this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
136 points (97.2% liked)

politics

19090 readers
4594 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

The Supreme Court will consider the strength of the Americans with Disabilities Act on Wednesday when it hears a dispute over whether a self-appointed “tester” of the civil rights law has the right to sue hotels over alleged violations of its provisions.

How the justices rule could have a significant impact on the practical effectiveness of the landmark legislation, which aims to shield individuals with disabilities from discrimination in public accommodations and a host of other settings.

At the center of the dispute is Deborah Laufer, a disability rights advocate who has brought hundreds of lawsuits against hotels she says are not in compliance with ADA rules requiring hotels to disclose information about how accessible they are to individuals with disabilities.

Laufer, a Florida resident who uses a wheelchair and has a visual impairment, doesn’t intend to visit the hotels she’s suing. Instead, the complaints are made in an effort to force the hotels to update their websites to be in compliance with the law. Legal experts say the strategy, known as “testing,” is necessary to ensure enforcement of the historic law.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Eccitaze@yiffit.net 1 points 1 year ago

The point you seem to be missing is that the ADA currently has a relatively limited mechanism for direct government enforcement, because the current mechanisms were designed under the assumption that individuals could also sue to enforce the ADA. Most of the government agencies currently enforcing the ADA only produce guidelines and issue regulations, with relatively few lawsuits originating directly from the government. Enhancing the government's ability to enforce the ADA requires passing an amendment to the law through Congress to potentially create a new office with enforcement authority (or grant additional enforcement authority to an existing office), and to provide adequate funding so it can keep up with the additional workload. The odds of this amendment being passed on its own are infinitesimal; even if it passed the GOP-controlled House (who would almost certainly oppose it on principle, and even the reps who didn't oppose it would have far more important issues to spend political capital on), it would almost certainly be filibustered in the Senate, where it would die.

The only way it would possibly pass is if it was attached to a must-pass bill, such as one to address the debt limit or avoid another government shutdown. Even then, it'd be vulnerable to negotiations--it may be included initially, but underfunded or dropped entirely in order to accommodate other, more important goals. Even if by some miracle it did survive negotiations intact, it would then be a constant target for defunding or dissolvement by conservative legislators looking to deliver red meat to their base.

Yeah, in an ideal world, it would be nice if the government took care of enforcing the law. But this isn't an ideal world. Getting rid of individual enforcement trades a system that produces mostly desirable outcomes and ensures compliance with the law even when exploited by bad faith actors and replaces it with a system that is much slower due to the additional bureaucracy and the inevitable backlog piling up from underfunded and overworked agents, and is also vulnerable to the whims of a handful of extremists, placing the quality of life for millions of disabled people at risk.

That's why I say the ADA will be feckless without an individual avenue to force compliance: even if the government does take over all the enforcement work previously done by individuals, it'll be much slower, and the government will be strongly incentivized to focus on large, wide-ranging cases over smaller, individual violations, leaving them unaddressed for years (or even ignoring them outright so they don't get accused of being "hostile to small business")