Disability advocates, from left, Mark Cundall, Bob Kafka and Bryson Smith speak about mobilizing disabled Texans to vote at a Capitol news conference Wednesday. (Robert T. Garrett photo)
More than 50 disability rights advocacy groups and Texas nonprofits have banded together to try to mobilize the state’s more than 3 million disabled residents to vote on Nov. 4.
The groups have created a website promoting a Texas Disability Issues Forum, which will be held in Austin next week.
So far, only Democratic hopefuls seeking the top three statewide offices on the fall ballot have agreed to appear at the Sept. 24 event.
GOP nominees for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general — Attorney General Greg Abbott and state Sens. Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton, respectively — have declining the invitation, citing scheduling conflicts, said event organizer Bob Kafka of ADAPT of Texas.
“We can’t force them to come,” he said at a Capitol news conference.
Organizers, though, have offered to let the let candidates citing schedule conflicts to participate using videoconferencing technology, Kafka said. Organizers also told the GOP candidates’ campaigns that they would let the absentee candidates tape an appearance at an earlier date, he said. Forum moderator Ben Philpott, a political reporter with Austin’s public radio station KUT-FM, would interview them “under the same type of setting,” Kafka said.
“We’re disappointed,” he said, noting the forum is a nonpartisan effort.
Abbott, who has been confined to a wheelchair since a tree fell on him about 30 years ago, did join Democrats Wendy Davis, Leticia Van de Putte and Sam Houston in filling out an 18-question issues survey. The four candidates’ responses are posted online here.
Abbott has vigorously defended the state against lawsuits brought by disabled Texans under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. He also has supported the state’s voter ID law, which Kafka said poses problems for disabled people, who he said tend to have lower incomes and be less well educated.
Last week, Abbott unveiled a health platform last week that included support for 5 percent pay raises for personal attendants who help the disabled stay in their homes. State health and human services agencies run so-called “Medicaid waiver” programs that help the disabled remain in the community. They agencies have asked lawmakers next session to approve the additional $105 million in state spending that it would take to grant 5 percent raises. The attendants typically earn $7.50 an hour, or just a quarter more than the federal minimum wage.