Right now, Congress is working on a draft budget. This budget says how the U.S. government will spend money. The draft budget says the government will cut a lot of money from Protection and Advocacy organizations. Read this Action Alert to learn how we can save Protection and Advocacy agencies from cuts!

Protection and Advocacy agencies are government organizations that protect the rights of disabled people. Every state has a protection and advocacy agency. Protection and Advocacy agencies are called P&As for short.

Protection and Advocacy agencies do many things that help our community. They give people with disabilities free legal help if they get treated unfairly at work or school. But P&As do a lot of other important things, too. Some of the other important things they do are:

• Going inside of institutions and group homes to check what living there is like. They can make sure people aren’t getting hurt in institutions.
• Looking into people or places that hurt people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. They make sure people that hurt disabled people don’t get away with it.
• Fighting back against cuts to people’s services. They work to keep people who need help in day-to-day life out of institutions.
• Stopping guardianships. Guardianship is when a court decides someone with a disability can’t make their own decisions. A guardian gets chosen to make decisions for them. This isn’t fair to disabled people. P&As are usually the only places where people can go for legal help with this.

The draft budget says the government will stop paying for some of the P&As most important work. It would be really bad if P&As lost a lot of their money. If the draft budget got passed, then:

• P&As would not be able to work on voting rights cases.
• P&As would not be able to help disabled students who got treated unfairly at school. P&As would stop taking cases about schools, colleges, and universities. Disabled students will not get legal help when they need it.
• P&As would not usually be able to help disabled workers who got treated unfairly at work.That means it would be harder for disabled people to get and keep good jobs. If this money gets cut, even more disabled people will be poor for their whole lives.
• P&As would mostly not be able to help people with physical disabilities. People who got physical disabilities when they were younger might still be able to get help. But people who become physically disabled as adults would not usually get help.
• P&As would not be able to help as many people with mental health disabilities. This would also be a big problem for people who have a mental health disability plus other disabilities. The government might count these people as just having a mental health disability. Then, P&As won’t be able to help.

If these budget cuts happen, lots of people will lose their jobs at P&As. P&As would not be able to take as many cases. Fewer people with disabilities would get legal help when we need it. Some P&As might close. This would cause big problems for the disability community.

Many disability rights advocates would lose their jobs. Most of the lawyers who work on disability rights issues in America could lose their jobs. There are not enough other disability rights jobs for everyone to find work again. Many of the people who lost their job would have to choose a different kind of job. They would not work on disability rights anymore. Fewer people would become disability rights lawyers because there would not be as many jobs. That means there would be less help and advocacy for people with disabilities in the future.

Some P&As might be able to stay open even with less money. But they would have to have fewer staff. This would make it harder for them to check institutions and group homes. This would be extra hard in big states. There are not enough P&A staff right now to visit all the institutions and group homes in one state. If P&A budgets are cut, this problem would get worse.

If P&As can’t do their job, living in institutions will become worse for disabled people. More people with disabilities would get hurt or die. People who hurt disabled people could end up getting away with it. This would let them keep hurting people. And less people with disabilities will have the chance to do well at school or work.

Congress is still working on the draft budget now. Please contact your members of Congress. Tell them you want protection and advocacy agencies to get as much money as before. That is our best chance of keeping the P&As open and able to help disabled people.

Here’s how to contact your members of Congress:

• If you are not sure who your members of Congress are, you can find out here.
• Go to this website.
  1. Click on “Representatives”. 
  2. Search for your state. 
  3. Click on your Representative’s name. This will take you to your Representative’s website.
• On your Representative’s website, look for a list of office locations. Every Representative’s website is different. Here are some common places to find the list of office locations:
  1. You may need to search “office locations” in the search bar on the website. 
  2. You may need to scroll down to the bottom of the home page.
  3. You may need to click “Contact” on the menu bar. 
• Find the Washington, DC office location.
• You can call the phone number listed with the DC office.
• You can follow most of the same steps above to call your Senators. The only thing that changes is that you will click on “Senators” in step two instead of “Representatives”.

Here is a script you can use when you call your legislators’ offices. Be sure to fill in the highlighted parts with your own information:

Hi, my name is [your name]. I am a constituent of [Representative/Senator NAME]. I am calling today to ask the [Representative/Senator] to keep funding for Protection and Advocacy agencies, or P&As, in the federal budget. [Your state’s] Protection and Advocacy agency protects disabled people in [your state] from abuse and discrimination at school, at work, in group homes and institutions, and in the court system. We need these legal protections. Please ask [Representative/Senator NAME] to tell all members of Congressional Leadership that they do not want any cuts to Protection and Advocacy agencies.

Thank you for your advocacy! Together, we can take a stand to protect P&As from devastating cuts.

Autistic Self Advocacy Network

PO Box 66122
Washington, DC 20035

 

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