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significant disabilities lived,

someone came into the home and decided to eliminate people with disabilities because that individual thought it was more merciful that they should be slaughtered. recently there was a movie me before you that glorifies encouraging people that have significant disabilities to commit suicide because it is a better happier solution for people who don't have disabilities if the quote, unquote, burden of having people with disabilities around them did not exist. we are very deeply concerned

about the messages that people get in the med alike movies me before you that showcase, glorify trying to get people with disabilities to commit suicide and then in japan we had this horrific assassination, which is what it was, of 19 innocent people who were sleeping in a group home in japan whose throats were slit. the media almost didn't cover it at all. before we go to the next question, i would like to have a moment of silence before i ask the journalists to talk about how we get the stories of people with disabilities out there. just a few moments, please. [silence]

>> i don't know where the feedback is coming from. if someone can assist us. perhaps the sering of those lives that were lost o. each of you, we are going to start with alan, getting stories with people of disabilities out to the media. in campaign 2016 and beyond how do we get the stories out so that people with disabilities are seen for having equal value as everybody else? >> well, in the campaign context, people love stories and i thought the young man who talked at the democratic convention and hillary clinton and her acceptance followed up on that and said, i think he was like 7 year's old when she first

met him and she lifted him up and said he must have had a 40-pound brace on. these touches stick in your memory and make the stories come alive and hillary clinton right now is trying to promote her good character and so now is the time. i think they are eager to showcase who she has helped over the years but humanizing disabilities so it's not just one umbrella but also expanding it to disability that is we can't necessarily see. i think people understand when swub is blind or death, are familiar with that as a culture but i think the word disabilities cover a lot more,

we are talking about everything. this is a moment for this community and the voting power is there and when -- you approach politicians, i would have those numbers there and the fact that this community is well knit together and getting more activist with each election cycle, i think that's power, real power. >> thank you, norm. >> i would say there's actually better coverage than we have in the past, in part that's true. if you look tat tragic of people with autism or in so many instances being shot and killed by police, in almost every case, in almost every case it's a family member calling for help and what they get is a loved one who is shot.

what we know as we get more of those stories out there is that crisis intervention training makes a dramatic difference, that for so many people with mental disabilities and particularly true of those with autism but true of so many others, the standard police procedure of giving an order and a command and increasing the level of intensity has exactly the worst effect and as you get people trained, there's a judge in florida who has tone miraculous -- done miraculous things. it's hard to do because you have to go away a week to get the training and a lot of police think they know what they are doing. when they get the training, they now understand and cut the violence incidents dramatically,

and if we could get more on that, it would help. the biggest problem we have is not getting the coverage of these issues, it's the larger reality that in congress now even when you have a consensus on issues, we have bills on mental illness policy that passes through the house and in some cases through the senate, but in every instance when you talk to leader, you say, yes, we want to do it but we can't take it out of most of the entitlement programs. that means you to take it out of food stamps or housing or a handful of other programs and as long as you have the handcuffs on there that keep us from getting the money, whether it's crisis intervention training or

all of the things that need to be done to provide access to people, we are going to be spinning the wheels. >> one thing that's important to note these days what norm is saying. there's not much happening on capitol hill except us right now, depending on how this election comes out, we may have more gridlock in the future. it's amazing in the absence of washington and that hasn't gotten as much attention as it should. everything from what the marijuana legalization debate to the kind of issues we are talking about here today. states are moving ahead and other states need to move about what works and those states where changes are working and i

think the main advice is you are reporters too, increasingly you are reporters because today everybody has a tv studio in their pockets called a smartphone. today everybody is on social media. we have seen examples where individuals -- that's significance. i know what the wonderful story is that you're doing every day that you take for granted because you see it so often, but folks downtown need to know about it. it means a lot more than that to hear -- go to a news conference and have actual people there that are experiencing the issue that we are talking about rather than statistics on it. we were talking earlier about

people with disabilities in prison. mental health care is a largely unappreciated element of problems in the country. what's the follow-up? there's a lot of folks around the country that make very good stories once i can convince my editor that's worth covered because it is a good story and maybe a good news story. but something to be aware of. we are trying to get your message out. >> richard.

>> one of the problems with -- and that was a good point, i want to pick up with what clarence just said. maybe we should all be grateful to the fact that it used to be yellow brook that puttys ability on the map. now we don't have the horrible stories to that extent to draw attention to what's wrong. the problem with good news stories and i agree would be nice to read them, by showing people on the spectrum or people with disabilities that are succeeding, what are you saying, are you saying, well, we don't really need anymore services, we don't really need a solution or housing or employment, so many are adult service needs because we have done better job to dealing with 0-21 population in terms of idea and we also -- we

also need much better housing, much better community living, much better solutions to people once they drop off the school transition at age 22, but the stories that we would tell generally speaking whether that would be at a political convention or capitol hill would tend to be people that are higher functioning, people that are succeeding and that just creates the problem of what are we -- what is the message that we are sending if we take somebody like my son who is sort of poster child for autism, not severe, not high functioning, just down the middle, minimum language. he doesn't have severe needs, he has a loving family that takes care of him but his story is a lack of, it's a lack of housing solution for the future, it's a lack of a better job. he has a job and a good one. he could use a better job.

so those stories are sort of -- they don't come with pictures. they're what people are lacking. the stories of the past were the horrible conditions in a place like willowbrook, thankfully we don't have those types of stories, runners, some of the things norm was talking about police not knowing how to handle people with disabilities, i think in some states like virginia, something on your not driver's license but whatever it is you have a license instead of a driver's license that identifies you as a person with autism or a person with disability. those are little minor solutions to -- i hate to call the minor problems but they are not the major problems of we don't have enough housing, we don't have enough employment, we don't have enough money but it's difficult

to put a face to those problems because it's a lack of rather than a condition that you would expose like institutions of the 1970's. >> we are going take questions from the audience right after my final question that i'm going to ask and my question is there are two issues that we are grappling with that i would like your advice on. one is when we look at the poverty, civil rights agenda, we see the silos with the african-american community, immigrant community or hispanic communities in silos and people with disabilities with not within those organizations. i know that's start to go change largely because of what rodney hood and jpmorgan chase are doing to at least make national meetings accessible but also the disability organization which there's more than a hundred different really good national disability rights organizations or service organizations largely

around one particular disability. every single one of ceos is white, every single one. so the first question is how do we break down the barriers so that people who ha disenfranchise can work together toward making that greater success in the economy and in other places like criminal justice reform where people thought that's a black issue and they didn't realize no, it's a disability issue also and here is how and if you're minority or immigrant and you have a disability, all the more likelihood for the school -- the first down is how to break down barriers and the second is we have felt great success with the questionnaire. hillary clinton and jeb bush gave incredibly thorough answers. donald trump hasn't answered it yet. we would like to see senate races and governor races for

them to really seriously address the policy issues in these candidate questionnaires. how do we get candidates to pay attention to our issues because they fill out candidate questionnaires or you can choose how you want to answer and there's now a microphone in the center of the room. >> i just want to say briefly that congressman sherman said, you have to tbraid officials, people who are interested in the disability community, even though those aren't they're going to notice where somebody is. i think where you are on disabilities i would call it a marker issue. it tells you a lot about where a candidate is or official is on other issues as well.

so i would -- i would recommend -- i would take up the congressman idea on that. >> you know, many, many years ago the environmental community had auditory dozen and it really had an impact. no member of congress wanted to be one of the dirty dozen. taking eleanor's suggestion and brad's would be a good one. on the first point, jennifer. this is a universal problem. look at the medical research and the individual diseases that all see the others as rivals for financing and instead of joining together to try and enhance the overall amount of money going to medical research, they see everybody else is instrewedding on their turf and that's the problem here and so it's going take some creativity to get organizations to see that there's a synergy rather than working together.

somebody has to take the lead and maybe that's one of the areas that respectability would do. it should be about candidates. candidates don't answer questionnaire put something that gives them an f until they respond. then maybe you'll get a little more sensitivity. >> it's been interesting because legally our lawyers have told us that we can't give people a score card if -- because we are 501c3 nonprofit. what we have seen is sent out the identical questionnaire to all the candidates, both elected officials and opponents, the candidates all have them. so we report on whether or not they answer it and then we have to give verbatim exactly what they answered. but clearly another entity could be formed with a different legal status because we as a nonprofit have a certain tax status that

enable contributions to us to be tax deductibility and you can't do that and rate people in that way. but it's a very interesting idea, clarence. we want a list of like the dirty dozen, the worst behaving countries as far as journalists are concerned and even robert wants to be respectable leader. when it comes to getting attention to these issues, very often issues of persons with disabilities get over shadowed

by other issues that appear for pressing. psychological counselor was tending to a young man who was playing with that toy truck but a report came in that a man with a gun was at this location. please arrive and the counsel, the fellow who had a mental disability did not lay down. the counselor said lay down and held hands up in the air and said he was a counselor and shot anyway. of course, is going to make people think about the issue of police conduct.

that's the vacation for activists to say, hey, you know, this is what is needed in this kind of situation, this is what's available, this is what ought to be available and some attention. norman is right. it's something that -- you look to those areas and you do overlap where you can work together and more often you cannot bring more attention to folks who -- the whole issue of law enforcement and police conduct to me is so much -- so much tied into the 40%. 40% of incarcerated have some sort of disability and repercussions of that we need more to find out. >> right. it's interesting that you talk about the specific statistic, we

work very heavily on the issue of employment with people with disabilities and we are constantly talking about one out of three people with a disability has a job. one of the things that we did find very helpful and i think this goes to what eleanor and norm were saying, we talk about the stats. what we found is that in some states, 50% of people with disabilities are employed and in other states only 25% of people with disabilities are employed and that is a massive difference between one out of every four and half having a job and what was interesting to us at least was who the states were. who had the worst gap in labor force -- some people would say such and such have a bad economy and what we looked at was the gap in labor force participation rate of people with a disability

and without a disable, what was the worst? maine, maine was the worst. people consistently in america, oh, if it's the worst it's going to be mississippi and alabama, african-american states, they're going to be the worst. maine was the worst. vermont was catastrophic and when we released those numbers we saw, first of all, everyone in maine who worked on the issues really hated us for putting the list out but it was factual and we had seep improvements in policies in maine and hopeful that will make a difference and so we had to sort of go about it in a different way and we haven't done that in criminal justice yet to look at state by state. we just looked at the national picture so you made me think about that. >> you know, jennifer, one of the things is called the stepping up initiative that has come from the national

association of counties and the american psychiatric foundation where they come to realize that the jails have extraordinarily large population with disabilities, mostly mental disabilities and it's enormous drain on them and they are working best practices to try and reduce that. my guess if you look back, groups like the national association of counties and state government, when they come to understand that the problems of homelessness, for example, can be reduced, you know, al frank say that is the best solution to homelessness is to give people home but it's also that if you can find ways to get them employment, then you reduce the economic burden on the counties and the state. >> absolutely. >> getting that message out through those organizations would help. >> rich. >> i want to make sure i understood the first issue that you raised which was the -- what

did you say, 100, 150 disability groups all white. is that indicative whether the hispanic population, first civil rights issues tend to be that and not disabilities where as whites are particularly are coming without a poverty issue, without a minority-ethnic racial issue and so that might be the reason for it. i don't know. >> right. so my sense is that if you look at the history of the disability right movement i think of justin dart, extraordinary individual from a very wealthy family, his father was very important in the reagan administration and he himself because he was a wheelchair user literally could not get into buildings, so his horizon were really -- i

actually look at them and see wheelchair warriors. they had all the skills and drive to make it at the corporate ladder or wherever they wanted to go but because of their disability, their horizons became limited and so the beginning of the disability comes from individual that is have disabilities and the parents of the individuals with disabilities who were for that individual, that individual would be able to succeed. you look at an organization like the autism society which is an extraordinary organization largely made up with parents of children with disabilities being like all the other parent organization largely driven by whites.

but what you don't see is the fact that african americans get autism or cerebral palsy and mental illness and because of barriers, lack of education, maybe not in a two-parent family, they haven't gotten access and yet the very civil rights organizations that really enable african americans and hispanic like naacp and la raza until this initiative by jpmorgan, the first time ever that they had sign-language interpreters, the cart, the instant that they had made sure that panels were wheelchair accessible. if you can imagine, civil rights meetings have been taking place throughout this city, throughout the nation talking about access to basic dignity and rights

based on ethnic groups and people with disabilities could not participate at all. so the person who was impacted in a multiple ways because they had a minority ethnic or sexual orientation or whatever and a disability found that they were unable to participate in the -- in their basic social justice movements. and, in fact, we are working with foundation that is fund on poverty and there's billions of dollars going to enable people who are in poverty to achieve a better future and people with disabilities cannot even apply for funds because you have to enter a portal, a race, gender or sexual or or -- orientation and people cannot apply for the funding. now you can answer the question. >> i don't need the -- to answer

the question. you just did. that makes it much more enlightening for all of us. i know that organizations like yours and others like to pin candidates down during the cycle of the election so that they can then say, you said you would do x, okay, now it's time to put up or shut up. i would only say i understand that but i think it's far more important. i wouldn't get too hung up on getting someone to answer a questionnaire. it is important, but what's far more important from a policy standpoint is the three and a half years or the three, maybe it's only two now that we are not in an election cycle, presidential cycle, you are working with the legislative assistance, you are working with others to enact policy, i don't think it matter ifs you're doing the right thing or congress lobbying at the state

legislature level that i don't think it's crucial that it was a top of the list campaign issue in order to get action on a policy issue during those brief periods of time where we are not running another campaign. one other thing i just mentioned and that is when it comes to issues like ssi, ssdi and the like, it hasn't been brought up but it's always the case that there's a push back and this gets to the issue of funding from certain elements in politics and in government who think that those plams are abused and that they are abused not by the types of people with disabilities that we are all here talking about and trying to represent, but by people who claim that their back got tweaked and now they want 30 years of ssdi payments and i'm not trying to -- i'm sure some of legitimate but there are people in government who think

that the programs are overrun by folks who are claiming physical disabilities from an accident that is not severe enough and their interest, the government officials interest on cutting back on those programs being abused and it's just something that we need to be aware of. >> thank you. norm is going to make a comment and we will go to questions. >> my wife has been spending some time, she's a lawyer, she's been helping people get on mental disability. these are the people who have the least ability to fill out the forms. if you don't fill out the forms exactly right, you're denied. if you appeal, it can take years before you hear your appeal. a substantial number of homeless people are those with serious mental illnesses who should be on disability who deserve to be on disability, but they simply are not capable of handling those forms themselves and that's an issue that really needs a lot of additional attention. there are some jurisdictions in

the court that help train people . >> thank you. now we turn to the crowd, there's a microphone there. i ask you to use the microphone. lauren, maybe you can pull the microphone down so it's more accessible. please identify yourself before you ask your question. >> whether you think there's been a shift in the disability community as to the partisanship, specifically

bipartisan issue and was viewed equally by both sides, both sides wanting to do something, many of you made comments about that, but specifically with the polarization of the affordable care act and what that means for people with disabilities and the extra rights that they've been about to get as a result of the aca, whether that is sort of causing a shift maybe in the way the disability is going to go forward. i say that for someone who grew up in a republican home. it's hard for me to vote on a republican because they never provide details of someone like me. >> i will say i was with my friend bob dole a little while ago and bob was telling the story of what was, i think, the

lowest moment other hand losing the white house in his political career was being on the floor of the senate and watching republican colleagues vote against the international disability convention. and then they came up to him and said how much they loved him but that was a pivotal moment, i think, and it's a story more about how outside forces, the social media and the new tribal media have tended to dominate on a lot of these issues, at the same time the physical questions, the ones that i mentioned earlier have become more important. the ones that rich mentioned, housing for people, you need money and if everything gets caught in a vice, that is how are you going to do a pay for and you keep most of the pay for 's all the table entirely which

is partisan now then you're going to be stuck and then you get to the question although that rich mentioned that you want to blow up all regulations, that creates another set of issues and now everything is tribal. >> president george h. bush basically is the father of the americans with disabilities act and hugely bipartisan and was seen as a great asset among republicans. today's republicans, they sort of recent what they see expanding rights for everybody but them. so, i think, they would identify and overall they just oppose the expansion of rights and they see the programs as expansion of government and we've had now decades of government is bad, big government, we want to

shrink government and so i think the kinds of progress that we identify with and thing should continue get sacrificed to all of this rhetoric and the libertarian ticket echos this as well. we have to shrink government. i think there could be a case made of more government in these areas that will pay off and that's another thing the disability rights community will do, is to make some equations where if you spend this or have this program, the benefit that is you get in productivity or reduced reliance on government. i mean, i think it pays off so making the case on economic grounds is something that should be done. >> i have to jump on top of that because i just completely agree with you, our organizations has

met with governor and seen excitement around republican governors. i will give you a specific example, in dakota you have governor, both of his parents were deaf, two parents that were hearing impaired and they used sign language and he thought that they worked hard on the farm, they worked hard in their business and that they were enormously bright and successful and as governor he has created so much opportunity that 50% and scott walker not known to be a big spender, he has every single month gone to a different private sector employer in his state that hires people with disabilities where it's working out well for the employers and showcase how it's helping their companies and not only that, he

has dramatically expanded a program for young people with significant disabilities to enable them to go straight from school to the workplace. they had 12 such sights in the past, now they have 37 and he's getting almost 80% employment outcome for these young people with disabilities and it is saving a fortune because these individuals otherwise would spend their entire life sitting on their parents' couch until they die and then their brother's couch living on benefits. because he has invested in this he has saved a fortune for the taxpayers. one problem that we see is wrong pockets. when he saves the money he invests in the job training and transition for the youth with the disability who saves the money, the feds not the states. so it's been sort of an issue of how you incentivize the right

people because if the governors can really fix this but they're not properly incentivize by getting the cost savings because it's the fed that get the cost savings, we see governor less enthusiastic, you know, what government benefits for people with disabilities in west virginia and kentucky, for example, so a lot of it has to do with the attitudes that they're bringing but there's huge sos cavings that can be absolutely achieved with proper policy on that. thank you for your question, do we have other questions? susan if you can go to the microphone, please. >> can i say one thing about the question that was raised and that is, i think it's fine if folks with disabilities are being swayed more by one party than the other given say obamacare or given, say, what a

couple of us have already referred to in terms of what the republican presidential candidate is doing. i think that's fine in the privacy of the voting booth. i don't think it's great if they chose to become one party instead of the other. that would encourage the republican governorses and republican legislators and there are more of a variety of them to think, oh, disability, that's a liberal democratic issue. i'm not going to invest much of my time or energy and i think the the community is going to depend on republican lefght chuirs and officially staying somewhat natural even in the privacy of the booth even though votes are going to democrats. i would urge that we are a one-sided lobby. >> thank you so much all.

>> i went to school for journalism and i read many of your pieces throughout the years and thank you for coming today. i run a voting act of solutions a nonpartisan to bring voting issues to the problem. i work in new york state. when you talk about bringing issues to the forefront to people like me who have been in the field for 30 years and i have very compelling controversial stories but i am feeling a gap in how to go about getting the story i know to the public to get to editors and publishers interested. i feel like i could use some advice because there are amazing compelling stories that would get attention if handled in the correct way.

our main concern is how do we get the message out, respectability, how does the movement get the message out. first of all, look to those journalists and media that are already picking up stories like yours and this will tell you, here is somebody who is on first base with, let me tell them about this story that's going on. or if you don't have someone who is covering because the beat system back in typewriter days, in my youth, so last century, has crumbled to a certain degree because structure changed things entirely. i want to keep beating this one

issue but it's so big right now, issue about police videos overlapping with issues of people with disabilities and with the problems of mental health service to folks that need it. which one get it is biggest headline? when it does get the big headline, that's a time when an observant reporter can come in and say, hey, there's also this story relate today that as well and we have to pursue that and that can have more legs for people who are incarcerate order in jeopardy of being incarcerated. that's a story that deserves more attention. that would be my advice in general and be more specific talking about it. well i'm -- i would like to talk to journalists.

i've been involved with many scenarios like two days ago we found someone has been abused by the legal guardian, but we are are having a terrible time doing anything about that. now, that's a story that could really grow legs and be big but there's a gap in how like someone like me can communicate that to the right people so it's written in a tasteful, productive way. >> can i just say -- i've given this type of advice over the years not just to disability advocates but to others and that is more so each and every year because things spread digitally, you just need one good place to place your story, one major newspaper, one television outlet, one major radio station. you don't need to think about paper -- so they're all going to get the same information at the same time and they're all going to think well everybody else got the information too so i'm going

to ignore it. it's better to find one place and usually you can sort of figure out who would be the type of organization, maybe it's, you know, the huffington post, maybe the daily caller, whoever it is that you can interest one reporter so that that reporter knows he or she has a head start, he or she is being tipped that this is a problem. if you get one really good story others pay attention to then it spreads. i always say come to usa today first, of course, but go to one place rather than -- i guess most people in public relations do anyway, but when i would get something in my e-mail or back in the days of paper i realized that this is a routine release that went to thousands, i'm not going to pay much attention to. >> we are actually out of time

for this particular session. thank you. but i want to -- before we break, let me just give a couple of logistics, we are going to take a break, during the break people are going to eat lunch in the rayburn cafeteria, you can pick up lunch and bring it back. this is what happens when you're a disability organization, there's no fine catering and big lunches and candle sticks, everybody buys themselves lunch in the rayburn cafeteria and then we come back here sharply for our an ex panel which is going to be at 1:15 which is going to be on reaching all voters by making electronic communication accessible with sheila newman, cindy and moderated by major political consultant who has elected dozens aof congressmen and senators.

we are ending the day with a terrific series of awardees, so please that governor jack and chief of staff to paul ryan are going to be here to get their awards and they're going to take questions, which is really exciting. again, governor jack who is the chair of the council on state governments today and chair of governor's association and the chief of staff for paul ryan will both be here later today. let me turn to our panel and say quickly, for campaign 2016, what's the one thing that we in the disability community should we really work for to try and achieve in this election cycle going forward, rich? >> this is not the most central thing i can think of but i would say go after donald trump at this point. you never know what he is going to do day-to-day, month to month, maybe he could surprise

everybody and become a champion of the disability community and you can take it from wherever you can get it. you mentioned that he hasn't filled out the questionnaire yet. a candidate like that who is down anywhere from 8 to 15 points in the polls sees disability as an effort where he can make a comeback, then great, it doesn't mean you to vote for him. if you're not going to vote for him, but i would see him right now as an opportunity. >> thank you. >> i think raising visibility about what disability is, you speak of your son with autism. i have a son with add which we did not know until he was diagnosed and then i became an expert on add as his mother did too and we were told that it tends to be hereditary and my wife says no in my family. guess what, i have add, i scored remarkably high and this helped me to answer a great question i've had for many years, news

rooms that attract so many weird people. [laughter] >> you young people are so darn bright with digital age. it's not nearly as much fun if you know that wonderful play and movie. i was talking to a harvard psychiatrist who studied add and i went through this theory of mind that add people like to -- like at least resistance but are also very much into becoming experts on something immediately, making their deadline and forgetting all about it. it's perfect for daily journalism. [laughter] >> i bring this up because the issues become visible to me and i really care about it. you mention it had governor, north dakota, he has it in his family.

as you all know, you saw on your website, over half of americans have someone with disability in their family so this reminds me of the issue of gay, lesbian, lgbt rights how much we have change. we have never predicted we had gotten this far. i see this coming with people with disabilities and disability issues. as i mentioned earlier, in this campaign, there's been more visibility than in the past, time magazine wrote about this recently and i think we are going to see more in the future. but a lot of people say they don't think in terms of that guy sitting in the street talking to himself that that is a disability issue, why is he on the street, why aren't services helping him out and so i think that would be a big challenge this year and one other thing, beyond 2016, 2018, mid-term

elections, so many people forget about in the mist of the excitement of the presidential years. it's the midterm elections and towns like ferguson can make a big, big difference with low turnout in the elections. so i would say that would be number two. to think ahead in so far as what are you going to do in the midterms as far as affecting the vote on capitol hill? >> great, norm. >> clarence is absolutely right. it was tom harkin really who were responsible for getting mental health parity because of experiences in their own families. when i wrote a tragedy with my son with mental illness, certainly by the broader range

of disabilities. but getting that to politicians is more difficult task. i wouldn't focus much on the presidential campaign. hillary clinton is going to have a very robust set of policy ideas in this area. the challenge is going to be getting congress to do anything with them and that's there for all issues but it means that you're focused on senate and house races an state and local as much as you can becomes the critical set of issues here and at the state and local level it is doing exactly what you said with governor walker and others. it is getting the message out there that changing policy not only helps and saves lives, it saves money and that's a message that in florida steve has managed to get florida from the florida legislature among other things, create a facility in miami-dade where they have a 5,000 square foot kitchen and

taking people with serious mental illnesses abtraining them and they've got arrangement with local caterers and restaurants. and that's going to save the community and the state money and they know it and they're paying for it. >> great. >> the rally and cry for the feminist movement, women's movement was the personal is the political and following what everybody has said here, that's what the disability rights community needs to do is drive home these stories, just about every household has one even if they don't recognize it. i agree with norm, hillary clinton, you don't have to worry about her on this issue but you have to give her a congress she can work with and you have to build the political structure for the future, all the state legislators out there have flipped to pretty bright red and they don't want to spend any money on anything, so you have to influence politics down to

the grassroots level and getting people active on this issue has been giving people purpose, young people specially do want a cause and i think that's a cause that's already made. so personal is the political. >> alan or cliff, thank you for that fabulous session. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> three years after supreme

court ruling overturn voting rights act, dediscriminate against a specific group of vot ers. we will feature part of the supreme court argument in shelby versus holder. there was a congress look on whether to restore the voting rights act plus a discussion on whether the voting rights acts the necessary. here is what the presidential candidates have to say. >> you know, all this voter id, nowadays a lot of places aren't going to have voter id. now what does that mean? what does that mean you keep walking in and voting? >> what is happening is a sweeping effort to disem power and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people from one end of our country to the other.

conference on voters with disabilities continues with chief of staff house speaker paul ryan. [inaudible conversations] >> i also want to think the ccac who really made this particular event possible and i really want to thank ccac for the live captioning that made this event much more successful and i want to thank my credible team.

we are going take a picture so don't disappear. for the fellow we want to have a picture with amazing leaders who are role models. actually, if you guys want to come on in dona and doc. they are going to speak and they'll do a little q&a. i'm jennifer mizrahi, we are a nonprofit organization devote today enable people with disabilities to have a better future and for us that's about opportunity. it's that hand up, not that hand out. it's that ability to achieve the american dream and to have a better future that everyone regardless of their ability,

their race, whatever their background, that is a part of america is all about. it's expanding opportunities for everyone equally and fairly. i'm really delighted that donna are going to be giving out our award and i'm incredibly delight that had we have such amazing honorees. thank you. >> hi, folks, hi, jack, i'm honoring governor morkel from delaware. i have been on politics for 35 years. i will say that jack is without question one of the most decent and smartest people that i have ever come across in public service. he had a unique path. he was successful in business

and had a mba from the university of chicago, had mergers and acquisitions and he chose public service to dedicate his life to public service. he became the treasurer of delaware, taught financial literacy to women across the state and ran for governor in 2009. he became the governor of delaware and to show you his success in 2012 he was reelected with 69% of the vote. i'm a little biased here but i would argue that jack is a good governor if not the best governor in the united states. his ability to create jobs and understand the economy sets him apart than the average politician. he took delaware which had one of the lower rankings in job creation and took it to the top. top on the east coast, and one on the top in the united states but he also did something special which was to make the jobs inclusive.

in 2012, jack became head of the national governor's association and as chair of the national association you get the champion an issue, one issue for the year for all the other governors. i said this is great, i'm going call him up. he's an expert in small businesses, creating jobs, this is a chance to get on the national stage in a big way. it's an important issue for all of america, so i called him and said, jack, time to write the story, time to champion this and the creation of jobs and small business and he said to me, i'm going to champion people with disabilities. i didn't think i heard right because in all the years i've been doing this i heard people champion for veterans and seniors and old and young and black, white, brown and everybody even endangered species but i have not heard people in politics champion for people with disabilities. so i hung up and i thought, i will take another shot at this.

he obviously doesn't know what he's thinking. i called him back and i said, jack, you know, you're really good at this job thing and really good at creating jobs, think about this, you're a democrat that creates job and knows business, that makes you unique. he stopped and said, doc, let me tell you a story, in southern delaware, a plant opened up about 700 jobs he helped create and a young man came up to him with down syndrome and he had a conversation with him, what are you doing, i want to thank you, this is my first job, this is my first job and jack says, your first 25, you're 25. what have you been doing? i've been sitting at home with my parents watching television waiting for this day. so he didn't choose the

politically correct thing to do, he listen today this kid, listened to the kid's story, understood the issue and became a champion for it. that's why he's getting an award today, hee he camp owned it and today we have other states following his lead. in wisconsin and pennsylvania they've expanded critical investments to work programs for young people and made such a difference by promoting these practices and he continues today as president of the council state governments. ..

it's great to be here. what doc didn't say is i wouldn't be governor were it not for him. we were together since 1998 when i ran for treasurer and he embraced my campaign and we one side election working together

including one that wasn't supposed to win which got me to be the governor. i'm grateful to him. i'm glad he told the story because i told this story all the time. i tell people the guy who got elected governor called me and said i'm crazy to do this issue. but he really got the story right. the bottom line is so many people across the country want to work for gazette extraordinary value to a place of employment if they were only given a shot in the shot is exactly what they need. this story i put in the back of my mind to know if i ever have the chance to work on an issue at the national level, this would be that issue. not only did the job represents an incredible movement and that 25-year-old man who now had a reason to wake up everyday, covert, be part of something they could than himself and even

earn a paycheck. it represented an extraordinary improvement because his parents didn't have parents didn't have to sit at home watching tv with them all day long. and they were so proud of him and he was so proud of himself. there is millions of people around the country like this young man. when i did have this opportunity to chair the national governors association, they association, there are not many perks to the position of advantage is one issue for all the governors to focus on. we live in a world where it is so red the democrats and republicans were together for common cause. the issue of employment for people with disabilities is something all governors would agree on. every governor in the country wants to be the jobs governor and may view as we all need to be the jobs governor for everybody in our state. that's exactly what happened. i have been so proud to see the work and talk mentioned some of

the governors. you really don't know if a democrat or republican nor should you because when you talk about opportunity and giving more people the chance to live out the american dream, that's not a democrat issue for republican issue issue for republican issue. it's something everyone can relate to. but it's democratic governors to republican governors who embraced this comment doesn't matter because people across the spectrum have really signed onto this as an issue. when we have a chance to work on this for a year it was such a fantastic learning experience because he learned from the people who know the most common self advocates. people across every disability. many efficacy organizations but a self advocates. to go across the country and the same to them elders worried and to develop some best practices about what was really needed. things we really have to change the way we do workforce

development. for too long to workforce development issue for people with disabilities has been somebody from the state government going to an employer and saying to me a favor and buy jobs for these people. we have to turn it on its head. so many people with disabilities across the country can add extraordinary value. when the focus on the ability rather than disability, it's amazing what we can accomplish together. when i heard craig wiseman throughout the time was the ceo of walgreens. senator can invite me to a meeting of walgreens who he invited the ceo of many large companies to this day two of walgreens was doing in the area of employment for people with disabilities. when he said walgreens employs people with disabilities not as a matter of charity. we do it because it's in the best interest of our

shareholders. these employees are incredibly hard-working. they are so grateful to have their child. they are less likely to be absent. the turnover is lower than they do a phenomenal job. when i heard that comment now is the key. the key cannot be government officials asking an employer to do a favor. if employers talking to other employers about why there can be as better thanks to the fact they provide these employment opportunities. we as governments had to step up and walk the walk. it's not enough for me to talk about this as an important issue. we need to talk about the fact that we as governments are providing these employment opportunities to people with disabilities and are better off as a result and we have done that comment too. one of the most important things we can do is do a better job for young people. we have to make sure when it comes to young people is time to

ask the nation for a lifetime of employment. we don't prepare them for lifetime public support. we prepare them for an expectation of a lifetime of employment. when you do that it can make an extraordinary difference. i'm delighted to be here. it's nice to receive distance of 10 and i would not be governor without him. when i found out he and jennifer were working together in a surprise because there are two extraordinary people. the work you've done from the u.k. milan at the perfect time for me and the work i was doing because i gave at the national governors association was one year. you've taken this issue and used it and created something every governor -- nobody surprised to see jennifer coming after them. i'm sure it is here true in the house of congress as well.

i am thrilled to be here, to thank you for all you are doing and certainly it's nice to receive this honor but unclear except on behalf of literally millions of people across the country who feel passionately about this issue, and when we do this would be a better world. [applause] spin that's been a great honor and privilege of presenting award to dave hoppe. i began my career working on the hill. i had the privilege of working for a short while for a member of congress who ironically is also a member of respectability u.s.a. congressman tony coelho.

besides from supporting people with disabilities, i learned the value of building good relationships, affected staff can make a different and what we do. what i meant about you is that you are smart, strategic and a straight shooter. that is something people in my side of defense have always greatly appreciated about folks who work on the hill. building a stronger society with ever more economic and educational opportunities for people with disabilities is the work of a lifetime. dave hoppe is the man who has devoted himself to improving america and advancing the causes he believes by working through elected officials. decades of work in the legislative branch of government has touched the lives of millions of americans. if you don't know mr. hoppe, object value about his work.

he brings a wealth of experience to his current role as the chief of staff to the speaker of the house. having dealt with legislative development and strategy at the highest level on capitol hill. he direct hit in both the house and the senate and that the senate majority leaders during the clinton and bush 43 administration. he oversaw and coordinated the flow of legislation through congress and required working with political personality and both sides of the aisle as well as the white house to achieve passage of many important bills. in a series in washington d.c., he has hurt.incredible range of issues including welfare reform, tax policies in education reform. the lawsuit sought to develop are too numerous to mention. however, one in particular deserves our attention today. that is the law called the individuals with disabilities education act and he worked on

the amendments of 1997. that was 20 years ago. the gridlock and partisan shop. with david hoppe is how we strengthened the laws that govern special-education. you build consensus and work tired because he personally understood the importance of improving opportunities for young people with disabilities. davis said gregory has down syndrome and i love they share has inspired the policies he's worked to create and continue south benefit millions of students with disabilities to this day. i encourage each and every one of you here with us who watch television into google and see from the archives of "usa today" articlti