Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez is working with a GOP colleague to get a Senate sign-off on an international disabilities treaty.
Menendez, D-N.J., and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, urged ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in an op-ed article in USA Today.
“In too many places, those with disabilities are housed in institutions separate from families, without access to the outside world. In some countries, the disabled are denied the most basic rights such as a birth certificate or a name,” the senators stated.
Menendez and McCain said 58 million Americans live with a disability. Worldwide, one billion people do, they said.
Menendez said the treaty promotes fairness and equality to other countries for people with disabilities. Menendez will lead a hearing on the issue Tuesday.
“The U.S. set the global gold standard for disabilities rights when we passed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990,” Menendez and McCain said in the opinion article. “The act not only improved the lives of Americans living with disabilities, but also inspired other nations to upgrade their laws to recognize that these universal apply to all citizens.
Menendez and McCain said the treaty is an extension of the act and launched discussions on access for the disabled internationally.
“That’s a discussion Americans must lead,” the senators said.
Among witnesses scheduled for the hearing is former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who now chairs the board of the National Organization on Disability. Also on the agenda is testimony from Michael Farris, co-founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association. His group has said with the treaty the United Nations could decide educational issues for disabled children, according to CQ.
A previous attempt to get the Senate sign-off on the treaty failed, short five votes. Menendez said the loss was not because the treaty was harmful to national interests, CQ reported.
“We lost because opponents were willing to play with the facts and did it in a way that made a small, vocal minority seem like a large, impassioned movement,” Menendez said, according to CQ.
Menendez and McCain named colleagues’ concerns about U.S. sovereignty and the primacy of U.S. law as issues raised.
“This treaty would not constrain our sovereignty; it would extend the protection of human rights on which America has proudly led the world for decades,” Menendez and McCain said in the op-ed.
They also said the treaty would not change U.S. abortion laws, would not affect American parents’ right to home-school their children and hand no power to the United Nations or any other international body to change American laws.
Tuesday’s hearing also should allay concerns raised last time about the treaty vote being held during a lame-duck Congress, the senators said.
