PLEASE CONTACT COUNCILMEMBERS YVETTE ALEXANDER AND KENYAN
MCDUFFIE, AND YOUR OWN COUNCILMEMBER, TODAY TO EXPRESS SUPPORT FOR BILL
#B21-0385 AND ASK FOR A HEARING TO BE SCHEDULED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. You can find all councilmembers’ addresses
at: http://dccouncil.us/council. The Health and Human Services committee,
chaired by Alexander, and the Judiciary committee, chaired by McDuffie, have
joint responsibility for this bill.
Please re-read my blog posts from this past winter, in
particular “Overdue Change for the District” and “A New Year, A Chance for New
Beginnings” if you need to be reminded what B21-0385 is about. You’ll remember that the hearing scheduled
for January 27 had to be cancelled due to the Snowzilla blizzard, but it has
never been rescheduled. A prompt hearing
is needed so that the council has time to vote on the bill before it adjourns
this year.
Folks in the legal profession can be very persuasive, and quite
a few of them have a stake in keeping in place D.C.’s system of mandatory court
commitment for people with intellectual disabilities. It’s hard to fault them for advocating on
behalf of their own self-interest and incomes.
They’ve been loud in their opposition to this bill, so loud that the
committee chairs have gotten scared off and are trying to either avoid a
hearing completely or to hold it so late that there won’t be time for a vote
this year.
So the two of them need to be told that a hearing has to
take place as early as possible after the council returns from recess on
September 15. They also need to hear voices
in favor of progress, voices in favor of civil rights, voices in favor of choice.
(Remember, this bill allows those currently under civil commitment for
DDA services to choose to continue under the court system.) Self-advocates from Project Action! (http://www.dcqualitytrust.org/advocates/join-project-action)
are working overtime to write letters to the council, but the balance of power
is in favor of D.C. lawyers right now and our friends with disabilities need
your support! Please flood the council
with your emails and letters so they know not everyone is a lawyer with a stake
in denying people their choice to receive services without court control.
Even if you wrote the council back in the winter, WRITE
AGAIN. The time is now to get the
hearing scheduled. It won’t take you
long. One email to all three – the two
committee chairs and your councilmember – will do the job. BUT PLEASE DO IT.