Americans with Disabilities Act

Floor Speech

Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, this week 20 years ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990. To many of us, the ADA involved simple, tangible things like curb cuts, automatic doors, Braille signs, and those unimaginable buses that kneel to the ground.

To the millions of Americans with disabilities, the law marked a new sense of freedom, freedom to move about, to work, to contribute, to live one's life.

President Bush said it best as he signed this landmark law: ``Today, America welcomes into the mainstream of life all of our fellow citizens with disabilities. We embrace you for your abilities and for your disabilities, for our similarities and indeed for our differences, for your past courage and your future dreams. Last year, we celebrated a victory of international freedom. Even the strongest person couldn't scale the Berlin Wall to gain the elusive promise of independence that lay just beyond. And so, together, we rejoiced when that barrier fell.

"And now, I sign legislation which takes a sledgehammer to another wall, one which has for too many generations separated Americans with disabilities from the freedom they could glimpse, but not grasp.''

Congratulations on the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

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