You'd really have to be an ideologue not to appreciate the top-notch journalism at work in this week's series in the Sacramento Bee (registration required) on lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). While it always pains me to see more media fodder for tort reformers, in this case, the facts simply speak for themselves, and the reporters have done a tremendous job of telling a balanced story.
The stories confirm my long-held belief that the ADA is an example of Republicans getting what they deserve. The law was a landmark piece of civil rights legislation, but the cheapos in the first Bush administration who helped pass it did so without creating any meaningful governmental mechanism--or funding--to adequately enforce it. Instead, they just left the enforcement to private attorneys, who are now doing just that, and at a record clip in California. So of course, business groups are up in arms about it. The Bee does note that there wouldn't be so many lawsuits if businesses had simply come into compliance with the nearly 20 year old law. Anyway, the series has some wonderful reporting in it, including this gem:
One Southern California man who issued a string of letters demanding payment for ADA violations turned out not to be a lawyer, but a self-described "nutritionist," better known to authorities for his Internet business arranging body-parts transplants overseas..
Any reporter worth her salt would kill to find a few stories like that one. It's just too bad they had to turn up in the already beleaguered legal system. ...
What's your evidence that the civil enforcement mechanism was added in response to Republican refusals to enforce public enforcement? In Bush I, Congress was controlled by Democrats, and the ADA was clearly modeled on the Title VII and Civil Rights Act of 1991, another Democratic law that expanded the power for plaintiffs to sue.
Posted by: Ted | November 14, 2006 at 05:37 PM