1. United States
  2. Md.
  3. Letter

Restore Olmstead Protections — Stop the DOJ's Attack on Disabled People's Rights

To: Sen. Alsobrooks, Rep. Elfreth, Sen. Van Hollen

From: A verified voter in Arnold, MD

June 27

Demand that the HHS Civil Rights office restore its Olmstead decision webpage immediately and publicly reject the DOJ's new memo attempting to gut 25 years of settled civil rights law. The Olmstead decision — handed down by a Republican-majority Supreme Court in 1999 — guaranteed disabled people the right to live in their homes and communities rather than being warehoused in institutions. That is the law. It cannot be quietly deleted from a government website because the current administration finds it inconvenient. The DOJ memo, reportedly Stephen Miller's passion project, claims Olmstead does not actually require states to provide home- and community-based services. That is a radical reversal of longstanding federal civil rights protections, and Senator Tammy Duckworth was right to call it a return to "a time when there were forced lobotomies." This isn't a policy disagreement — it's an attempt to rewrite history and strip disabled Americans of legal protections they have relied on for decades. Stand against this memo and make clear that Olmstead is the law of the land.

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