REAUTHORIZATION OF THE REHABILITATION ACT COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTIONS OR POLITICAL SATISFICING? by Bonnie O'Day[1] National Rehabilitation Hospital Research Center Washington D.C. O'Day, B.L. (1996). Reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act: Comprehensive solutions or political satisficing? Disability and Society. 11,3. Abstract The ADA is widely hailed as a sweeping piece of civil rights legislation that will dramatically affect the lives of individuals with disabilities in the US for generations. In contrast, the reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act in 1992, and attempts to consolidate the rehabilitation program for people with disabilities into a generic, consolidated employment system for the general public in 1995 brought only modest reforms. How does comprehensive reform get on the US political agenda? What factors were present during passage of the ADA that were not present during reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act? The author will use dominant political theories about policy making and agenda setting to answer these questions, and draw conclusions that will assist advocates in other countries in passing comprehensive civil rights legislation. Introduction Disability advocates in the United States entered the 1990's with an aura of excitement. They could look back upon twenty years of unprecedented legislative success, culminating in passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act--ADA (P.L.101-336). The ADA, hailed by many to be a comprehensive, sweeping disability civil rights law, bans the discrimination and segregation that is a routine experience of most individuals with disabilities. Advocates knew that effective and comprehensive education, rehabilitation and independent living programs would be necessary if people with disabilities were to reap the fruits of this hard-won victory. They hoped to make long sought after changes in the US vocational rehabilitation (VR) system--perceived by many to be outdated, ineffective and archaic--during the reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act in 1992. Yet, over three years after reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act (P.L.102-569), and almost one year after concerted attempts to consolidate the rehabilitation system into a block grant program to serve all jobless workers, the federal/state rehabilitation system remains substantially intact, with only incremental alterations. Markedly different policy making strategies were used to enact the ADA and to reauthorize the Rehabilitation Act--a rational comprehensive approach and a successive limited comparisons or incremental approach. The next section will argue that values were foremost in the minds of ADA drafters, resulting in a comprehensive approach to public policy. Later sections argue that compromise dominated the reauthorization process, resulting in a more incremental policy approach. I will document the results of these two approaches and postulate why each approach was used. The Americans With Disabilities Act: Rational Policy Comprehensive Strategy A rational comprehensive approach to public policy dominated formulation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. This method of policy making calls for clarification of values and objectives before analyzing policy alternatives. Decision makers conduct a means-ends analysis to determine which alternatives obtain the best results: in other words, which alternative most closely achieves the desired end. Analysis is highly thorough, and usually heavily reliant upon theory (Wildavsky, 1979). This type of process generally results in a value driven, holistic and comprehensive public policy. Many advocates agree that the ADA was such a policy Dart, 1993: Levitan and Pfeiffer, 1992: West, 1991). The civil rights philosophy and the values embodied throughout the ADA are strongly asserted in the first section of the Act: Individuals with disabilities are a discrete and insular minority who have been faced with restrictions and limitations, subjected to a history of purposeful unequal treatment, and relegated to a position of political powerlessness in our society.. [T]he Nation's proper goals regarding individuals with disabilities are to assure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for such individuals (P.L.101-336, sec. 2:7-8). During the ADA drafting and discussion, advocates, including supportive lawmakers, relied on the principles of integration, empowerment and equality, and used civil rights theory, case law and experience to codify these principles. The law is based upon the paradigm of the disabled as a minority group (Hahn, 1985), and proposes solutions--assurance of equality, full participation, independence and productivity--clearly based upon this model (Hahn, 1993). These principles guided the debate, and advocates refused to accept compromises that violated these values. The ADA extends the equal employment requirements of Title V of the Rehabilitation Act (applicable only to the federal government and entities receiving federal funds) to all firms with 15 or more employees. Under the ADA, all state and local governments must meet the program access standards formerly required only of those receiving federal financial assistance. While affirmative action requirements for federal contractors under Title V were not extended to state and local government or other private companies, the ADA abandoned the "condition of aid" approach and set forth a variety of statutory mandates prohibiting some actions and prescribing others, irrespective of receipt of federal financial assistance (Percy, 1993a). Additionally, the ADA provides that places of public accommodation, such as hotels and grocery stores, go beyond non-discrimination to make "readily achievable" access modifications to their businesses. Another major step was the new requirement that all common carriers provide interstate and intrastate telecommunications relay services to those individuals with speech and hearing impairments unable to use the standard telephone (Burgdorf, 1991). The ADA represents a shift in federal policy from aiding places to a new concentration on aiding individuals. The law clarifies and strengthens the enforcement powers to parallel protections guaranteed to racial and ethnic minorities and women by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, going far beyond the threat to withhold federal funds provided by Title V of the Rehabilitation Act (Percy, 1993a). Necessary Compromise Certainly, advocates were forced to make conciliations--compromises that occurred even before Congressional deliberations began (Jones, 1989). The 1988 draft proposed by the National Council on Disability (NCD--an official advisory body to the Administration and Congress) looked substantially different from the bill introduced in January, 1989. For example, the 1989 draft required employers to make accommodations to the disability of an employee only until the accommodation becomes an undue burden. The original draft of the ADA called for these accommodations unless provision of the accommodation would threaten the business with bankruptcy. Another major concession was the removal of coverage of insurance companies from the bill. A third change allowed transit operators providing rail services until the year 2010 to make major alterations in transit stations, and required modifications in key stations only (Drimmer, 1993). Critics assert that these compromises drastically weakened the impact the ADA will have on the daily experiences of disabled citizens (Mathias, 1993). Others assert that the ADA, in many ways, is not so much a completely innovative policy directive as the capstone to a 25-year civil rights struggle. The employment and public services sections of the law are based upon regulations and court decisions formulated during the 1970's and 1980's. Extending Title V requirements to all state and local governments without strengthening these mandates was more incremental than innovative, since most governments were already covered under previous legislation (Percy, 1993b). Other critics allege that the ADA will do little to address the unemployment of people with disabilities, especially minorities and women, because of the recent economic downturn. They assert that lack of education and training play a greater role than discrimination in keeping disabled people out of the labor force (Burkhauser, Haveman and Wolfe, 1993). Some also point out that the policy assumptions that underlie income support and skill enhancement programs are inconsistent with the civil rights paradigm behind the ADA, and that the full benefit of this sweeping civil rights legislation cannot be realized until these programs are dramatically reformed (DeJong and Batavia, 1990). While the above assertions may be valid, the US Congress took a major step towards a new era of inclusion and equality for people with disabilities by passing the ADA. The extension of equal employment requirements to all private employers, barrier removal mandates for public accommodations, new telecommunications provisions and strengthened enforcement mechanisms marked a major shift in federal disability policy. Disability advocates, buoyed by their recent success, sought a similar policy shift in the Rehabilitation Act. The following sections describe advocates' hopes for the rehabilitation system, the journey from a comprehensive to an incremental policy making process, and advocates' defense of the rehabilitation system when consolidation into a generic jobs program was threatened. A brief summary of research documenting the need for sweeping change and the results of the reauthorization and consolidation attempts are described. The Rehabilitation Act: Political "Satisficing" Incremental Strategy A "successive limited comparisons" approach dominated US policy formulation during the Reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act. In this second approach, sometimes called "muddling through," (Lindblom, 1959), values clarification is not a separate and distinct part of the process, but is closely intertwined with empirical analysis. The lack of specific values and policy objectives makes means-ends analysis inappropriate. Selection and investigation of alternate solutions thus become indistinct from policy clarification. Means-ends analyses are not conducted because the ends are never clearly stated. Simon (1947) argued that relatively few policy alternatives or their consequences are known to the analysts. Decision makers do not select the single best alternative, but "satisficed", choosing the alternative that both satisfied and sufficed for all parties. Under this framework, the test of a good policy is not in its anticipated effectiveness in meeting stated goals or its conformance with particular values, but in whether it is an acceptable compromise to all participants. Important outcomes and policy alternatives are neglected as the most incremental policy changes are adopted. In an attempt to reach consensus, decision makers combine portions of various values in the final policy. They propose only minute modifications to the status quo, because only incremental changes are seen as politically feasible. These models are based upon economic theories of market choice and individual behavior theories; however, these theories of individual decision making can shed light on the decision processes of public policy analysts. According to Lindblom (1958), analysts prefer to think their policy recommendations are derived from theory and a comprehensive review of policy options; but such a comprehensive approach is inefficient, and generally impossible. Lindblom (1979) feels that a swift succession of incremental change is not only more realistic and efficient, but can, in fact, lead to more extensive policy reform. Directly following passage of the ADA, US disability leaders embarked upon a consensus building process to formulate sweeping reform of the public rehabilitation system. The following sections describe their recommendations, summarize research that documents the need for such dramatic reform, and briefly review the changes in the new Act. A Shared Vision Advocates' hopes were high during 1991 that they could secure more than incremental reform in the nation's VR system. Fearing that Congress would continue the incremental approach of the last 70 years during the next reauthorization cycle, disability policy advocates organized a national leadership summit entitled Directions to propose comprehensive and sweeping recommendations for the reauthorization of the Act. Justin Dart, then Chair of the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, urged meeting participants to: ...Aim high. Be comprehensive...Do not be intimidated by fears that optimal solutions are politically and economically impossible. Success simply requires positive, unifying, courageous leadership to reallocate resources from obsolete status quo practices to life quality productivity. Washington Public Affairs Center, 1991, p. 4 Conference participants proposed a systematic rewrite of the entire Rehabilitation Act based upon the following "five shared breakthrough concepts:"  A new name for the Rehabilitation Act that properly reflects its new scope and expanded purposes.  Emphasis on personal careers, and the need for a lifelong process of personal futures planning, self determination and informed decision making.  Inclusion of a "Community Action" Title to implement advocacy strategies to increase community access.  Extension of services to include youth, beginning at age three, to provide life and career planning.  A lifelong entitlement to assistive technology and related services. Washington Public Affairs Center, 1991, p. 8-9). Directions participants recommended that Congress enact a Preamble to the Act reflecting the principles of the ADA to be followed by the following three Titles:  Title I - Civil and Legal Rights Protection: including all civil rights provisions currently in Title V of the Rehabilitation Act, the National Council on Disability, and Protection and Advocacy functions.  Title II - Comprehensive Services: including lifelong career and community access services.  Title III - Independent Living Centers: including provisions for direct funding for centers and an independent living commissioner. Specific recommendations included the following:  A statewide governing board, consisting primarily of direct consumers, to set policy for each rehabilitation agency.  Presumptive eligibility and entitlement to rehabilitation services and abolition of the reasonable expectation of success requirement.  Elevation of the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) from the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services to its own secretariat with direct ties to the U.S. Department of Labor.  Substitution of the coded case closure system with outcome based measures.  Open-ended career counseling and sequential job placements Washington Public Affairs Center, 1991). While the Directions conference recommendations appeared to contain something for everyone, they clearly called for dramatic and sweeping systemic change, and a major paradigm shift from a medical-rehabilitation model of service delivery to a civil rights and empowerment model that places more power in the hands of consumers. These recommendations for reform echo those of David Osborne in his best-selling Bureaucratic Government: to decentralize authority, focus on quality, promote competition among service providers and empower citizens by bringing control out of the bureaucracy and into the community (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992). Other advocacy groups echoed these sentiments. In its position paper on reauthorization, the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL), a national organization of independent living centers and advocates, called for the establishment of a National Commission on Rehabilitation Services, a "blue ribbon panel" composed of a majority of people with disabilities, to make recommendations to the President and Congress for a major overhaul of the Act. NCIL recommended the widespread use of service vouchers to offer consumers the maximum amount of choice over their rehabilitation programs, and recommended that Congress reauthorize the Act for three, rather than the proposed five years, so that the Directions recommendations could be implemented more swiftly (National Council on Independent Living, 1992). The Evidence The demands for sweeping reform of the rehabilitation system were buttressed by statistical evidence. A recent study on the VR system conducted by the US General Accounting Office (GAO) found that, in any one year, only five to seven percent of those eligible were actually served by the VR system, and that most received modest services. Less than half obtained education or training, and just under half got services costing less than $500. The gains in employment and earnings after rehabilitation faded in about two years, and eight years later, 61 to 66 percent had employment and incomes no better or below the pre-rehabilitation level. The report recommends that the Secretary of Education establish the National Commission on Rehabilitation Services, similar to the blue ribbon panel called for by NCIL, to explore broad systemic issues, including service eligibility and outcomes (GAO, 1993). Research also indicates that every year, 650,000 young people with disabilities graduate from or leave high school, and only 21 percent of this group will become fully employed. Approximately 40 percent will be under-employed and live at the poverty level, and 26 percent will be supported through the welfare system (President's Committee on Employment of People With Disabilities, 1987). Although advocates of vocational rehabilitation claim that their programs reduce welfare costs by putting people to work, the percentage of SSI or SSDI recipients who actually leave the Social Security rolls to become employed remains about one half of one percent, and only one third of these individuals ever had contact with the VR system (General Accounting Office, 1987). Other statistics point to poor performance in the VR program. Based upon an analysis of 1990 data from the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA), the National Association of Rehabilitation Facilities (renamed the American Rehabilitation Association - ARA) concludes that operational expenditures for VR have increased from about 40 to 48 percent of total expenditures, and funds for purchase of services have declined proportionately. ARA also points to a significant decline in both successful rehabilitations and persons served over the last ten years, while program funding has increased from $869 million in 1975 to almost $2 billion today (National Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, 1992). Given increased Congressional scrutiny of human service programs, tight fiscal constraints, and the strong desire of advocates for systemic change, one would expect to see major alterations in the rehabilitation system during the reauthorization process. A review of the new Rehabilitation Act suggests positive movement towards the goals set forth by Directions in a few areas, and only a slight shift towards a new empowerment model in others. Even more surprisingly, the rehabilitation program for people with disabilities emerged relatively unscathed from concerted Congressional efforts to consolidate it into a block grant program, along with over 150 employment programs into one generic system. The major changes in the Act are described in the following section. The New Rehabilitation Act The most striking difference in the new Rehabilitation Act is the presumption of eligibility for rehabilitation services. The counselor must show "clear and convincing evidence" that the applicant will not benefit from rehabilitation due to the severity of disability if services are to be denied. Previously, the burden of proof was on the applicant to show that he/she had a reasonable expectation of benefitting from services (29 U.S.C. 721(a)(6)(A), and 722(a)(5)(A) and 34 CFR 361.42). Other changes were more incremental. The Directions recommendations called for policy councils to oversee each state rehabilitation agency. A consumer controlled council for the VR program is now required, but the council is only advisory in nature. Policy making power was granted only to the Council that governs the independent living programs--about 2.5 percent of the Rehabilitation Act budget (Section 101(a)(36) and 29 U.S.C. 721(a)(36) and 34 C.F.R. 361.17). The new Act encourages choice of rehabilitation providers and emphasizes career development rather than one-time placement. The consumer must write a paragraph in his or her own words in the Individualized Written Rehabilitation Plan explaining how services and providers were chosen. Advocates' requests for a lifelong entitlement to assistive technology were denied, and substituted with a requirement for another paragraph in the IWRP delineating the use of technology in attaining education and career goals (Sections 7(22)(B), 102(b)(1)(A), and 102(b)(2); 29 U.S.C. 706(5), 721(a)(9), 722, and 723(a)(1), and 34 CFR 361.46). While no one can be denied services simply because they are already employed, the current system of case closure based on employment outcome remains intact, discouraging sizable and long term expenditures for training (Sections 101(a)(6) and 101(a)(9) of the Act; 29 U.S.C. 721(a)(6) and 721(a)(9), and 34 C.F.R. 361.48). Another disappointment for advocates was that RSA is not required to establish the study commission proposed by NCIL. RSA was empowered to establish such a committee, but no funds were appropriated and RSA has not acted on this initiative. The Act was reauthorized for five rather than for three years, as requested by advocates. Also disappointing was the lack of focus on vouchers as a service delivery mechanism. Again, RSA is only empowered (not mandated) to solicit applications from state or private agencies wishing to pilot service delivery models emphasizing consumer choice. The much heralded election of November, 1994, in which Republicans gained a majority in both Houses of Congress, brought another unexpected opportunity to drastically alter the rehabilitation program. In an attempt to eliminate government duplication and waste, and give the localities more flexibility in addressing their unemployment problems, legislation was introduced combining over 150 separate federally funded employment initiatives, including VR, into one consolidated block grant program. Proponents of a consolidated system, including some disability advocates, cited the above statistics on the ineffectiveness of the VR program in helping people with disabilities find work, and stressed ADA requirements for integrated, accessible services. Some organizations of private disability employment services, such as the American Rehabilitation Association, saw expanded opportunities in a block grant system, and advocated that VR be included in the consolidated employment system. Most disability organizations, however, including those who pushed for dramatic reform during the 1992 reauthorization process, opposed consolidation. In the end, the rehabilitation program was dropped from the consolidation bill. In sum, although some changes, such as presumptive eligibility, have been made in the Rehabilitation Act, most of the above changes were incremental, reflecting a shift in emphasis rather than in substance. The reauthorization and consolidation efforts left the rehabilitation system as a whole largely unaltered. The rehabilitation counselor still remains the linchpin of the service, generally making the decisions about what gets purchased and from where. RSA still uses the number of case closures to evaluate each state agency's performance, maintaining a built-in incentive to serve less severely disabled clients and place them in jobs that require minimal expenditure for training. The legislation gives consumers with disabilities policy making authority only in the Independent Living section of the Act, and alternative service delivery models are being piloted only at the discretion of RSA. Advocates attending the Directions conference envisioned a comprehensive rewrite of the Act, but the reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act demonstrates an incremental policy making process. Although some values, such as consumer control and empowerment, choice in selection of services, and life long career advancement are clarified in the Preamble, (sec. 2), most of the issues identified as problems before reauthorization (Hearne, 1991) remain issues today. The fundamental alterations in the Act necessary to implement the Directions values were not adopted. What emerged was only an incremental shift towards the consumer empowerment model. Analysis Prominent Explanations Given the Directions recommendations and the body of research calling for fundamental change, why did advocates succeed in expanding disability civil rights during passage of the ADA and fail to attain the well documented need for reforms in the nation's rehabilitation programs? The most obvious possibility is that the Rehabilitation Act is based upon a 70 year history of incremental revisions, with built-in constraints on change, while the ADA is a new law. Another factor was that rehabilitation programs were established in the 1920's and 1930's, and are based on medical model definitions of eligibility, professionalism and employability that are in conflict with the consumer empowerment model proposed by Directions (Drimmer, 1993). As Holmes (1993, p. 7) puts it, "The organizational culture of VR may perpetuate the idea of disability as inferiority and may expose clients to an environment which reinforces stereotypes. In other words, VR's historical and ideological orientation has helped institutionalize the very stigma it was supposed to help clients overcome." The ADA's civil rights thrust versus the service domination of the Rehabilitation Act also played some role. The Rehabilitation Act has a history of reauthorizations every three to five years, and advocates may have been encouraged to take a more incremental approach, asking for something now and the rest the next time. During consolidation efforts, even the strongest advocates of reform became convinced that the specialized nature and level of rehabilitation for people with disabilities would be diminished in a generic system. However, in civil rights measures, the politics of incrementalism is usually eschewed, because revisiting the legislation in the future always offers at least as much opportunity for the opposition to weaken the bill as it does advocates to make the bill stronger. Politically expedient incremental changes had little appeal during ADA debates because of this danger (Flatley McGuire, 1994). While the above explanations are plausible, they provide only partial answers, insufficient to resolve questions about the widely disparate outcomes in the policy making process. A closer look, using theories about convergence of activity, lines of conflict, issue framing, interests and audience participation, provides more engaging interpretations. Convergence of Activity Issues get on the policy agenda when problem recognition, policy development and politics--generally operating as independent streams of activity--converge. The perception by mainstream society that a problem exists is not sufficient to push a policy issue to the top of the political agenda. However, a problem, when combined with politics--such as an election or other political event--and a policy that has already been developed, waiting in the wings to solve the problem, creates a brief window of opportunity for meaningful policy change (Kingdon, 1984). I postulate that these three independent streams of activity came together during ADA debates, but not during the reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act, or efforts to consolidate it into a generic job training program.. ADA proponents used the problem of disability discrimination as well as unemployment, lack of access and other issues, to introduce the concepts behind the ADA. Administrative and Congressional policy makers heard hundreds of poignant and emotional personal examples of exclusion, discrimination and mistreatment at public hearings and through personal diaries and letters. Several key policy makers, such as Tom Harkin, D-Iowa), Tony Coehlo (D-California), Robert Dole (R-Kansas) and President George Bush had personally experienced disability and identified with these emotional messages. These personal stories were bolstered by an increasing number of studies documenting the breadth of the discrimination problem. Additionally, advocates used estimates of the growing numbers of individuals with disabilities--from 36 to 43 million--to symbolize that anyone could become a member of this minority group, and to assert that most Americans will experience disability or have a family member with a disability during their lifetime. Discussions among advocates for a comprehensive civil rights bill had been taking place for about twenty years, but a specific policy solution--the ADA--was not drafted and introduced until 1988. The bill was not initially taken very seriously by Congress or the President, but key Democrats worked with the disability community to make the bill more palatable before its second introduction in 1989 (Jones, 1991). By the time Justin Dart began his cross-country tour to bring the disability problem to the public's attention through hearings, the bill was ready for introduction. Politics also played a major role, with the growing awareness of the disability community as a voting block. While the original bill drafted in 1988 was never scheduled for hearings or seriously debated before the elections, both 1988 presidential candidates courted the disability vote by endorsing the ADA, as did many who ran for Congress in that year. The much publicized jump in the polls after President Bush mentioned disability in his nationally televised campaign speech (Watson, 1993) also provided the impetus for 1990 Congressional candidates to support the bill. Disability advocates held election winners to the promises of support declared during ADA debates. Problems, policy and politics did not converge as neatly during reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act. First, while unemployment was still a major problem, no one spearheaded an effort to solicit diaries linking this problem to a failure of the VR system. Unemployment of people with disabilities is much more complex; discrimination, lack of education and training, and financial disincentives all play some role. A unified solution to the problem could have been formulated out of the Directions recommendations, but this did not happen. There are two potential explanations for this: 1) that rehabilitation providers and consumer lobbyists sought different solutions, and; 2) the perception that, given the entrenched interests of the rehabilitation community, an entire rewrite of the Act was politically infeasible (Michaels, 1994, personal interview). In any case, a specific solution based upon the Directions recommendations was never drafted. Nor was a unified solution formulated during the drafting of the job consolidation bill. Inclusion of disability programs, and attempts to bring advocates with disabilities "on board" in support of the consolidation bill, occurred only after the initial legislation had been drafted, leaving most disability advocates with the perception that disability issues would continue to be overlooked.. Finally, advocates for change lacked an obvious way to politicize the issue. The reauthorization debate was over by the 1992 Presidential election. Reform of the rehabilitation system had generated little interest among the general public, or, for that matter, among people with disabilities themselves, and policy makers had little to gain from changing the status quo. In sum, advocates were unable to publicize the problem, formulate a unified solution, or capitalize on a national political event. It is also possible that, since particular constituencies flow in and out of favor, perhaps Congress felt that the disability question had already been adequately addressed by the ADA, and was reluctant to take on another controversial issue, or bring increased attention to job consolidation attempts so soon. Lines of Conflict Another significant factor in the outcome of a debate is how the lines of conflict are drawn (Schattschneider, 1975). During the ADA debate, the conflict lay outside the disability community, while during the reauthorization and consolidation discussions, conflicts arose between and among disability advocates. The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) is a loosely knit coalition of over 100 organizations representing consumers, advocates, service organizations and rehabilitation providers. The organization represents a powerful Washington lobby on behalf of people with disabilities, and played a pivotal role in drafting and lobbying for both the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act. Because this coalition represents such a wide array of interests and constituencies, Congressional policy makers routinely seek consensus from CCD before pursuing a disability policy initiative. During the ADA debate, CCD stood united against organizations of small businesses, municipalities, transit authorities, and other forces that sought to weaken the bill. Because the proposed legislation included protection for all disability groups, the entire community could stand together behind the legislation. A loss of rights for one group was seen as a loss for all. Thus, when conservatives in Congress sought to remove people with HIV and AIDS from coverage under the Act, CCD members stood united in their opposition. Even representatives of rehabilitation providers that usually took little interest in civil rights issues perceived the ADA's benefits of higher job placement of their clients and worked for passage of the bill (Watson, 1993). The congressional policy committees with responsibility for Reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act sought the same consensus from CCD they had attained during the ADA debate; but, this time, various elements within the disability community advocated against each other for different alternatives. For example, consumer oriented organizations, such as NCIL and The ARC sought expansion of eligibility, while organizations of rehabilitation professionals, such as the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation (CSAVR) and the National Rehabilitation Association (NRA), advocated for a more closed system. Other groups sought a larger slice of the rehabilitation pie for their particular constituencies, i.e., advocates for people with developmental disabilities and head injuries sought long term supports, while advocates for blind people pushed for non-vocational services for visually impaired elders (President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, 1990). Because these programs cost money, a zero sum game ensued, with advances for one group resulting in losses for others. Advocates fought among themselves for particular policy changes, and could not agree on specific alternatives. Congressional staffers continued to stress the importance of consensus, and the CCD position paper that finally emerged in March, 1992 was a far cry from the visionary recommendations of the Directions report. The paper, on which the final reauthorization was based, recommended some major changes, but took a more incremental approach in most issue areas (Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, 1992). The same disputes within CCD prevented true consensus from building during consolidation efforts. The position paper that emerged in 1995 contained only the most sweeping philosophical statements, and many CCD member organizations diverged from the position paper and lobbied for their own interests. Thus, the lack of unity within the disability community was a major barrier to a comprehensive approach to reauthorization or consolidation. Issue Framing The disability community was remarkably successful in focusing the ADA debate around civil rights, remaining in the driver's seat during most of the debate. Advocates appealed to the liberals' sense of social responsibility to enact civil rights for disabled people, and the conservatives' interest in getting people with disabilities off of benefit programs and into the job force. This dual emphasis on civil rights and enhanced productivity made the bill very difficult to oppose. The bill enjoyed bi-partisan support from the time of its introduction to its passage, and even the strongest opponents offered only weakening amendments rather than opposing the entire bill. No one wanted to be perceived as 'against the handicapped' (Watson, 1993). Established organizations of rehabilitation professionals, such as CSAVR and NRA were clearly controlling the discussion during the reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act, and framed the issues differently. The rehabilitation system is quite technical, and advocates for change soon found themselves in a morass of definitions, well established eligibility requirements, regulations and procedures largely unfamiliar to non-professionals. Rehabilitation "experts" met consumers' demands for change with technical explanations about their impracticability. Whereas the ADA debate centered around civil rights, the reauthorization debate centered around technicalities. During the reauthorization debate, advocates for the status quo also exercised control by focusing discussion on those issues that were comparatively innocuous, thus avoiding consideration of issues that were perceived as more detrimental to their interest. They suppressed consideration of more sweeping reform, and focused discussion on more inconsequential matters. Interestingly, the most heated debate during the reauthorization process centered on direct federal funding of independent living centers--a program that consumes less than 2.5 percent of the rehabilitation budget. NCIL, usually a strong advocate for civil rights, could have been a powerful force for promoting major changes throughout the Act. Based upon the preferences of its membership, the organization fought primarily for reforms in the independent living Title, largely ignoring broader issues. No national, cross disability organization championed sweeping reforms. Interests How, where and why political issues convert into interest groups, and how these groups become mobilized to take action is a subject of much debate among political scientists. Most theories assert that people more readily mobilize to protect an existing benefit or program then to pursue a new one. For example, the elderly oppose any threat to Social Security, but had only minimal involvement in passage of the original legislation (Stone, 1988). Wilson (1973) takes this theory a step further, asserting that constituencies will organize more cohesively around concentrated interests--those affecting a significant life issue, such as work or income. People are less likely to organize as solidly around more peripheral life activities, such as leisure. While the above variables are constantly shifting depending upon an individuals's perspective at any given moment,[2] these criteria can be used to predict the strength of an interest's involvement in any particular issue. Advocates claimed that 43 million people with disabilities would be affected by the ADA, but Scotch (1989) estimated that only a few thousand actively participated in the disability civil rights movement. This relatively cohesive group of advocates experienced discrimination in most major life activities, including employment, education, travel and leisure. They zealously pushed for passage of strong, civil rights legislation. Centers for Independent Living, governors' employment councils and statewide advocacy organizations easily mobilized their constituencies to write letters and trudge the halls of Congress. The ADA battle was won largely because of these community advocates. Similarly, state VR providers and professionals would be tremendously affected by radical reform or consolidation of the rehabilitation system. Jobs could be lost with implementation of a voucher system. Consumers' demands for more power held the professional judgement of counselors in contempt, and performance outcomes would place new pressures on entire organizations. CSAVR and NRA members were easily mobilized to protect their interests. These tightly knit organizations with well paid national lobbyists formed a cohesive network to originate telephone calls, testimony or other advocacy, blocking major reform in the rehabilitation system. Audience Participation Audience participation is closely related to interests and involvement. According to the "Insider Access Model of Participation" postulated by Mueller (1988), most national policies are formulated by government and political analysts in Washington, with little involvement from rank and file citizens. Government analysts who bring items to the policy agenda generally seek to reduce outside involvement to a few important individuals or groups, hoping to minimize public clamor for more than incremental change. They seek to define problems so that others not directly affected by the problem are the ones who define the solutions. This model generally leads to incremental change, with only piecemeal ventures into new policy territory. Audience participation during reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act was fairly narrow, closely resembling Mueller's model. Although a few hearings to solicit consumer input from outside Washington were held, most of the debate on the Rehabilitation Act took place among insiders. Consumer advocates had difficulty generating interest in rehabilitation reform or consolidation issues, which blunted their effectiveness to create change. The apathy among disabled citizens was probably based upon the limited involvement of most with the rehabilitation system, either because they are already employed or perceive themselves as unsuitable for work. The technical nature of the proposed changes also discouraged broad participation (Michaels, 1994, personal interview). In any event, disability advocates at the community level were involved in the reauthorization process only slightly, resulting in more incremental change. On the other hand, ADA proponents strategically and continuously involved disability advocates at the community level. Justin Dart held public hearings in all fifty states, and encouraged participants to keep "discrimination diaries" to document their everyday experiences with prejudice. CCD also established elaborate telephone communication systems with state and local advocacy organizations to distribute "action alerts" soliciting letters and telephone calls during crucial committee debates. People with disabilities came to Washington in unprecedented numbers to meet with Congressional members and staff of key committees, and organized two national rallies to spur enthusiasm and spotlight the issue in the news media. All of these activities kept large numbers of people advocating for broad civil rights mandates. Conclusions A confluence of activity, external rather than internal conflicts, framing the issue as civil rights, strong interests and wide audience participation served advocates well in remaining strong and applying pressure to prevent substantial compromise during ADA debates. Lack of a proposed solution or a political event, internal conflict, a service rather than a civil rights issue, diffuse interest and a narrow audience allowed such compromising during the reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act. Disability advocates throughout the world who wish to pass civil rights legislation, or establish strong educational, vocational, and independent living services must champion comprehensive, rights-based solutions rather than incremental reform. Most countries cannot afford incremental changes to programs that are outdated and outmoded. Disability programs must be built upon the bold, new philosophy of inclusion and integration on which the ADA is based. 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