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Mr. HLIBOK. I am sure, yes. One example, that happened last Thursday, was with 200 to 300 students at Gallaudet who took time off of their classes to go to Capitol Hill to pressure the legislature and the Congressmen to pass a bill, H.R. 4992, perhaps you have heard of that yourself?

Mr. OWENS. Yes, I have.

Mr. HLIBOK. I am sure that we are ready, when the time is right. Mr. OWENS. Thank you very much. I want to again thank all of you and tell you there are difficult days ahead. We will be closely working with you. The energy, the creativity, all that is needed to get passage of this bill, exists among you. That leadership is there and we appreciate it and will be expecting to work in partnership with you. Thank you.

Senator HARKIN. Thank you very much, Congressman Owens. [Applause.]

I see some people want to say something. I am going to have to exercise a little bit of jurisdiction here. I would like to hear from some people just for a few minutes, but I will tell you that we have to cut this off shortly, and I will tell you why.

The buses to Gallaudet for the task force meeting will be departing from Second Street and Constitution at 1 p.m. That is now. Where is Second and Constitution? That is right outside. Traffic will be stopped until the boarding is complete, so I do have to wrap this up. I am sure the bus will be there for a little bit, for those of you, but you are very anxious to say something.

Please identify yourself for the record.

Ms. COOPER. I am Assemblywoman Delores Cooper, Second District Atlantic, representing the State of New Jersey and all of the New Jersey delegation. New Jersey, will you stand up, please?

Senator, on behalf of the New Jersey delegation and all of the professionals, providers, care givers, I have a little gift for you. New Jersey and you, perfect together, because we know that bill is going to pass. Am I right. [Applause.]

Senator HARKIN. Thank you, very much. That is wonderful. And thank you for coming down.

Yes, right here.

Ms. SHAPIRO. I would like to say something. My name is Mary Shapiro. I saw "Mac and Me" and I think you should all see it because it will get more people to understand about people in wheelchairs and understand what they are going through.

Plus, I think the bill should go through because it will make the other people understand about us and all, because I went to a thing in Philadelphia, PA, I got a shirt that says "A real difference. That is a project in every state, about being a nation and about what we have and all that stuff. [Applause.]

Senator HARKIN. Thank you very much.

Two more. This guy over here has been trying to get my attention for a long time.

Mr. ROSENFELD. I am Ed Rosenfeld with the Spinal Cord Injury Network, Metropolitan Washington. I would like to know who is pro and who is on the fence or just not doing anything, and we will get to work on them.

Senator HARKIN. If you did not hear the question, he wanted to know-I did not catch your name.

Mr. ROSENFELD. Ed Rosenfeld.

Senator HARKIN. Ed Rosenfeld from where?

Mr. ROSENFELD. The Spinal Cord Injury Network, Metropolitan Washington.

Senator HARKIN. He wanted to know about who is not on board and who is on the fence and everything. We have a list here. I would hope that it would be made available to you someplace here, maybe going out the door or something, of all the cosponsors of the bill in the House and in the Senate.

We have 25 cosponsors in the Senate and 113 in the House. You can see we are missing 75 in the Senate and about 300 and some in the House. All I can tell you is that we will try to get these lists out to you. You should contact those who are not on the list to have them get on it as a cosponsor.

You may hear, well, it is not going anywhere this year. That is not the point. Get on it this year, you are on it, and we will get it back in the new Congress next year.

But we do have these lists and they are available to you if you just ask Bobby or someone here, we will get you the list of the cosponsors. Who is not on here is who you have to go after.

Senator HARKIN. Yes, the woman in white.

Ms. Srow. I am Florence Stow from Bancroft School in Hanfield, NJ. I think that capabilities should be acknowledged just like we, treated like us, not carried down half ramps, treated just like normal people. They should have respect and should go and live where they want to, and do what we do.

They should have a great deal of respect. Thank you. [Applause.] Senator HARKIN. Thank you all very much for your eloquence, and for coming. Let me just say this.

This bill is not going anywhere this year. The Congress, the 100th Congress is about to adjourn. But we enter into the 101st Congress next year and the bill will be reintroduced right away.

We have a long road to go. I am not going to sit here or stand here and kid you that somehow this thing is going to get through right away. There are roadblocks and a lot of problems out there. So what it is going to take is it is going to take persistence. A lot of persistence on my part, a lot of persistence on your part. You are the ones who can make this bill happen. You have to connect up with your friends, your families, the different agencies, organizations that you belong to, and you have got to make this your top priority.

It is going to be a tough battle. I am convinced we can do it. The history of the United States has been a constant evolution of opening more doors, of breaking down barriers, of extending basic human rights to more and more people. Sometimes we do not always live up to those words that we have in the Declaration of Independence and in our Bill of Rights. But we constantly try to live up to them. We said that all men, and I am sure they meant all women, too, if they were here today, were created equal.

And yet, for almost 100 years after, we had slavery. We did not even get the Civil Rights Act until 1964. Women did not have the right to vote until what, 1920, was it not?

But it has been a constant progress towards expanding our concept of basic human rights. But with each one of those hurdles we

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had to cross, it took a lot of effort, a lot of time. I am hopeful it will not take that time for this bill. We have laid the groundwork. We have made the initial steps. Now we just need to take that final step of breaking down the final barrier in our country of discrimination.

I guess I am reminded that when I think about how tough it is going to be, and how much work it is going to take, I am reminded of Rosa Parks who got off that bus in Alabama and said she was not going to ride in the back of the bus anymore. She led the bus boycott as some of you remember, at least those of you who are as old as I am. I do not know how long that bus boycott went on, but they all walked to work. They walked to their places of employment and they walked home, some of them 3, 4, 5 miles a day, rather than take the buses.

After it was all over with, they broke the back of the bus company and were entitled to sit anywhere they wanted to on the bus. When it was all over with, someone asked Rosa Parks how she felt. She said well, "it has been a long tough battle, my feets are tired but my soul is at rest."

Let us work hard so that when we finally win this battle, we can all say together, and paraphrase Rosa Parks, our bodies are tired, but our soul is at rest.

Thank you. [Applause.]

[Additional material supplied for the record follows:]

Y 95 110 0 0 1 1 55 2 2 1 0 35 5

BEFORE THE

JOINT HEARING

SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE HANDICAPPED

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SUBCOMMITTEE ON SELECT EDUCATION

TESTIMONY OF THE ORGANIZATION FOR USE OF THE TELEPHONE (OUT)

ON SENATE BILL 2345 AND HOUSE BILL 4498

(OUT), I

on this

On behalf of The Organization for Use of the Telephone express our appreciation for the opportunity to testify landmark legislation. My name is David Saks. I serve as Director of OUT.

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reception with hearing aids. Since our members have various

degrees of hearing loss, we have a direct interest

in the above

referenced Joint Hearing. We will confine our testimony to

provisions of S. 2345 and H.R. 4498 which deal with hearing communication.

the

and

People whose

hearing impairments

are to varying degrees compensated for by the use of hearing aids are the victims of discrimination in many aspects of their lives. of the issues being addressed by this legislation, discrimination in places of public accommodation and employment are particularly critical to them. Hospital patients who find themselves in rooms with unusable telephones because the phones are not hearing aidcompatible (HAC)--or, depending on severity of hearing loss, not equipped with amplifiers or telecommunications devices for the deaf (TDD). Hotel and motel guests who, although paying for rooms with telephone service, find the same discriminatory lack of usable means of communication. Picture the hapless restaurant patron or airport customer who, upon being paged, is confronted with an unusable telephone while non-impaired passengers all around him enjoy convenient telephone communication.

Since we are especially concerned with the removal of telephone communication, we urge the

these barriers

to

subcommittees to make more specific the provisions which bear on

the use of voice telephones.

for

Neither the Telecommunications (Disabled Act) nor the Hearing Aid (HAC Act) remove pre-existing for emergency phones and coin

the Disabled Act of 1982 Compatibility Act of 1988 communication barriers, except operated payphones. There are an estimated 50,000,000 voice telephones in use in the United States which are not HAC, thus unusable with telecoil-equipped hearing aids. These are not touched by the two laws cited above. (See attachment A)

Many of these

non-HAC phones are necessarily in places of

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