A Disabled Guide to the 2020 Election: Update

Image by Fortune.com

Now that we have been through five democratic debates, I have decided to update my previous 2020 disability rights election guide.  If you haven't read that yet, I have it linked.  Like last time, there will be a few candidates that will be excluded from this post as they have since dropped out of the race:  Beto O'Rourke, Bill De Blasio, Kristen Gillibrand, Mike Gravel, John Hickenlooper, Kamala Harris, Jay Inslee, Joe Sestak, Seth Moulton, Tim Ryan, Wayne Messam, Steve Bullock, Mark Sanford, and Eric Swalwell.  For the most part, the candidates' positions on health care will be excluded from this post as I focused almost exclusively on that subject throughout the last guide, and many candidates have not changed their position.  That being said, I will mention healthcare when talking about the newer candidates that have entered the race recently.

First, I am going to cover the Republican candidates.  As of December, there are three in the race.

Donald Trump:  Trump is the current president of the United States, running for reelection in 2020.  As of right now, it appears that Donald Trump has not put forward any policy plans that affect people with disabilities.  However, it is noteworthy that he was criticized for supposedly mocking a disabled reporter.  Also, according to those close to him, in the 1980s, Trump reportedly asked about the braille in his hotels, and when someone told him what it was, he said "Get rid of the (expletive) braille, no blind people will live in Trump tower."

Joe Walsh:  Joe Walsh is a  former United States Representative for the state of Illinois.  According to On the Issues, Walsh does not have any current policies for people with disabilities and is against pre-existing condition protections in health care.

William Weld:  Weld is the Former Governor of Massachusetts.  William Weld has stated that he is against any kind of discrimination in employment and housing, which disproportionately affects people with disabilities.

Now onto the Democratic Candidates.  As of November, fifteen candidates are running in the race.

Michael Bennet:   Michael Bennet is an incumbent United States Senator from Colorado.  While Bennet briefly mentions people with disabilities in his fair and affordable housing plan, he never lays out specific ways in which his administration would improve the lives of disabled Americans.

Julián Castro:  Julián Castro is the Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Barack Obama's administration.  Castro has multiple plans to support people with disabilities.  He supports increasing the funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which he says will do multiple things.  Castro states that doing so will increase the identification and provide more services to students with disabilities in public schools through the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) plan.  Then, increasing the coverage of IDEA, he says, will ensure that all schools increase their accessibility.  Also, he wants to pass the Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act, which he says will prevent schools from inflicting unfair punishment on students with disabilities.

Also, he promises to protect foster children with disabilities, who he says often face the most abuse.  In order to make voting more accessible, Castro says he will add more polling locations, implement vote-by-mail, add more days of early voting, making Election Day a holiday, and adding accessible voting machines.  To improve housing for disabled people, Castro says he will introduce legislation to make accessible housing a priority and will add hundreds of thousands of new accessible housing nationwide.  Castro will require disability-required evacuation plans to be installed everywhere and will work closely with disabled experts to do so.  Lastly, he vows to repeal a loophole within the Fair Labor Standards Act that allows employers to pay disabled employees well below the federal minimum wage ($7.25).

Elizabeth Warren:  Elizabeth Warren is an incumbent United States Senator of Massachusetts.  While Elizabeth Warren has a specific plan laid out for Disability Rights like most of the candidates in this list, she also includes people with disabilities in a significant amount of her other plans, something that very few candidates do.

Under her Education for All plan, Warren promises to fund the IDEA up to 40% as the government had previously promised when it was first passed.  As of 2019, the government only funds the law up to 15%, leaving many rural school districts behind.  She also vows to expand the IDEA to apply to 3-5-year-olds, which it currently does not.  Within her labor plans, Warren promises to raise the federal minimum wage to $15, and with that, eradicating the subminimum wage for people with disabilities.  Within her protecting public lands plan, Warren says she will provide a mandate that requires public parks to be accessible to people with disabilities.

Lastly, she will ensure that students with disabilities have access to assistive technologies while in school, including during all exams.  She will call for federal agencies to provide accessible voting machines and put money into research, working with disabled individuals to figure out exactly what accessible voting would involve.  She will require a fifteen-day early voting period.  Warren vows to end housing discrimination and will provide more accessible housing so that people with disabilities are better able to live independently.

Marianne Williamson:  Marianne Williamson is a spiritual author.  One of the first things that Williamson promises to do as president, is including people with disabilities in her Cabinet.  Also, she promises to require all insurance companies to cover home healthcare, end institutionalization, and discrimination in the workplace,  as well as fully funding the IDEA.  In terms of voting, she vows to create accessible transportation to and from the polls and requires that all polling locations and voting machines are accessible.

All of this being said, it is worth noting that she has made multiple concerning comments about people with disabilities both in her past and during this race.  For instance, she has made claims that vaccines cause Autism.  I am not sure how many times I am going to have to say this, but vaccines do NOT cause any type of disability, a fact that has been proven multiple times.

In addition, she made an Instagram post celebrating the 29th anniversary of the passage of the ADA, which I have attached at the link.  In this post, she demonstrates a lack of disability etiquette.  The post starts with "what some called "disabled" is simply able in different ways."  This hit a sour note with many individuals with disabilities, as it implies that the disabled label is somehow negative and needs to be avoided.  She also refers to disabled people as "differently-abled," which, like the first quote, implies that having a disability is negative and the topic should be avoided.  Lastly, she finished out this post by saying "I have come to see the “disabled” as some of the most exquisitely able people I know. Able to make music. Able to create great art. Able to work on electronics and do every kind of technological work. And most importantly, able to love," which includes just about every false stereotype that has ever existed about an individual with a disability.

Tulsi Gabbard:  Tulsi Gabbard is an incumbent United States Representative from Hawaii.  As of right now, Gabbard has not put forward plans for disability rights.

Joe Biden:  Joe Biden is the Former Vice President, who worked alongside Former President Barack Obama.  Biden has yet to talk about disability rights in his campaign.   

Cory Booker:  Cory Booker is an incumbent United States Senator from New Jersey.  As president, Booker promises to pass the Disability Integration Act, which would end discrimination, fully fund the IDEA and special education,  and to get rid of subminimum wage.

Pete Buttigieg:  Pete Buttigieg is the incumbent Mayor of South Bend, Indiana.  Buttigieg has put forward multiple policies to benefit people with disabilities.  For example, like many other candidates, he wants to end the subminimum wage and discriminatory practices in jobs, housing, etc. Also, he wants to fully fund the IDEA, provide resources in classes so that students with disabilities do not miss educational opportunities, ending restraint in schools, and support assault victims with disabilities.  Lastly, he wants to train first responders with how to handle situations with disabled people, make voting more accessible, and require that all transportation is accessible.

John Delaney:  John Delaney is the Former United States Representative from Maryland.   In terms of disability rights, one of the biggest issues that Delaney is running on is increasing mental health funding and resources.

Amy Klobuchar:  Amy Klobuchar is the incumbent United States Senator of Minnesota.  As of right now, Klobuchar has not put forward much in terms of disability rights.  However, she wants to provide healthcare coverage for mental health and prohibit discriminatory housing practices.

Bernie Sanders:  Bernie Sanders is the incumbent United States Senator of Vermont.  Sanders has multiple plans to benefit people with disabilities.  For starters, he wants to fully fund the IDEA.  Also, he wants to end institutionalization, create a living wage, and increase educational opportunities for disabled students.

Tom Steyer:  Tom Steyer is the founder of Farallon Capital and co-founder of the One California Bank.  Other than a healthcare plan that would protect those with pre-existing conditions, Steyer has yet to introduce any other plans to benefit those with disabilities.

Andrew Yang:  Andrew Yang is the founder of Venture for America (VFA), a non-profit organization that aims to create jobs in struggling United States cities.  In addition to a new healthcare system, Yang includes another policy that benefits people with disabilities, which considering he has a son with a disability, is not surprising.  For example, he wants to ensure that polling locations comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and provide accessible locations and polling booths.  In addition, he wants to implement a nationwide vote-by-mail system that specifically targets those with disabilities who cannot easily get to the polls.

Michael Bloomberg:  Michael Bloomberg is the Former Mayor of New York City.  Bloomberg has yet to mention anything about people with disabilities in his policies.

Deval Patrick:  Deval Patrick is the Former Governor of Massachusetts.  Patrick has yet to release any plans for disability rights.

Overall, it is really great to see that most of the 2020 candidates have now embraced different aspects of disability rights.  My hope is that the politicians that have yet to embrace this rights issue, do so in the very near future.  People with disabilities account for a huge portion of the United States' population and it is awesome to see that finally being recognized in a presidential race.  I have attached each candidate's campaign site as well as an independent site, On The Issues, which lays out all candidates' positions on issues in full, so that you may read for yourself where all the candidates stand of various issues, as even with disability rights, I am unable to include every plan out there.


Thank you for reading!