Wendy Davis’s new ad is certainly garnering headlines, and forceful reactions from the Abbott camp.
It’s no surprise: the ad makes clear that Abbott is a hypocrite who used the justice system after a tragic injury to gain a multi-million dollar settlement, then spent his career in office denying justice to other victims of accidents and violent assaults.
Bringing it up may make people uncomfortable, but facts are facts: Greg Abbott has a terrible record on disability rights and has actively prevented injured Texans from seeking justice.
Yesterday, Wendy Davis held a press conference in which supporters denounced Abbott’s record on disability issues.
Here’s the facts on Greg Abbott’s record on other people with disabilities:
- He fought lawsuits against the state brought by a blind professor, two deaf defendants, a woman with an amputated limb when they needed accommodations. Source: Dallas Morning News
- “Advocates for the disabled say Abbott’s office has worked to deny ADA protections by repeatedly and falsely claiming that impaired Texans don’t have the right to sue the state for discrimination.” Source: Dallas Morning News
- Greg Abbott has been a champion of tort reform, which has limited the financial damages that other injured Texans can seek through the legal system. He has made sure that other people cannot receive the same verdict he did for his injury. Source: Legal Examiner
- Abbott’s own attorney has stated that “a claimant would not have the same benefits” that Abbott had in 1985, “because they’d be limited by the new joint and several liability limitations.” Limitations that Greg Abbott championed. Source: Houston Chronicle
- Greg Abbott — and every other Republican statewide candidate — skipped the Texas Disabilities Issues Forum. In his questionnaire, he defended the state using sovereign immunity to avoid adherence to the Americans with Disabilities Act, because waiving sovereign immunity “would be overly broad and could expose the state to excessive costs.” Source: Burnt Orange Report
Of course, Abbott’s record of meting out injustice is not limited to those with disabilities.
Greg Abbott has also repeatedly sided against rape victims, against cancer patients, and against victims of a sociopathic surgeon who maimed his patients.
After the press conference, conservatives called one of the disabled speakers a “prop,” prompting a vehement backlash from young man, Lamar White Jr., a law student who responded, “I am a human being. Not a campaign prop.”
Greg Abbott is proud of his own work to overcome an injury that left him in a wheelchair, as he should be.
But tell us this, Greg Abbott: are you equally proud of your record of denying justice to other injured and disabled Texans?
2 Comments
Greg Abbott is a pretty despicable human being. I’m glad that as a Disabled Veteran that I don’t have a moral obligation to defend Greg Abbott simply because he is disabled. If I or any other disabled individual get the agency to decide that we don’t like Greg Abbott, Greg Abbott should be afforded the same moral agency to decide what actions are in line with his morals.
Once Greg decided to act in a despicable way, then call him on the despicable act, but don’t conflate his use of a wheelchair with the fact that he’s a despicable person. Perhaps someday the Progressives will get that Racism, Sexism, Ageism, etc all stem from Ableism, but given the way that they have defended the appropriation of the worldwide symbol of handicapped access for political gain I doubt they’ll get the irony.
Gregg Abbott, while on the Texas Supreme Court voted in favor of the tobacco industry in one of the few individual lawsuits brought against American Tobacco Company and others which prevented people from being able to sue the tobacco companies for the damages their products cause when used in the manner in which they are intended to be used. But the States could and did sue the Tobacco Industry for billions of Dollars to recover for money they had spent to pay for medical benefits resulting from tobacco related injuries and diseases. No individual ever received a dime.