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News Release: January 17, 2003 For Immediate Release Contact: Jennifer Burnett 717-335-3340 Janine Bertram 503-622-6387 National Coalition for Disability Rights Plans State and National Protests in Response to Senate Scheduling of Controversial Judicial Nominee Washington, DC - A coalition of more than 400 national, state, and local disability organizations is opposing Jeffrey Sutton, President Bush's controversial pick to fill a lifetime seat on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals covering Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. As the Senate Majority leadership today announced Sutton's hearing date of January 29th, opposition events in Washington and around the nation are also being scheduled. Coalition partners include the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), ADAPT, National Association of the Deaf, American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), Autism National Committee, Bazelon Center for Mental Heath Law, The American Council of the Blind, National Council on Independent Living (NCIL), and many others. (See www.adawatch.org for a list of organizations, Stop Sutton! Petition, and more info.) Advocates organized by the Ability Center of Greater Toledo will leave Sutton's home state of Ohio on January 29th and join disability rights supporters from around the nation in Washington on January 30th. The event at the U.S. Capitol is being coordinated by the National Coalition for Disability Rights (NCDR) as part of the organization's ADA Watch program. Sutton's confirmation is being opposed because of his history of activism to roll back disability rights laws including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), as well as federal protections regarding Civil Rights, Age Discrimination, Violence Against Women, and the rights of Medicaid recipients. Jim Ward, NCDR's president stated today: "As the nation celebrates the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose words and actions have been a model for the disability rights movement, it is deeply troubling that the U.S. Senate will be considering a nominee - a lawyer who has spent most of his career rolling back disability and civil rights protections - for a lifetime seat on the Federal Court." Ward continued, "With strong ties to the Federalist Society and its extreme State's Rights agenda, Sutton has aggressively pursued a national role as the leading advocate for a group of far-right legal theorists attempting to limit Congress' power to protect to protect individuals' civil rights." "Sutton actively fought to eliminate the rights of state employees seeking damage claims for discrimination under the ADA. He fought to strip Medicaid beneficiaries of their legal rights to sue for services. He even fought on the wrong side of the historic Olmstead decision, arguing that unnecessarily keeping people with disabilities in institutions was not a form of discrimination." "Sadly, Sutton is just one of many troubling judicial nominees who pose threats to the ADA and other disability and civil rights laws. Nominees including Deborah Cook, Charles W. Pickering, Pricilla Owen, Carolyn Kuhl and others share records which demonstrate a propensity towards judicial activism that promotes the unelected undoing the work that a democratically elected Congress did at the insistence of the people. Theirs is a commitment to ideology rather than justice." "The Senate should reject this activist nominee and call on President Bush to pick judicial nominees whose records indicate support for Congress' authority to protect and advance civil rights, as well as for the ADA - the historic national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against people with disabilities." ### Jim Ward, President National Coalition for Disability Rights 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20004 V: 202-661-4722 F: 202-318-4040 www.adawatch.org NCDR Projects include: ADA Watch, Wired On Wheels, and the 2004 DisabilityRights Tour