Candidate Name: _________________________________________

Campaign Manager: ______________________________________

Phone: __________________ Fax: _________________________

Campaign Name: _________________________________________

Campaign Address: ________________________________________

Contact Person: _________________________________________

Phone: __________________ Fax: _________________________

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1. How will you incorporate people with disabilities into your campaign?

    

    

2. Are you willing to hire and use flex-time and job-sharing if necessary?

    

    

    

3. While in public office/prior to this campaign, what have you accomplished in regard to advancing disability rights? This can include work towards accessible housing, transportation, employment, health care, education, and including people with disabilities in the political process?

    

    

    

4. What oversight have you performed regarding implementation of programs/legislation you have passed (in first term or in previous offices)?

    

    

    

5. What implementation strategy do you have for your future programs and legislation to help constituents with disabilities?

    

    

    

6. Will you commit to only attend or sponsor events that are accessible to people with disabilities? This includes providing written materials in alternate formats for people with low vision, providing assistive listening systems for people who are hard-of-hearing, and sign language interpreters for people who are deaf, as well as ensuring that locations are accessible to people who use mobility aids, like wheelchairs and walkers?

    

    

    

7. Please describe any experience with disability you have had in your life or career.

    

    

    

8. What special accommodations do you believe/think are in use in the workplace?

    

    

    

9. How do you propose your active involvement/availability to the disability community? Will there be a specific person in your office responsible to this community? Will have regular office agenda meetings on these issues? What would you do to have direct contact with our community?

    

    

    

10. What is your position on expanding DRIE (Disabled Rent Increase Exemption) to be the same as SCRIE (Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption) to low-income, eligible persons with disabilities under the age of 62 on the same basis and income level (currently the SCRIE's income cap is $25,000, while DRIE's is $17,000)?

     

     

     

11. What alternative programs will you propose to allow persons with disabilities to stay in their own homes/apartments? Perhaps a dedicated housing trust fund should be established for persons with disabilities? Would you provide a data base of available accessible housing?

     

     

     

12. Will you develop new and renovated housing for people with disabilities?

     

     

13. What efforts are you willing to commit to assuring that people with disabilities do not become homeless - are able to stay in their own apartments with adequate supports.

     

     

     

14. Do you favor the incorporation of the housing provisions of Titles II and III of the Americans with Disabilities Act into NYS Human Rights Law (A.7294/S5074, A. 6328/S.3921)?

     

     

     

15. Federal courts often rule on challenges to the ADA in a manner never intended by its authors. Do you pledge to use your office to affirm or strengthen, rather than weaken, civil rights protections to persons with disabilities? Do you support a waiver of the state's sovereign immunity claims under the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (A.2159)?

     

     

     

16. People with disabilities have one of the highest rates of unemployment and underemployment in the community as a result of both physical and attitudinal barriers. What have you done in your present office to advance employment opportunities for people with disabilities? What would you do as Governor to increase the employment of people with disabilities in both State government and the private sector?

     

     

     

17. Within the past year, the Office of the Advocate for Persons with Disabilities was placed under the aegis of the Commission on Quality of Care for the Mentally Disabled to create the Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities. What implementation/authority should the Commission have, and/or how would you ensure that the Commission will have? How would you enforce and do oversight regarding the work of the Commission and be certain of the implementation and its efforts?

     

     

     

18. Many transportation service providers such as taxis, limousines and hotel shuttles currently are unable to provide accessible service. What would you do to expand accessible transportation options for people with disabilities in NYS?

     

     

     

19. In the Olmstead decision, the Supreme Court ruled that severely disabled persons have the right to live in the community in the "least restrictive environment," and not be warehoused in nursing homes. In spite of the fact that personal care services are often more cost effective, and severely disabled persons are often happier and live longer in their own homes, there continues to be a nursing home bias in government.

     

     

     

20. What would you do to insure that consumers have the opportunity to remain in the community if they so desire?

     

     

     

21. Do you support the provision of rental/housing subsidies to people leaving institutions under the new Nursing Home Transition and Diversion Medicaid waiver?

     

     

     

22. The Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP): Enables self-directing senior citizens and younger disabled persons (or their surrogates) receiving home care under Medicaid to recruit, hire, train, supervise and (if necessary) discharge their workers, with the home care agency servicing as a "fiscal conduit" to pay salaries, taxes and benefits based on information provided by the consumer and worker. Although CDPAP is a product of the disability rights movement, HRA no longer allows consumers to serve on the Boards of provider agencies and has encouraged agencies to move away from the "self-directing" model to the more traditional "medical" model. Would you, as Governor, seek to reverse that policy and strengthen and expand CDPAP? Please describe strategy and time frame for such policy change.

     

     

     

23. Do you support the extension of Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverage (EPIC) to low-income persons with disabilities regardless of age? What would you do to ensure this?

     

     

     

24. Children with disabilities often attend schools with segregated placements, insufficient supports to function in a regular classroom, or travel in poorly maintained buses to attend schools far from their homes because their neighborhood school is inaccessible, cannot or will not provide an appropriate education. Months have passed before an Individual Education Plan (IEP) is developed or implemented. Would you do to ensure that school districts are more user friendly to children with disabilities and their parents? Provide time frame.

     

     

     

25. As a result of cutbacks in Federal funding, programs serving students with disabilities in the SUNY and CUNY system are being eliminated, including the home-bound program at Queensborough Community College. These students often find that /CUNY fails to provide mandated supports. Will you support a fully funded office of disability services on each and CUNY campus to assist students with disabilities in securing accommodations?"

     

     

     

26. Timothy's Law was designed to end health insurance discrimination by enacting parity in coverage for people with biologically-based psychiatric disabilities. To address cost concerns raised by small businesses, the agreement directs the state Superintendent of Insurance to develop a methodology that would hold businesses with 50 or fewer employees harmless from any increase in insurance premiums that result from this measure. It also requires the state Insurance Department and the Office of Mental Health to conduct a two year study to determine the effectiveness and impact of mental health parity legislation in New York and other states. What would you do to help small business?

     

     

     

27. Under Kendra's Law, a state-funded Medicaid grants program has been established to provide medications for eligible individuals with a psychiatric disability upon release or discharge from institutions. This will help eliminate some of the problems associated with the Medicaid coverage gap. Do you support Medicaid Presumptive Eligibility legislation which would eliminate the standard 45 days without coverage, and thus without access to treatment?

     

     

     

28. Do you support a ban of the use of solitary confinement in Special Housing Units of people with psychiatric disabilities in state correctional facilities (A.3926/S.2207)?

     

     

     

29. Persons with disabilities have historically been under-represented within the Democratic Party leadership. According to the 2000 census, persons with disabilities comprised 20.6% of all residents in New York State and 23.1% of population 18 years and older. Previously, we were told that only those groups included in the Voting Rights Act were included in the goals and timetables for delegate selection. Yet the lesbian and gay communities were included for the first time at the 2000 convention and again at the 2004 convention. Would you support a campaign to set a goal that 10% of the total New York State Delegation to the 2008 Democratic National Convention be comprised of persons with disabilities?

     

     

     

Candidate Signature: ___________________________________

Date: ______________________