Speaker: The Honorable Tammy Duckworth, United States Senate, Illinois
PRESIDENT RICCOBONO: We appreciate the work of our PAC men and we look forward to the next year. This next item is a special one. It is prerecorded but it was a great opportunity for us. Unfortunately, our next guest could not be with us live. But wanted to. And this item has to do with support in the United States Congress. And sometimes we, as federationists, make relationships because we show up at offices and build personal relationships. And other times there is a connection that is there that we are able to take advantage of in terms of building a personal relationship. And in this case, it's both. Hats off to our Illinois affiliate that continues to do a great job in creating those personal relationships. In this case, we have a member of the United States Senate that has is the only individual that has a visible physical disability. And I had the honor of sitting down with Senator Tammy Duckworth to ask her some questions. She has a long, extensive track record. The Senator was an Iraq war veteran. She was a purple heart recipient and former assistant secretary for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. She was amongst the first handful of army women to fly combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
When you're the only one, it is sometimes hard to get someone to see you as a full, contributing member. The Senator has demonstrated she won't take anything from her colleagues. She continues to provide leadership on many issues that are important to us and I think more in the future. So here is my interview with Senator Tammy Duckworth. Senator Duckworth, thank you for joining us at the National Federation of the Blind convention.
TAMMY DUCKWORTH: It is so good to be here. Thank you.
PRESIDENT RICCOBONO: I appreciate the opportunity to ask you some questions. I know your time is limited so I'm going to jump right in. You have many important characteristics that you bring to the table in your capacity as a member of the United States Senate. Yet you are the only United States Senator with a visible physical disability. Can you talk to us a little bit about how does that inform your work and how does it impact the way that your colleagues perceive you as a member of the Senate?
TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Well, thank you. Yes, because I am a wheelchair user, it is very clear that one of these things is not like the others. I'm the one Senator that's not like the other 99. I don't think it has changed how my colleagues perceive me in the Senate. But I did I think once you make it into the Senate, everybody knows the tough road it took to get here. But it is interesting in that I've had to spend a lot of time ever since I was even elected to the House of Representatives, educating my colleagues. Because they do so many things here just because that's how we've always done them.
I remember the first day that I was in the House of Representatives and we had the freshmen members orientation and they picked a restaurant and they picked a restaurant with a second floor and they held it in the private room because that's where they've always held the freshman orientation. There was no elevator. Once I got there, how did I get there? No one had thought about it. We spent a lot of time educating everybody that hey, you're going to have to or they would hold things in town Houses. Washington, D.C. has a lot of town Houses and you have to walk upstairs to get to them. A lot of it is educating people. If you invite me to go someplace and I get there and it is not accessible, I'm leaving. I'm not crawling upstairs for you even though I could do it. So those are some of the things that we've had to do. I think it actually gives me a bigger voice on issues of disability, issues that those with disabilities are facing because I can speak from a place where people know that I understand the experience and I have firsthand experience and it is not anecdotal it gives me more weight in my arguments. It is actually an advantage.
But I tell you they're often astonished by the challenges I face just to come to work every single day. And one of the things we do that is an important part of the work that we do is represent the United States overseas and recently I was on a trip to South Korea and one of my Republican colleagues was going with us. Why don't we just go on a military plane? You don't have to go through the immigration and all of that. You just leave through from one military base to another. I said because it is not wheelchair accessible. It never occurred to him. I can't use the bathroom. So if you want to put me on a flight for nine hours and I can't use the bathroom, I'm not going. So there are a lot of those types of things, people don't even understand the challenges that someone who has a disability faces, just to get up and get out the door of your house to go to work.
PRESIDENT RICCOBONO: So powerful that you're there to do that and even more powerful that you have to do the same thing that all of us have to do on a daily basis as people with disabilities. Thank you for being there to do that. That extra lift there in the Senate. Speaking to your authenticity on issues, we notice that on March 2nd, you introduced a resolution along with representative Eleanor Holmes Norton to make the prologue room at the FDR Memorial accessible, including proper tactile Braille there. This is certainly work of yours that we very much appreciate. Can you tell us a little bit more about your work to make sure that the memorial is fully accessible?
TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Absolutely. First of all, the FDR memorial was a good start but we can't stop there. The national parks are they belong to the American people. And they belong to all of the American people whether or not you walk, use a wheelchair, read Braille or listen or they belong to all of us. So they must be accessible to all of us. Our national parks need to be accessible to everyone.
But I did think it was important to acknowledge the important role that the disability community played in ensuring that future generations knew about FDR and that he led the United States during the Great Depression and World War II while dealing with his own disability. There's still a lot of issues with that memorial including the lack of legible Braille. So I will continue to press every administration including the current one, on how they're addressing this issue. Because they know it's a problem. The National Park Service knows this is a problem. I also plan on working with the National Park Service on making all of their monuments and parks accessible including their websites. This is 2021. It is not just like we just invented the web! And by the way, 30 years since the passage of the ADA. Come on, people! Come on!
PRESIDENT RICCOBONO: We agree with you 100% in the National Federation of the Blind. And on websites and mobile applications, of course, they're needed in so many areas, right? Not just national parks but education, employment, travel, health care, so many other areas as you pointed out. And we already know that the vast majority of these sites include accessibility barriers, certainly for people who are blind. As you've already demonstrated, this is an issue that you take seriously and that you have been working on pushing improvements in. Can you talk to us a little bit about your interest and work to promote increased web accessibility?
TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Oh, absolutely. Part of this is due to my experience. When I was first wounded and recovering at Walter Reed, I couldn't use my hands. I had to go through a lot of therapy in order to use my left hand and we weren't sure I was able to save my right arm. I was in limb salvage for a number of years. I'm always under threat of losing my arm due to infection, persistent infection that remains. I say that because early on at Walter Reed, I had to learn to use assistive devices to use web pages. Dragon speaking naturally, I had to learn how to use all of that. I found someone with sight but not able to type and use my hands at the time, that I found it incredibly difficult to navigate.
It has been 11 years since the advance notice of rulemaking regarding web accessibility under titles 2, 3 of the ADA and there's still no regulation. I know government can move slowly but this is ridiculous. Given how much Americans rely on the internet and on mobile apps, addressing this issue now is critical to ensuring equal access under the law for people with disabilities. It is that simple.
I will tell you that before her confirmation, I did meet with Kristen Clarke who heads up the Department of Justice's civil rights division and at that meeting, I asked her for her commitment to not only hire a deputy assistant attorney general to focus on disability rights but also her commitment that DOJ will prioritize its efforts to issue these very important regulations. We could legislate this as well. We can write the laws and try to pass them here. But I think it makes sense to lean on the administration to do the right thing because they can do it. They just have to be pushed to do it.
PRESIDENT RICCOBONO: Absolutely. We agree with you completely. What can blind Americans do to help with this problem and make this change move in government?
TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Several things. Just making your voices be heard, talk to your legislators. Even those who are friendly like myself, I would love to get your letters, your phone calls. My answering machine we still accept faxes. Email, all of that. We need to hear from you. Everyone needs to hear from you. Your congress people, your senators, this is a really important issue. You can go to the White House and start a White House petition if you get enough signatures on that, they have to deal with it. They have to respond to it. I'll have to check but I think it is 100,000 signatures you need on a petition for the White House to respond. But we'll have to check on exactly how many.
You need to make your voices heard because then I can go on to the floor and say I've heard from 5,000 people in this last month alone on the fact that we still need to have a rule making on accessibility for web pages. So just really doing your exercising your rights as an American and holding those who are elected, accountable. Reach out to us. Talk to us. Even the ones who are friendly because then I can say I've got 5,000 letters on this and I'm going to continue to push this because this is important to my constituents.
PRESIDENT RICCOBONO: I love the contrast of getting 5,000 faxes about web accessibility. So let's flood the Duckworth fax machine on web accessibility. But of course, all of the other members of congress as well. So switching gears, you know, both the national council on disability and the United States commission for civil rights have recommended that subminimum wages for people with disabilities be phased out of law in the United States. And obviously we in the National Federation of the Blind believe that low expectations is one of the biggest problems we face. You've already talked a little bit about how you've been conquering low expectations in your political career. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that and then tell us do you support the phase out and elimination of section 14C of the fair labor standards act?
TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Yes, I do. In short, the subminimum wage has got to go. Especially in 2021. It is outdated and it is unjust, plain and simple. There are lots of examples where people with disabilities working with competitive and integrative settings are doing so in a successful way and a profitable way for those companies. So it can be done. I'll give you an example. Chicago White House industries which is an associated agency of the national industries for the blind, they pay fair wages. There's no problems there. We must guarantee that people with disabilities can access employment opportunities that will provide them full and fair compensation for their hard work. We don't need to create a second class of citizens.
So that's why I did cosponsor Senator Casey's transformation of competitive employment act last congress and I am a proud cosponsor of the current raise the wage act which would increase the federal minimum wage for individuals with disabilities in a yearly basis and help 14C participating employers and employees transition out of the subminimum wage program. It is wrong. We need to get rid of it. And it is long past time that we did so.
PRESIDENT RICCOBONO: Thank you very much. We, of course, agree with you. So I think your stance on this is one that sings with the blind of America. And we appreciate your leadership in pushing these bills forward. I know we have only a little bit of time left before you have to go do some of the other important work that you need to do. So I just want to ask you two more questions. The first one is if you have one message to give the blind of America, our convention is the largest gathering of blind people anywhere in the world on an annual basis. If you have one thing to say to blind Americans that are gathering here today, what would that be?
TAMMY DUCKWORTH: That you're equal to everyone else and you were talking about the low expectations. Don't accept the low expectations. Sometimes we get normalized into how we're treated. And that is not the fault of the person with the visual impairment. That's the fault of society. And we have to push back. I know it can be tiring. But I will tell you that it is important to push back. It is important to sometimes you're like you know what? I didn't want to cause a scene. I didn't want to be a problem. I just wanted to do my job and keep on going. Sometimes you have to cause a scene. That's how things happen. That's how we founded this country is we caused a scene by throwing tea into the harbor.
So I think that please, speak up and know that you have allies everywhere and you have an ally in me. You're not doing it on your own even if you may be dealing with one particular situation. Know that there are allies all over this great nation and that we'll stand with you. Frankly, you are fighting not just for yourselves but for others within the disability community. But even also for people who have yet to develop a disability.
It was the disability community that fought for my rights as a person with a disability. When I was perfectly fit and flying helicopters, I did not know that I was going to need the ADA's protections for most of my life. And yet here I am. Thank God there were members of the disability community like all of the wonderful folks who fought for my rights before I even needed them. So there are a lot of Americans right now who may even be opposing the work that you're doing who will develop a disability one day and they'll be thanking God that you were there to fight for their rights even when they were opposing them. You're doing incredibly important work that makes our nation better. It moves us with a more perfect union that we all strive for but have to achieve. So thank you for doing the work.
PRESIDENT RICCOBONO: Thank you. Causing good trouble. I like it. We like to say that you should hope you live long enough to be a blind person because if you live long enough, you will be a blind person. Last question. There's a lot of blind people out there. They may be inspired by you to help make it more than just one out of 100 members of congress. What would you say to blind people who are interested in serving in public office but maybe they're a little hesitant about getting in the mix.
TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Do it. Do it! Jump in. Do it! You don't have to start with running for the U.S. Senate. You could actually start off smaller, local, more manageable offices. There are things like your local library board of trustees. You know who decides which books kids read? The local library board trustees. You could actually affect the availability of Braille, the availability of audio books, the availability of services in local public libraries for kids, for adults who have vision impairment. If you run for the board of trustees for your local library.
You can run for your local town trusteeship. You can run for the PTA. You don't have to run for U.S. congress or U.S. Senate but if you do and you're interested, call me. I'll help you. But start somewhere because the change has to start not just from the top, down but from the local, up. So if you could make sure your local library has more Braille and more vision friendly disabled devices, you're already going to make life better for those with vision impairment who use that local library. You can make things better at the local level. Do it! Run!
PRESIDENT RICCOBONO: Do it! Cause good trouble. I like it. Senator, I know that you have to get to the business of the United States Senate. We appreciate you taking the time to be with us and the organized blind movement here. I want to say on behalf of our Illinois affiliate and all of our affiliates across the nation that we appreciate your authentic leadership in the United States Congress. I suggest you remind your staff to refill the fax machine because I think you're going to hear from our folks. And mostly what you're going to hear is also appreciation for your leadership on issues that impact our lives as blind Americans. So thank you for your time.
TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Thank you. We have an answering machine, too. You can leave a message on that as well.
PRESIDENT RICCOBONO: We agree with you about web accessibility. 11 years is a century in terms of the internet. Thank you for that.
TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Thank you. Take care.
PRESIDENT RICCOBONO: It has been a pleasure.
TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Thank you. Bye-bye.
PRESIDENT RICCOBONO: Thank you to the Senator and to the Senator's staff for helping arrange that interview. It was a good time. Not too often you talk about fax machines when you're talking about access to the internet. But let's do whatever it takes, federationists, to get this done!