Americans With Disabilities Act Of 1990 Analysis

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Written Analysis- Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was passed in order to prohibit discrimination based on disability in employment, state and local government, public accommodations, transportation, and telecommunications. During the time period of this law multiple factors played a role in the introduction of this bill in Congress. For example, conflict was arising in regions throughout the U.S. when people with disabilities began to challenge societal barriers that excluded them from their communities. Also, in several areas local groups were established to advocate for the rights of people with disabilities through protests and campaigns. Another major event was the establishment of the …show more content…

Due to the president’s party and constituency, his administration and him were faced with the issue of balancing the needs of people with disabilities against the needs of businessmen. As a result, many different groups tried to influence the legislative process of this law. For example, the National Council on Disability drafted the first version of the bill which was introduced in Congress in 1988 and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights played an important role in securing passage of the ADA. However, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was against this bill and argued that the costs of this bill would have harmful effects on small …show more content…

For example, a positive aspect of this process is that the Framers wanted a slowing-moving legislature, and as a result Congress is less able to infringe upon citizens’ fundamental rights. However, a negative aspect is that since the legislative process is slow and time-consuming it is hard to get necessary laws passed in a short amount of time, even if there is little opposition to the concept of the legislation. The bill to law process for the Americans with Disabilities Act exemplified these different aspects, but proved the legislative process to be effective through its historical context and political factors. This law became the nation’s first understandable law addressing the needs of people with disabilities and officially declared disabled people under the category of minority. This law impacted the nation by making it mandatory that access to public services, employment opportunities, and telecommunications was conveniently available for disabled people, giving them the protection they would need to live among others in America and be treated equally. Although, the major concerns with this bill were the damaging effects it would have on small businesses, this was proved futile with the passage of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. This stated that if the mandates of the ADA placed an undue burden on a business