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ACTION
ALERT!! Join Sutton Opposition!
Petition
to Oppose Confirmation of Sutton to Circuit Court!
A
petition is now being circulated by ADA Watch to mobilize opposition to
nomination
of Jeffrey Sutton to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
This petition
is provided below and
available
on the web at www.adawatch.org. Also
below is a letter from AAPD
(American
Association of People with Disabilities) President Andy Imparato
to
President George Bush, urging the President not to renominate Jeffrey
Sutton.
Numerous
organizations, including AAPD, decided to oppose President Bush's
nomination
of Jeffrey Sutton to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (which
includes
Michigan, Ohio,
Tennessee
and Kentucky) shortly after his name was put forward in May of
2001.
Sutton is the attorney who argued the Garrett case in front of the
Supreme
Court on behalf of
the
State of Alabama holding that the ADA was unconstitutional as applied to
State
employers in suits for damages. He
also argued on behalf of the State
of
Georgia
in
the Olmstead case, thankfully losing in his contention that that ADA did
not
prohibit unnecessary institutionalization of two women with mental
disabilities.
In part because of the substantial opposition his nomination
produced
from the disability community, he was never scheduled for a hearing
in
the last Congress. According to
recent press reports, it looks like he
will
be renominated by President Bush next week and possibly scheduled for a
hearing
as early as January 14.
Don't
Delay, Take Action Today!
Jonathan
Young, PhD
JFA
Editor, AAPD
=========================
ADA
WATCH
National
Coalition for Disability Rights
Please
Distribute:
Urgent
Reply Requested
Dear
ADA Supporter:
Your
help is urgently needed to prevent the confirmation of Jeffrey Sutton
to
a lifetime seat on the Federal Court. Sutton is expected to receive a
hearing
before the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 14th. Hundreds of
nonpartisan
disability organizations and many more
individuals
are opposing Sutton because he is a States Rights activist who
has
weakened the ADA and other civil rights laws. If you have not joined
us
- either as an organization or as an individual - now is the time to act.
Even
if you have already opposed Sutton, here is what we need you to do:
-
Sign the Stop Sutton! Petition at www.adawatch.org - organizations should
also
FAX a statement opposing Sutton on your letterhead to: 202-318-4040
-
Distribute the attached petition and FAX completed copies (without a
cover
letter) to: 202-318-4040 (We will
hand deliver petitions to the
Senate.)
-
Call your Senators/Come to Washington! We need you to join us on January
14th
to send a message to the Senate to reject judicial nominees who oppose
disability
rights.
(Check
www.adawatch.com for the scheduled hearing time.)
-
Organize a Stop Sutton! Rapid Response Team. Distribute this notice and
petition
broadly; manage phone banks to call the Senate; mobilize disability
rights
supporters to
come
to DC; write letters to the editor (using background information at
www.adawatch.org);
organize editorial board meetings; etc.
Please
join our bipartisan effort to ensure that lifetime seats on the
Federal
judiciary are filled by those who support the right to equal
opportunity.
Sincerely,
Jim
Ward
President
and Founder, ADA Watch
1201
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 300
Washington,
DC 20004
Phone:
202-661-4722
FAX:
202-318-4040
Email: adawatch@aol.com
WEB:
www.adawatch.org
=====================
=====================
=====================
Stop
Sutton!
[ click
here for PDF version of 1) cover
2) petition ]
=====================
=====================
=====================
To
President George W. Bush, Senator Orrin Hatch, Senator
Patrick
Leahy, and members of the U.S. Senate:
WHEREAS
President
George W. Bush has declared that: "Every day our
nation
was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful
to
our founding ideals. And the founding ideals of our
nation
and, in fact, the founding ideals of the political
party
I represent was, and remains today, the equal dignity
and
equal rights of every American";
WHEREAS
Numerous
editorials have called for a reassessment of
President
Bush's judicial nominees, including the New York
Times
editorial of December 22, 2002 which stated: "It
seems
clearer than ever that the White House and the Senate
should
conduct a more rigorous review of current and future
judicial
nominees' records"..."and disqualify any whose
commitment
to equal rights is at all in doubt;"
WHEREAS
People
with disabilities are fully deserving of the federal
civil
rights protections included in Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation
Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act
(IDEA), and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA);
WHEREAS
Jeffrey
Sutton, nominated last year to the U.S. Court of
Appeals
for the Sixth Circuit, has been a leader in the
effort
to limit congressional power to enact laws
protecting
civil rights. Sutton has prevailed in a series
of
5-4 cases before the Supreme Court that have curtailed
civil
rights, including the Board of Trustees of Alabama v.
Garrett,
which successfully challenged the
constitutionality
of applying the Americans with
Disabilities
Act of 1990 to states as employers. (Sutton
argued
that the protections of the ADA were "not needed" to
remedy
discrimination by states against people with
disabilities.
This decision prevents persons with
disabilities
from collecting monetary damages from state
employers.
Most significantly, it has resulted in fewer
attorneys
being willing to represent individuals in ADA
cases
against state employers.);
WHEREAS
Sutton
filed a brief representing the state of Georgia
before
the Supreme Court in Olmstead v. L.C. arguing that
unnecessarily
keeping people with disabilities in
institutions
was not discrimination. (Ruling against the
segregation
and unnecessary institutionalization of people
with
disabilities, the Supreme Court reversed in a
groundbreaking
decision supporting desegregation.)
WHEREAS
Sutton
has successfully argued against civil rights in
Sandoval
v. Alabama (holding that there is no private right
of
action under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act's
disparate
impact regulations); and United States v.
Morrison
(holding that the civil remedy provisions of the
Violence
Against Women Act was beyond Congress's power to
enact).
AND
WHEREAS
Sutton
has not just acted as an advocate for his clients,
but
has admitted that he is often "on the lookout" for
cases
that support his hostility towards Federal civil
rights
protections and has strongly advocated going far
beyond
the Court's 5-4 majority in restricting Congress's
power
to protect civil rights;
THEREFORE,
BE IT KNOWN
The
undersigned joins hundreds of disability and civil
rights
organizations in opposing the confirmation of
Jeffrey
Sutton to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and
respectfully
requests that the U.S. Senate vote against his
confirmation.
The undersigned further requests that
President
Bush select judicial nominees supportive of
disability
and civil rights.
Sincerely,
Name:
Email:
Address:
Date:
Telephone:
=====================
=====================
=====================
Please
Distribute and Fax Completed Petitions (without
cover)
to: 202-318-4040
=======================
=====================
=====================
January
3, 2003
The
Honorable George W. Bush
The
White House
Washington,
DC 20500
Dear
President Bush:
On
behalf of the American Association of People with
Disabilities (AAPD), I write respectfully to urge you not
to
renominate Jeffrey Sutton to the Sixth U.S. Circuit
Court
of Appeals when the new Congress assembles next week.
Jeffrey
Sutton's activist efforts to limit Congressional
authority
in the area of disability rights has undermined
your
father's legacy as the signer of the Americans with
Disabilities
Act (ADA) and represents a real threat to the
civil
and human rights of all Americans.
In
Garrett v. University of Alabama, Mr. Sutton argued
successfully
that Congress did not have the authority under
the
Constitution to apply the ADA to States in employment
discrimination
suits for damages. He argued that
unnecessary
institutionalization should not be a violation
of
the ADA in the L.C. v. Olmstead
case, but thankfully
the
Supreme Court declined to follow his lead in that case.
Mr.
President, you have repeatedly indicated your support
for
the ADA. You have signed an
executive order calling
for
widespread and coordinated implementation of the
Olmstead
decision throughout your Administration. You
have
promoted
a New Freedom Initiative with the goals of opening
opportunities
and removing barriers to full participation
for
the more than 50 million Americans with disabilities.
Why,
then, elevate someone to a lifetime appointment to a
federal
appeals court whose view of the Constitution will
erect
new barriers for Americans with disabilities seeking
to
assert their rights in federal court?
Since
you nominated Jeffrey Sutton in May of 2001, AAPD has
joined
literally hundreds of national, state and local
disability
organizations to oppose his appointment. It
is
unprecedented
for our community to speak out so loudly in
opposition
to a judicial nominee, and we do so because we
are
convinced that his extreme views represent a real
threat
to our civil rights. Please honor
your commitment
to
a strong ADA and refrain from renominating Mr. Sutton to
a
federal judgeship. Please listen to
the strong protests
of
your constituents with disabilities and put forward
candidates
who understand the importance of Congress's
ability
to remedy this nation's abysmal history of
exclusion,
segregation, sterilization, institutionalization
and
impoverishment of its citizens with disabilities.
Mr.
President, we need your leadership to help us stem a
tide
of activist court decisions that are weakening the
Constitutional
underpinnings of disability rights laws and
threatening
your agenda on behalf of Americans with
disabilities.
Having ridden that tide to national
prominence,
Jeffrey Sutton does not deserve your support.
Sincerely
yours,
Andrew
J. Imparato
President
and CEO
American
Association of People with Disabilities
#
# #
=====================
=====================
=====================
JUSTICE
FOR ALL -- A Service of the
American
Association of People with Disabilities
www.aapd-dc.org
www.jfanow.org
There's
strength in numbers! Be a part of a
national
coalition
of people with disabilities and join AAPD today.
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