Washington, D.C., Oct. 6 – RespectAbility, a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities for people with disabilities, has asked candidates for U.S. Senate on all sides of the aisle to fill out a questionnaire on disability issues. RespectAbility is nonpartisan and does not endorse candidates. The questionnaire is purely for educational purposes.
This is important for Maine’s 206,00 citizens with disabilities. Only 32.6 percent of the 106,00 working-age people with disabilities in Maine are employed. Further, there are more than 22,000 youth with disabilities and each year a quarter of them will age out of school into an uncertain future.
According to a recent survey, 74 percent of likely voters have a disability themselves or have a family member or a close friend with disabilities. The upcoming elections and their results will have an impact on people with disabilities, so it is important to become familiar with the candidates’ thoughts on certain issues.
“Candidates for office ignore the disability community at their peril,” said former U.S. Representative and Dallas Mayor Steve Bartlett. Bartlett, who was a primary author of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, is the chairman of RespectAbility.
While incumbent Sen. Angus King, an Independent running for re-election to the U.S. Senate in Maine, did not answer RespectAbility’s questionnaire, he shared responses to a different questionnaire he completed on disability inclusion. We are presenting those answers below.
RespectAbility also sent our questionnaire to the campaigns of Republican State Senator Eric Brakery and Democrat Zak Ringelstein.
Senator Angus S. King Jr’s responses to another disability questionnaire are below.
