- ADAPT took over the offices of Sen. John McCain
and the Republican National Committee Tuesday, demanding support for
the Community Choice Act (S799, HR1621) from the only presidential
candidate who has thus far not signed on as a co-sponsor. What they
got for their efforts were arrests, excuses, and statements about how
the National Republican Committee doesn’t have the power to call its
own presidential candidate to ask for a meeting.
“I don’t get it,” said Cassie James, an Organizer with ADAPT of
Pennsylvania, “Sen. McCain’s website says ‘There is …no cause greater
than protection of human dignity.’ We were at his office asking him to
partner with us to protect OUR human dignity by supporting legislation
that allows all older and disabled Americans to live in their own
homes instead of being forced into nursing homes where all dignity and
personal privacy are lost. This is not rocket science….it’s basic
human and civil rights!”
About 250 ADAPT activists filled Sen. McCain’s office in the Russell
Senate Building and the halls just outside the office. A few blocks
away another 250 ADAPT activists stormed the offices of the Republican
National Committee (RNC), with 5 wheelchairs gaining entry, and the
remainder blocking all the doors and driveways. There was a nine hour
standoff into the night, during which the RNC staff refused access to
the bathroom for the ADAPT members who were in the building. The main
ADAPT demand was that the RNC assist to schedule a meeting with Sen.
McCain where ADAPT representatives could talk about support for the
Community Choice Act. The RNC staff repeatedly stated that they did
not have the power to call their candidate’s campaign staff to ask for
such a meeting.
“I find it very hard to believe that the organization that raises so
much of the funding for the presidential campaign can’t talk to its
own candidate,” said Randy Alexander, Tennessee ADAPT Organizer, who
was trapped inside the RNC building for nine hours and not allowed to
use a bathroom. “We weren’t asking them to guarantee a meeting, just
to pick up the phone, call Sen. McCain, and try to get a meeting set
up. Any person on the street could make that call, yet they said they
didn’t have the power to do that.”
During the nine hours ADAPT spent trying to gain cooperation from the
RNC, many Congressional co-sponsors and supporters of the bi-partisan
Community Choice Act came by to personally meet some of the people
affected by this important legislation and to congratulate their
efforts to get it passed. The 500 ADAPT activists in Washington this
week from nearly every state in the union represent thousands more
ADAPT members back home who don’t have the ability travel to the
nation’s capitol, a very expensive destination, to make their voices
heard. And those thousands of ADAPT members nationally are only the
tip of the disability voting bloc nationally, a voting bloc that is
currently feeling disrespected and ignored by Sen. McCain and the
Republican Party
.
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