1. United States
2. Maine
3. Letter

**Defend Olmstead Protections and Oppose DOJ Memo Gutting Disability Rights** I have a 21 year old who would be directly impacted by the Justice Department's recent Office of Legal Counsel memo. This “memo”guts decades of disability rights protections and signals that the DOJ will stop enforcing the Olmstead integration mandate. The Supreme Court ruled in Olmstead v. L.C. that states must provide community-based services to disabled Americans. The DOJ memo twists that ruling to mean states can institutionalize people as long as they have some justification — a reading the memo itself admits is "out of step with the common understanding of that decision within the federal courts." This isn't abstract - this is son’s life as well as millions of other Americans who rely on home- and community-based services paid through Medicaid. Those services are already under threat from the Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Now the DOJ is handing states a legal cover to cut community care entirely and return disabled people to institutions. That is not a policy disagreement — it is a civil rights crisis. Please, speak out against this memo publicly and push back ! The law has not changed — Congress, not an agency memo, makes law — and your constituents need this administration to GET THAT MESSAGE LOUD AND CLEAR! Help ensure that my son, and millions like him, stay integral parts of our communities not yet another “undesirable” locked away in yet another US sanctioned (and likely for profit) institution.