To start with, I’m Canadian, so I won’t be voting in the US election, and I am not intending with this post to tell anyone how to vote. What I am asking is that voters continue to look at the bigger picture. Someone much more knowledgeable than I am about issues in the United States wrote the following letter in response to the excitement on our Down-syn list about Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska and recent mother of a child with Down syndrome, being chosen as John McCain’s running mate. I’m thrilled to see a woman chosen, and her potential position would give her some influence over disability policy.  Or would it? Here’s one person’s opinion, which I ask you to consider when making your decision. Thanks to Michael T. Bailey for allowing me to reproduce this piece.

________

Governor Palin is running for vice-president. She will follow the McCain platform on all issues.

1. Senator McCain has voted no on every proposal before Congress to increase SSI
basic payments to people with disabilities. Right now my 20-year-old daughter gets
$471/month. That’s fine while she lives with us. She will get the same amount when she’s 70.
He receives a well deserved $60,000/year disability from the navy but has opposed increased
benefits to anyone with a disability.

2. Senator McCain supported the reauthorization of IDEA, which is the first ever that cuts back
on the rights of families and kids.

3. I realize that for most people on this list The Community Choice Act seems remote. But for
adults with disabilities it is the most significant thing to come before Congress in decades.
In short it allows us to access Medicare funds to support people to live in their own homes
with their own staff and not be forced into communal group homes or nursing homes. Sen. McCain
strongly opposes this and has made it clear he will not sign if he becomes President. As I posted
before he had dozens of chair users recently arrested when they came to his office to talk about this.

4. Senator McCain has opposed all effort to expand health care. If he is elected there is no chance
of anything remotely resembling universal coverage or even affordable coverage. This is a huge
issue for adults with disabilities living on their paltry SSI payment.

5. Senator McCain refused to co-sponsor the ADA restoration act pending in Congress. The act passed the House overwhelmingly in June and is now stalled in the Senate.

6. I was at Walter Reed Hospital in March one week before the Washington Post broke the story
of abuse and neglect of veterans. McCain has consistently voted no on increased appropriation for
veterans and voted no on increasing educational opportunity.

7. Senator McCain has voted no on all attempts to increase the federal contribution to special education funding.

8. I and others have worked hard every two years of the Bush Administration to restore funding for the brain injury act. Every year the President has recommended zero funding and Sen. McCain has gone along with that. Until this year we were able to get Congress to restore funding but this time around that funding was in the budget bill the President vetoed and it was not restored in conference committee. Sen McCain, although acknowledging that brain injury is the ’signature wound of the Iraqi War’ has voted against funding every time.

I could go on and on. I don’t know McCain considers himself anti-disability so much as he just doesn’t care. We are not his issue and Gov. Palin is not going to make us his issue.

It is also true that Sen. McCain is the oldest candidate ever for President and has a history of skin cancer. I regard issues such as the collapse of Pakistan, global warming, Iranian nuclear weapons, expansion of NATO, terrorism and the general decline of American prestige in the world as linked to disability issues when I think of my daughter’s well being. If you compares Gov. Palin’s history with that of Sen. Biden I would far prefer Sen. Biden to stare down Vladimir Putin.

While respecting everyone right to vote their own views there is a lot more, in my opinion, to being a pro disability candidate then having a child with Down syndrome.

Michael T. Bailey
Faculty, University of Arizona