Mr. EDWARDS. And disabled people who are discriminated against despite the fact that they are qualified for the job.

Mr. ADDESSO. That's right.

Mr. EDWARDS. The gentleman from Florida.

Mr. JAMES. Thank you so much for your testimony. I have no questions at this time, thank you.

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Addesso, we are running into some opposition from the business community. If Mr. Brady was still here, I was going to ask him about that because he very proudly said-and he should be proud of it—that he's a good Republican and he has a lot of friends in the Republican Party and, generally speaking, that's a lot of the business community. But we're getting a lot of flak from the business community on this bill. They say it will cost too much money. The private bus companies say, "Look, we're going to go belly up if we have to make these changes."

What's your response to that?

Mr. ADDESSO. There's a lot of things in this country that cost a lot of money. I think this is well worth the effort and the money, no matter what they have to restructure or change.

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you very much, Mr. Addesso. We deeply appreciate your testimony. We're proud of you as a veteran and what you did for your country, and the wonderful way that you fought back. I know it hasn't been easy, but it's a privilege for us to have you here today. Thank you for your testimony.

Mr. ADDESSO. Thank you.

Mr. EDWARDS. Our last witness is Chai Feldblum, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU]. Ms. Feldblum formerly served as a clerk to Justice Blackmun and was of great assistance to this subcommittee during our consideration of the Fair Housing Amendments last year. We welcome you and you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF CHAI R. FELDBLUM, LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

Ms. FELDBLUM. Thank you.

I have submitted my testimony for the record and I'm just going to highlight the main points here today.

Mr. EDWARDS. Without objection, it will be made a part of the record.

Ms. FELDBLUM. I am very pleased to be here today in support of H.R. 2273, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1989, a bill that for the first time will extend to the private sector comprehensive Federal antidiscrimination protection for people with disabilities.

For so many years, irrelevant characteristics like race, gender, religion and national origin were used to judge people and then to justify discrimination against those individuals. Ever since the landmark Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, there has been in place in this country a Federal policy and a Federal prohibition against discrimination against such individuals.

Having these laws in place certainly has not eradicated such discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or religion, but it has at least provided a source of redress for those individuals who have experi

Unfortunately, there are some members of our society that still do not have that basic access to redress for discrimination. People with disabilities constitute one such class.

Mr. EDWARDS. Ms. Feldblum, may I impolitely interrupt just for a moment.

Ms. FELDBLUM. Certainly.

Mr. EDWARDS. The chief sponsor and Member of Congress who is carrying the bill to all of the committees is here, and we are honored to have the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Hoyer. Mr. Hoyer, will you come up and join the committee.

Mr. Hoyer was at an important official meeting of the leadership and missed the splendid testimony of James S. Brady and Mr. Peter Addesso of the Paralyzed Veterans of America. We congratulate Mr. Hoyer for the splendid progress that has already been made in this bill. As you know, it appears, Mr. Hoyer, in the Senate and at the White House, a lot of the details have been worked out and it looks like we might even have some smooth sailing except for some business interests who think that it's going to cost too much money. We have splendid testimony going on right now from Chai R. Feldblum, who is legislative counsel on behalf of the ACLU. While we don't want to interrupt her, I'm sure she wouldn't mind if you want to say hello.

Mr. HOYER. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for allowing me to join you. I apologize for being late. I just came from the Whip meeting.

I want to congratulate all of those in the audience and the literally thousands of others who have worked so hard over the past 2 years to get us to this point. I am expecting, Mr. Chairman, to have over a majority of the House of Representatives cosponsoring this legislation, hopefully by the end of business today. We have 214 cosponsors as of this morning. It looks now that all this work that so many in this room have done is coming to fruition. We join the White House and the Senate, Senator Harkin and others, in expressing our belief that this bill will be enacted into law hopefully before we go home finally for this first session of the 101st Congress.

I congratulate you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership on this effort and thank you again.

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Mr. Hoyer.

I again apologize, Ms. Feldblum. You may proceed.

Ms. FELDBLUM. No problem at all. Thank you.

I was just saying something that I know Congressman Hoyer knows well, which is that while there is protection for people on the basis of race, sex and religion in this country, there is no such protection for people with disabilities. For example, while a private employer under this country's law could not refuse to hire or promote a person because that individual was Jewish, or black, or she was a woman, that private employer could refuse to hire a person with a disability because of that person's disability. Such discrimination happens all too often, in situations where the person with the disability is otherwise completely qualified to do the job in question, and the discrimination that occurs is solely because of myths, stereotypes or fears about the disability.

The same type of discrimination that occurs in employment against people with disabilities occurs across the spectrum in all areas of society. People with disabilities face discrimination in a broad range of public accommodations. In some situations, the discrimination is attitudinal-the grocery store, the dress shop, the exercise club, simply don't want to open their doors to or provide services to persons with a disability. Sometimes the public accommodation simply needs to provide some sort of auxiliary aid or some modification of its policy in order to allow the person with the disability to use its benefits or its services. But that business or accommodation simply doesn't provide the aid or the modification in the policy. Sometimes the discrimination is one of simple physical access. The person with the disability can't even get into the public accommodation.

As someone who works on this bill a lot has often said, people with disabilities just want to get in, to get the same mediocre services that everyone else is getting, if that's what is going on in there. But simply physical access stops people with disabilities from getting in.

Problems with attitudinal discrimination and physical access discrimination exist in the sphere of private and public transportation as well. In order for the person with the disability to get to the job, or to get to the grocery store or the bakery shop or the shoe repair service, that person needs access to transportation. I think those people who are nondisabled take so much for granted our easy access to transportation.

Yet, in this country, many public buses are not equipped with lifts so that people with mobility impairments cannot get on them, and in private transportation, there are even fewer buses that are easily accessible.

People with hearing impairments experience a particular form of discrimination in our country. The basis of our society is communication, and a lot of that communication takes place on the telephone. Well, we use a telephone to do everything-carry out our business, set up appointments, engage in such life-sustaining activities as ordering Chinese food. The telephone is our basis of communication. But for someone who is deaf, they don't have access to this most basic tool of communication unless the entity or person on the other side also has a TDD [telecommunication device for the deaf], which enables them to talk to each other.

The Americans with Disabilities Act offers the means to redress these various forms of discrimination. The bill is a historic piece of civil rights legislation that will finally extend to people with disabilities equal opportunity and equal access in this society.

Now, as a general matter, in prohibiting these various forms of discrimination, the bill draws upon the longstanding case law and regulations that we have developed under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, in which sections 501, 503, and 504 prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities by the Federal Government, people who have Federal contracts, and entities that receive Federal funds. For example, the definition of disability, who can gain access to protection under this act, the definition of disability in this act

and exactly identical to the definition which this subcommittee put into the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988.

Specifically, the different titles of the ADA address the various forms of discrimination that I have just been describing. Title II of H.R. 2273 prohibits discrimination in employment. The bill covers employers who have 15 or more employees. Now, there are lots of people who believe that discrimination should be prohibited by any employer, even if it's two employees, but 15 employees is the number that exists in title VII prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion and national origin, and that is the figure that's put in this bill.

The discrimination that's prohibited is straightforward. An employer cannot refuse to hire, cannot refuse to promote, cannot set different terms or conditions of employment, for a person with a disability because of that disability. That's the straightforward, nondiscrimination mandate.

The bill also requires that employers make reasonable accommodations to the physical and mental limitations of the individual with the disability if that accommodation or modification would then make the person qualified to do the job. As the chairman noted, obviously every person with a disability has to be qualified to do the job. However, in some situations the employer must make reasonable accommodation in order to allow the person to do the essential functions of the job.

Title III of the ADA covers the provision of public services by a State or a subdivision of a State. Now, most of the programs and activities of a State are going to be already covered under section 504 if they get Federal funds, but to the extent that some programs or activities are not covered, title III extends that same coverage to the rest of the activities of the State.

Title III also incorporates specific provisions regarding public transportation. These provisions reflect a focus on the future. Instead of requiring extensive retrofitting of existing buses, this section requires that every new bus that is bought in a public transportation program must be readily accessible to and usable by people with disabilities, including people who use wheelchairs.

Title IV of the ADA prohibits discrimination on the part of all public accommodations operated by private entities. Again, I think this is a title that this subcommittee might be well interested in because it parallels in many ways what the subcommittee just did in the Fair Housing Amendments Act last year.

The bill states simply that no individual can be discriminated against in the full and equal enjoyment of any of the benefits offered by a public accommodation. The bill addresses the two aspects of discrimination that I was talking about before. First, it prohibits attitudinal discrimination. It says a place cannot say "we just don't want you in here; we don't like the way you look." Someone testified earlier on the Senate side, where a young girl with cerebral palsy who was not allowed into a movie theater because the movie theater owner didn't like how she looked. It prohibits attitudinal discrimination.

The second type of discrimination it prohibits is discrimination based on physical access. Again, as with transportation, the bill looks to the future. While there is a requirement that some modifi

cations be made in existing facilities if those modifications would be readily achievable-that is, actions that can be accomplished without much difficulty or expense-the bill's basic requirement is that all design and construction of new buildings must be readily accessible to people with disabilities. This approach of looking to the future and this requirement of physical access is not at all new to this subcommittee, which as I noted just last year brought to the Congress the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 which had the same approach and same requirements of physical access in new buildings.

Finally, title VI of the ADA requires common carriers to provide telecommunication relay systems. This rely system allows deaf individuals who have their own TDD's to be able to communicate with other people and entities, even if the person on the receiving side doesn't have a TDD, by the use of an intermediary relay system.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate our strong support for the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1989. This bill, when enacted, will be a historic piece of civil rights legislation. It should have been passed in 1964 and in 1968, together with all the other civil rights laws. But it wasn't. It needs to be passed now. It needs to be passed by this Congress this year. The ADA is a piece of civil rights legislation whose time has truly come.

Thank you.

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you very much, Ms. Feldblum, for splendid testimony.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Feldblum follows:]