The Americans with Disabilities Act should be repealed

1. The ADA requires one person to sacrifice their livelihood for the sake of another.We want to help handicapped people function more easily in society. The traditional way of providing at help is through charitable organizations that provide goods and services to people who need them and cannot afford them, and who raise awareness of the problems. Organizations may establish standards for things like handicapped accessibility and provide a logo for display by organizations that have elected to conform. If we insist on government involvement it could be done like building codes, with local governments maintaining the standards, perform certifications, and making sure that the government itself conform. One step beyond that would be for the government to provide grants to upgrade public and private structures so that as more of them meet the standards. That way benefits are born by the taxpayers, and taxpayer representatives determine the level of spending.The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does not use any of these approaches. Owners of public establishments must meet government regulations concerning handicapped access without regard for cost. One might imagine that government inspectors would inspect building and threaten fines if the building owner does not complying with regulations. That's not how enforcement is done under the ADA. Instead, private lawsuits can be brought against property owners with a penalty of $4000 for each violation. No notice of deficiency need ever be given, and the person suing may be paid off without the deficiency being corrected. The Federal government may also bring crushing lawsuits, and it does.Here is how the system now works. In a restaurant in Southern California, vandals smashed a mirror in a restaurant washroom. Employees replaced the mirror with one that was two inches too high. (ADA rules require that mirrors be low enough so person in a wheelchair can conveniently see his reflection.) The mistake was discovered and corrected a month later, but that was time enough for someone to visit the restaurant 27 times and then sue for each encounter with the illegal mirror. The law provides $4000 per encounter, making over $100,000 in total. “Many of these suits have shuttered family-owned restaurants and small businesses. Fortunately, [the owner] will keep his doors open, despite the fact that the lawsuit is costing more than the restaurant in question made last year. Given the potential impact of a lawsuit alleging such a minor violation, [The owner] worries not only for his restaurant but for “every other business in California that’s having to sustain itself against these lawsuits.” [4. http://www.facesoflawsuitabuse.org...]A mere summary for ADA-compliant restroom design runs six pages. [5. http://continuingeducation.construction.com...]Door knobs are strictly prohibited, for example. The regulations are a gold mine for predatory lawyers. Southern California attorney Morse Merhrban has filed close to 1,000 or more ADA access lawsuits. [6. http://www.newmobility.com...] None of the detailed regulations are established by act of Congress, but rather by a bureaucracy that creates them. Recent regulations require that a permanent elevator be retrofitted into every public swimming pool for use by handicapped persons. Previous pool regulations allowed use of a portable lift that could be brought out upon request. An auditorium having a stage must provide an elevator from the audience to the stage, even if handicapped access to the stage is provided by a side or rear door. In practice, only highly trained professional architects can hope to thread he rules, producing high design and construction costs. 2. The ADA requires unsafe and unreasonable hiring practicesSuppose you want to hire, say, a ship captain. What can you ask about disabilities? “Exxon gave Joseph Hazelwood a job after he completed alcohol rehab; when Hazelwood then let the Exxon Valdez run aground, a jury found that he'd recklessly gotten drunk before taking command--and that the company had been reckless to give him the job. So then the company decided people who've had a drug or drinking problem may not hold safety-sensitive jobs. The result? You guessed it -- employees with a history of alcohol abuse sued under the ADA, demanding their right to hold safety-sensitive jobs.” [7. http://www.realclearpolitics.com...] The head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission verified that the ADA does not allow discrimination in safety-sensitive jobs based upon a past history of alcohol abuse.The head of the EEOC was asked, "If you come to me applying for a job, and your arm is in a sling, can I ask you why your arm is in a sling?" He had to consult a legal expert to answer this simple question. The EEOC lawyer said you can only ask if it will affect his job.3. The ADA discourages hiring persons with disabilities.The threat of lawsuit filed under the ADA discourages employers from hiring handicapped people. Once a handicapped person is hired they cannot be let go without fear of a government lawsuit. In just a few years after the legislation as passed, employment of handicapped men dropped by 7.8%. [8. http://www.cato.org...]An academic text "The Future of Disability in America" surveys the literature on the impact of ADA. "The researchers analyzing these data generally agree that the rate of employment for working-aged adults with disabilities declined during the 1990s, not only absolutely but also relative to the rate for those without disabilities." No studies show employment rates have improved. [9. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...]An independent study published by the Bureau of Economic Research found "employment rates for disabled men in all age categories, and disabled women under the age of 40, fell sharply after the ADA. This decline represents a clear break from past trends for both disabled and non-disabled workers, and therefore seems likely to have been caused by the ADA." [10. http://www.nber.org...] The ADA reversed the trend of increased hiring of the disabled.The ADA requires that employers provide "reasonable" accommodation for handicaps. Under the 1990 law, what constitutes a handicap was subject to litigation, and the government was losing a lot of cases by courts ruling impairments too minor to be construed a handicap.Under the 2008 revision of the law, nearly every everyone with any form of mental or physical disability is considered disabled. This includes persons who "in fact" have a disability, have "a record" of disability, or is "regarded" as having a disability even if he does not have one. If you take a medication that completely controls a condition, you are nonetheless "disabled" under the law. The number of lawsuits filed under the ADA rose 42% in the three years after passage.The ADA is the wrong approachThe ADA establishes accommodation of disabled persons as a civil right. All other civil rights are negative rights, preventing government or individuals from preventing a person from speaking or doing something else they wish to do. It is a fundamentally immoral to require one person to sacrifice for the benefit of another. Publishers are not required to pay to publish what you want to say. The ADA rules are complex and the enforcement is arbitrary and extreme, so that fear of reprisals rules. I suspect my opponent will argue that the beast of government can be satisfied if people just work hard enough and pay tribute as required. In fact, the cumulative burden of fighting government is death to freedom and ultimately death to the economy. I offered alternatives at the outset. At the very least it should be left to the states to address. The ADA should be repealed.