Memorandum 
Date: May 10, 1993 
To: Senator Dole 
From: Alec Vachon (initialed)
Re: ADAPT Targeting Dole Offices for Demonstration Today
 
On Thursday morning, I sent you a memo regarding an invitation to attend a memorial service on Sunday at the West Front of the Capitol for Rev. Wade Blank, a founder of ADAPT, a disability rights/ civil disobedience group that advocates increased federal funding for community attendant care. Rev. Blank died in a tragic swimming with his son in February. You agreed to sign a condolence note, and I hand delivered it to Rev. Blank's widow on Sunday. She was very grateful. 

On Thursday afternoon, you received a fax from ADAPT (copy attached) via Bobby Silverstein, staff director of the Senate Subcommittee on Disability Policy (works for Senator Harkin), asking for a meeting with you (and Senator Mitchell, Mr. Foley, and Mr. Michel) on Monday, May 10, at 11:30 a.m. I attempted to reach ADAPT organizers on Friday, but no one was available to discuss the content of a meeting or any arrangements. I saw organizers on Sunday; no further details were forthcoming but I offered to meet with the group at their convenience. 

This morning ADAPT met with Secretary Shalala. This was their first meeting with a Secretary of HHS --previous Secretaries had refused to meet with them, and ADAPT regularly conducted sit ins here in Washington and around the country against, most recently, Secretary Sullivan. 

According to a source, some kind of deal was struck between Secretary Shalala and ADAPT this morning, and now ADAPT intends to target for demonstrations Republican leadership, i.e., you. 
We are told that ADAPT will target your offices today for a sit in. 

I will speak with them if they arrive here. However, they likely ask to speak with you, and there are several options:
 
1.  You can meet with several of them, hear them out, and hope they depart.   
2.  We can wait them out.   
3.  We can ask Capitol Police to remove them.  

(handwritten across numbered list: "You (illegible))

Please advise on any action you wish taken. I will keep you posted in any case. 

(page 2)
(logo of person in wheelchair with arms above head, breaking the chain on both wrists) 
ADAPT 
FREE OUR PEOPLE 

The Honorable Bob Dole 
United States Senator 
Washington D.C. 20510-1601 

Dear Senator Dole:
 
ADAPT, American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, a grassroots civil and disability rights organization, will be in Washington D.C. May 9th through May 11th. 

ADAPT wants a National Attendant Services Program so that people with disabilities, old and young, will no longer be forced into nursing homes or other large institutions because of the lack of community-based attendant services. 

ADAPT demands that 25% of Medicaid money now earmarked for nursing homes be redirected to fund this National Attendant Services Program. ADAPT wants Attendant Services to be part of the health care reform recommendations to be presented to the President in May and Congress will eventually enact. 

On Monday morning May 10th at 9:15am, ADAPT will be meeting with Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala to discuss the ADAPT position. This meeting will enable the Secretary to meet with the actual people that HHS programs and policies effect. 

We want to meet with you, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, Speaker of the House Tom Foley and House Minority Leader Bob Michel on Monday May 10th at 11:30am at the U.S. Capitol. 

The purpose of this meetinq is to discuss the ADAPT position and get your commitment to change the institutional bias in our long term service system that is forcing thousands of people with disabilities, old and young, into nursing homes and other large institutions. 

Congress has committed itself to end gridlock and to bring about chanqe. This meeting can start to end the gridlock in disabled people's lives and change the direction of our long term service system. 

Please respond to this letter by Friday May 7th. I will be on the road to D.C. so please ask for Karen Tamley or Jim Parker. You can contact them at 303/733-9324. 

For an Institution Free America, 
(signature)
Michael Auberger 
National Organizer