Senator Lesser Ensures CT will Protect Disability Rights, Law Takes Effect July 1

Connecticut Codifies the ADA Integration Mandate Into State Law Days Before Trump Administration Attempts to Dismantle It

As Connecticut prepares for the July 1 implementation of Public Act 26-150, the federal Department of Justice has issued a memo arguing that states have no legal obligation to provide community-based care to people with disabilities, threatening a foundational protection that has been in place for nearly three decades.

State Senator Matt Lesser (D-Middletown), lead author of this legislation that will protect the rights of people with disabilities to live in their communities, said the federal rollback makes Connecticut’s action even more important.

“Connecticut didn’t wait for Washington to do the right thing, and it’s a good thing we didn’t,” said Senator Lesser. “While the Trump administration is trying to walk away from a core civil rights protection that has kept people with disabilities in their homes and communities, Connecticut is cementing that right into state law. No memo out of Washington can take that away from our residents.”

Sheldon Toubman, Litigation Attorney with Disability Rights CT, the statewide advocacy organization serving individuals with a broad range of disabilities said, “The bill was already very important, at the time of passage, because of lack of enforcement of the ADA’s integration mandate at the federal level. The recent action of the federal agency in completely obliterating this essential federal mandate has rendered CT’s ground-breaking law crucial, so the legislature was prescient in passing this bill now.”

“At a time when the federal government seems intent on rolling back the rights of people with disabilities, including people who live with mental health conditions, it is particularly gratifying that Connecticut’s elected officials unanimously passed a bill that incorporates the integration mandate of the Americans with Disabilities Act into state law,” said Kathleen M. Flaherty, Executive Director at Connecticut Legal Rights Project, Inc. “Connecticut residents with psychiatric and other disabilities will continue to be able to assert their right to receive services in the most integrated, least restrictive setting, in their communities, rather than being locked up in facilities.”

“As a new opinion from the Department of Justice turns back the clock for people with disabilities by disavowing one of the most crucial civil rights protections — the integration mandate of the Americans with Disabilities Act– the state of Connecticut is standing by its citizens,” said Sarah Eagan, Executive Director of the Center for Children’s Advocacy. “The Center for Children’s Advocacy is grateful for Senator Lesser’s leadership in advancing prescient recent legislation that codified critical civil rights guarantees into state law, helping ensure that no child, no adult, is denied their human right to live and thrive in the community.”

Public Act 26-150 incorporates the ADA’s Integration Mandate directly into Connecticut state law, ensuring that people with disabilities in Connecticut retain the right to receive services in the most integrated, community-based setting appropriate to their needs, regardless of federal government’s lack of enforcement of the integration mandate or its removal of the integration mandate.