Sorry, Senator Dole - Your Party Doesn't Exist Anymore

Both men deserve better.

As Jon Stewart said on the Daily Show, "please tell me we've hit rock bottom."  On Tuesday the Senate voted down the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities due to Republican opposition.  The treaty makes, in a completely nonbinding way, the standards established in the  U.S. Americans with Disabilities Act the recommended guidelines for disability accomodations worldwide.  It would have absolutely no effect on U.S. law or sovereignty.  You know how conservatives always want the rest of the world to be more like America?  Well, here's their chance. 

(Here's a little more background on the ADA and this treaty. Feel free to skip to the next paragraph if you're familiar with them.)  The Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted in 1990 to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities and extend to them many of the same protections in the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  They cannot be discriminated against in employment.  With some exceptions, they must be guaranteed equal access to public places (you might remember a lot of wheelchair ramps being constructed in the '90s).  Telecom companies must ensure equal access to their services through such devices as TTY and TDD.  It was landmark legislation that greatly enhanced access and opportunities for Americans with disabilities. It was the first of its kind in the world and made the US a leader in disability rights and accomodations. It's not a big surprise, then, that the law serves as the basis for the UN's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  This Convention basically takes the core concepts of the ADA and extends them to any country who becomes a party to the treaty; the US even helped draft it.  And even though the treaty thus aligns exactly with US disability law, it's not exactly enforceable, like pretty much everything the UN does.  The UN is not a one-world government and has no real power over sovereign nation-states.  The treaty, then, really establishes recommended guidelines that signing countries can ascribe to.

Today 154 countries have signed the Convention.  Both Presidents Bush and Obama signed the treaty, but in the US treaties must also be approved by a 2/3 vote in the Senate.  The vote was 61 for vs. 38 against - just short.  Nine Republicans joined every Democrat in voting for the treaty.

So why did most Senate Republicans stand against this Convention?  In short, crazy UN conspiracy theories and baseless beliefs that it would harm home schoolers and religious schools.  Bob Dole, fresh out of the hospital, appeared on the Senate floor in a wheelchair to advocate for the treaty.  And all but nine of the Republican Senators looked at him and said, "Screw you, Bob.  My insane knee-jerk reactions to anything coming from the UN are more important than standing up for people like you."

"People like you" here includes disabled war veterans who worked for months to get this treaty ratified.  But just as they opposed the Veteran Jobs Act a couple months ago, this serves as further evidence that this current crop of Republicans has no problem turning people into disabled veterans but has no real interest in respecting them or supporting them once their purpose is served.  Bob Dole worked tirelessly to pass the ADA in 1990, which enjoyed bipartisan support (it passed the Senate 76-8 and the House on a unanimous voice vote) and was signed into law by a Republican president.  Today it would likely be labeled a socialist government takeover.  Dole's efforts to get this treaty approved may very well be the last political crusade of Dole's storied career. 

And not only did it fail in the face of ridiculous opposition, but it failed via Dole's former Senate Republican colleagues stabbing him in the back.  Both of Kansas' Senators, Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran, voted against it after previously expressing support.  Moran is my former Congressman from the Kansas Big First district, which includes Dole's hometown of Russell, where my parents now live.  In May Moran issued a joint press release with John McCain praising the treaty.  To his credit, McCain kept his word.  Moran did not.  He turned his back on his fellow Kansan, someone I'm sure he at one time saw as a mentor and inspiration.

Enough Republicans had promised their support that the treaty's defeat was a real surprise to observers.  Here is a description of the reaction:

"The scene both inside and just outside the Senate chamber Tuesday before and during the vote was heart-wrenching, several observers said. Wounded war veterans and other disabled people filled the gallery above the floor and the hallways outside the chamber, expecting to celebrate months of effort, only to have those hopes shattered as the roll call vote was read aloud.

"That was one of most shameful moments I've witnessed during my time in Washington," one longtime senior Senate aide said. "I thought it was utterly appalling."

"The reaction was one of emotional hurt. There was weeping in the gallery," said Morrissey, who added that disability groups will remember the GOP senators who torpedoed the treaty ratification effort and groups have labeled the 38 the "wall of shame." "  The full story is at Foreign Policy.

After voting against the treaty, 2016 presidential hopeful Marco Rubio went to accept the Jack Kemp Award (Dole's '96 running mate) and gave a speech about helping the less fortunate.  No comment.

I may not agree with everything Bob Dole did in his political career.  But I respect him as a war hero, a tireless crusader for people with disabilities (of which I am one), and a masterful negotiator who readily reached across the aisle to find compromises.  To see the legacy of one of history's greatest Kansans tarnished in this way tears me apart.  If today's Republicans will gladly throw one of their living icons under the bus to appease their John Birch Society trolls, what might they do to the rest of us?