Video, Audio, & Rush Transcript: On 32nd Anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, Governor Hochul Signs Legislative Package to Uphold and Strengthen Rights of People with Disabilities

I've already been to a few places around New York State, including the beautiful North Country where I had a chance to speak to the Chiefs of Police Association Statewide and speak to a number of organizations. So, I have to reset my time zone. I'm back in the city. So great to be here and Robin, thank you for your work at this extraordinary organization. This facility has given a new opportunity for so many individuals to achieve the next rung on their career ladder to get the dignified and renowned CUNY graduate degree, which has really propelled a lot of people to tremendous jobs and opportunities. So, I thank you for the work doing that you've done there.

I also want to recognize some of my partners in government because government is a partnership. If you do it right, it is a collaborative process. Hasn't always been that way, but that's one of the things we're changing day by day. And I want to recognize some people you'll be hearing from, Senator John Mannion. I want to thank him for his leadership and sponsoring a number of bills for us here today and on the committee that he represents. Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon is here. I want to thank her for what she's done in introducing bills.

Also we have an attendance, Senator Cordell Cleare. I saw you on Sunday. We were in church together. Assemblymember Chris Burdick is here. Assemblymember Harvey Epstein is here. Assemblymember Dick Gottfried is here. Assemblymember Stefani Zinerman is here. Assemblymember Latoya Joyner is not because I just saw her in the North Country and I'm pretty sure she didn't get here ahead of me. And also Council Member Keith Powers and Council Member Linda Lee are here as well.

Also want to give a shout out to Doug Hovey, who'll you be hearing from briefly in a few minutes. You'll be speaking too. But Kerri Neifeld, our Commissioner and I want to thank her for her leadership. As I travel around the state, Kerri, so many people say to me that you're just doing an incredible job. And so, I want to thank you for what you and your team have done since you've become such an important person in this journey. This is a journey to make sure that everyone's rights, everyone's civil rights, everyone's human rights are protected.

So, it's also a day to celebrate a pivotal moment in American history. Some of you may be too young to remember, but 32 years ago, a law that really was significant in so many ways, the American with Disabilities Act, and to many it's just known as the ADA, but it has always been the touchstone, an opportunity for us to say, does it meet the standards that were set at that time when we decided it was time to write the wrongs of the past. And have true equality in how people in this country are treated. And it is something we're all very proud of and we're going to continue to build on that progress. And it really has been, since that time, the most comprehensive piece of legislation that pertains to people with disabilities.

It really was a monumental victory for civil rights because it finally enshrined a fundamental truth that people with disabilities deserve the exact same opportunities as everyone else. The exact same rights, and they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. And these protections were very long overdue. It also marks another, not so positive milestone, but it was 50 years ago this year that Geraldo Rivera put a spotlight on a camera on circumstances that were just accepted as the norm, probably since the 17-1800s, warehousing of people because they never took the time to understand their needs. And the cruelty that happened, the inhumane treatment of people was called out at Willowbrook State School by Geraldo Rivera.

And what that did was it put a spotlight on the horrific conditions that occurred in the darkness behind closed doors. And I remember reading about that and reflecting on mans inhumanity to man and to women, what was going on behind those doors. And actually what that did was it sparked a movement of reform. And it also just said that people living with disabilities have unalienable rights that can never be compromised. So out of that, the ADA came forth as well as the Olmstead decision, a landmark Supreme Court decision that says that people with disabilities have the right to live and the services they need to be integrated with society. No more isolation.

So, the ADA is a great thing to celebrate. And I think back when I was quite a bit younger, I was about 13 years old and I grew up in a household where our parents were very attuned with the needs of the society. We didn't have a lot, but they were social justice Catholics, and they're always finding a cause to champion. And we were so involved in the causes of the late sixties and the early seventies. And after this, there was a movement to move people out into the communities, to start closing down the warehousing of individuals. But there's also a recognition that you can't take people that may have been living here since they were a child and now thrust them into society and expect them to thrive. What are the expectations there? Unrealistic. So, there was a program where people would be able to go into the families of people in a neighborhood and live with them.

And my parents, being the good people that they were, we brought two people in, Roger and Melanie. They were probably 16 and 17 year olds. They came to live with us for a while. And my job as a probably, 10 to 13 year old range, was to take them shopping and to teach them how to go to the little hamburger place and buy lunch. Just to show them the basic things that I knew as a child that they had been denied the opportunity to learn because they were in this facility. So I saw back then that this was just wrong, that these people never should have been trying to find the outside world for the first time as teenagers or young adults. And we have corrected that and we've made good progress, but as you'll see today, we're going to always be moving ahead with more progress.

So, we will be talking about - I have a nice proclamation for Doug in a couple minutes. It's really nice and long. I wrote it on the plane. Not really. I just made that part up. But we do have fewer people living in institutions than we did, so we have a lot more work to do. But I want to talk about some legislation because you also have a well-intended legislature and a governor who wanted to make sure if there's any issue that comes to our attention where a wrong needs to be righted, we will take the pen and do just that. And that is what today is about.

So, today we have a bill sponsored by Senator Mannion and Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon that relates to decision making by people with intellectual, developmental, cognitive, and psychosocial disabilities. What it does is it creates a formal and legal process for those living with these challenges to make their own decisions about their lives. There should not be an automatic presumption that someone else has to make the decisions for them. And I'm glad we've evolved to that point today, but other than just saying it, let's make it the law of the State of New York. And so we're going to be signing that into law because before today, before we sign this, people living with disabilities, when they turn 18, the only formal process has been through guardianship and that's it. And that was decided through a court system, again, taking away the right someone to have control over their own lives, but people want autonomy in their lives.

They want to make decisions. And now they'll be able to be the decision maker and it allows them to have a roadmap to make decisions about their own lives. So, we had a pilot program since 2016. We've seen firsthand that it works, but let's just make it the law of the land.

We also have four other bills that I want to talk about. One is a public awareness campaign to combat the stigma and stereotyping of individuals with developmental disabilities. Again, this was John Mannion and Carrie Woerner, Assemblymember Carrie Woerner. Individuals with these disabilities contribute in so many meaningful ways and this campaign is to celebrate that and to put the spotlight on this and reduce the stigma that has been there for so long. So we're going to be signing that into law as well.

Bills three and four, our third and fourth bill, refer to references the archaic and now viewed as offensive terms in numerous sections of New York State law, where they describe people with disabilities as being "mentally ['R' word]." We've evolved from that. That is a stigma that we can move away from. So, we need to work on that. And Senator Roxanne Persaud and Assemblymember Thomas Abinanti are the ones who are the sponsors of that bill. So, I congratulate them for recognizing that this should not be in the laws of New York. We have different ways to describe individuals.

And the last one eliminates the state residency requirement for designated beneficiaries of the New York able program - we think that this should be available to more individuals elsewhere so more people can access this important program.

So, those what we are going to be signing, these bills today. I'm excited about it.

Glad to put those - have our final mark on that and say it is now the law of the land. And also, earlier in the month, I was able to sign other legislation enforcing the rules related to disabled access parking spaces. What a hassle this is when people abuse that. Very insensitive, not recognizing the needs of others, the reason behind this, and so we made those changes as well.

I also do want to just point out that the other really good things I did as governor was for the first time create New York State's first Disability Officer to really elevate the position. And I was able to find an individual with the heart and compassion and the experience and the knowledge to really be a champion for the disability community and for others. And so, I want to thank Kim Hill for accepting that position and for what she's done. Her team has hit the ground running. As we went through our budget process, we collaborated with the Division of Human Rights to train every state agency to make sure they have an ADA coordinator. And also, you know, just many of the gaps where people were left out of the workforce. We've been talking about this and Kim is very thoughtful and has a lot of ideas on how we can focus on this as well. In fact, I want New York State to be a model employer. It starts with us. We have to do things right. And as a result of that, I've authorized state agencies to designate up to 1,200 positions, 1,200 state positions, to be filled by qualified individuals who have disabilities. So, that's how we start changing the culture. That's how we start making real progress.

My daughter works in Washington, DC, for a small company that does consulting for companies that are trying to figure out ways to make their workplaces more inclusive for people with disabilities. It's a narrow niche, but if you ever wonder about my commitment to this, I get a text from her every single day. Like, what are you doing today, Mom? She has a good heart as well. She was raised to be just like her grandparents, very outward thinking. And so, you know, there's many, many ways, as I've learned through her, that we can be a model so the state can show what others can do in the private sector because I believe the private sector can do so much more to lift people up.

I've gone to many places where we also understand that people who have certain disabilities actually have unique capabilities to work in certain areas where others may not. And we talk about that in terms of coding and deciphering messages and how we can be helping understand threat assessment through cybersecurity. I mean, it's been really fascinating to see people that have been trained because they have an intellectual predisposition towards seeing patterns. So, we are taking advantage of everybody's talents and putting them to use in our state. And I want to continue to work with the private sector to show and to educate them on our expectations of businesses here in the State of New York of what we want to see from you as well. So, Kim is leading the charge on that as well.

So, I believe the ADA is the gold standard, but I want to go past the gold standard. I don't know what's after gold - is that platinum? Whatever the standard is, that is New York because we are the excelsior state. We are a state of great exceptionalism and I want to be the model and that is what we're going to continue to do during my tenure as Governor of the State of New York.