Enabling Acts by Lennard J. Davis

Author:Lennard J. Davis [Davis, Lennard J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8070-7157-1
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2015-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

TEN

SECRET MEETINGS AND BAGEL BREAKFASTS

SHORTLY AFTER THORNBURGH’S testimony and Silverstein’s offer to meet anytime and anywhere, negotiations between the White House and the Senate began in earnest. On June 26, Kennedy staffer Osolinik called up Mastalli and set up the first meeting for the next day to establish the ground rules. David Sloan at the White House agreed. Osolinik and Iskowitz would represent Kennedy; Silverstein would represent Harkin; Mark Disler, Hatch; and Mo West, Dole. The Democrats wanted the disability and civil rights community to be involved, so they invited Wright and Neas.

The first proposed rule was that if an agreement were reached, both sides would be bound to that agreement for the duration of the bill in both the Senate and the House unless both sides agreed to an amendment. In other words, neither the White House nor the Senate would allow any amendments to what each entity had worked out. This tactic made sure that rogue Republicans would not be able to alter the bill or fill it with weakening amendments. The second ground rule was that the current negotiations had to come up with a complete bill without any loose ends that might snarl things up as the legislation proceeded. So in short, complete agreement—no amendments. In addition, the Democrats wanted to have the disability community and the business community at the table and wanted the House to be invited as well. The logic was to get all the stakeholders together to sign on to the inviolable pact. And the disability activists along with the Democrats literally wanted everyone to sign a promise to abide by the agreement. However, the administration was, predictably, not ready to sign on to these stipulations.

At the White House, there was a meeting that same day. Hans Kuttner, a twenty-seven-year-old Princetonian, decided to keep a diary of all that happened. On that day, he recorded, “The story starts Monday [June 26] in Roger Porter’s office. His weekly coordination meeting with David Bates and staff focused on who should represent the Administration in negotiations with the Hill. The answer, probably at Roger Porter’s suggestion, was Bill Roper.” Roper, a pediatrician and health expert who a year later would become head of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), seemed like a logical person to go to the table with the Democrat’s ADA team. It is perhaps ironic that a doctor was seen as the appropriate point person, given the antithesis between the view of disability as a civil rights issue and the view of it as a medical one, but in this sense, the White House was continuing a long-standing misperception of what disability is—the administration considered it a disease rather than an identity.

Kuttner continued: “[Porter] would have been equally happy with Grace Mastalli, but [Department of] Justice internal politics and other factors . . . conspired to prevent this.” Mastalli, an attractive woman with brown hair cut in bangs and, at the time, a distinct preference for jackets with dramatic shoulder pads, had

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.