Conversation: WITH DISABILITY RIGHTS ACTIVIST SHAWN CASEY O’BRIEN : ‘We Could Pick the Next Mayor of L.A.’

SHAWN CASEY O’BRIEN is executive director of the Unique People’s Voting Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan voter registration and education project in Los Angeles by and for disabled citizens. He spoke with JIM BLAIR.

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The Unique People’s Voting Project, which we call UP, began in 1993 following a frustrating dispute over blocked handicapped parking spots on private commercial property in Venice. I and some other citizens called the local authorities and read them the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Unruh Act, and the appropriate section of the California Motor Vehicle laws. Nobody did a damn thing.

We realized that was a manifestation of our lack of political clout. Shouldn’t we at least look into organizing to do something?

When you’re a disabled child you’ve got what I call “the hurt puppy” syndrome. Everybody loves you. They see you on the street and they want to pat you on the head. But what happens? You grow up and suddenly, because you don’t fit into society’s cosmetic norm, you’re not so pretty. You have a much tougher life.

Now, I’m a lucky person. I walk on crutches, I’m very mobile and I more or less fit into that cosmetic norm. So I really felt, particularly since many of the programs serving the needs of the disabled are now under such vicious attack, that as a disabled citizen I had an obligation to my community, the entire community, to try and start this process.

UP is a nonpartisan, grass-roots organization of the disabled, their families and friends. We have 400 members, mostly in Los Angeles, although we’ve been branching out, meeting with disabled people in Sacramento and the Bay Area.

The census bureau defines disability two different but nonexclusive ways: either the impairment of a bodily function like seeing or walking and/or an impediment to a daily activity like being unable to get out of bed. That means 49.8 million American citizens are disabled--one in five--the largest minority group in the country, with 828,000 disabled citizens of voting age in Los Angeles County alone. The national average of disabled people registered to vote is approximately 40%, according to to United Cerebral Palsy.

When you add in the family members who would also support much of our agenda--my God! How big is our tent? How big do you want it?

To put that into political context, there was approximately a 15% turnout in the last election for the Board of Supervisors. Had we organized 10,000 votes, less than 2% of the overall disabled community in Los Angeles, we could have put anyone on the board. It means if we organize only 5% to 10% of our brothers and sisters, we could pick the next mayor of Los Angeles. It’s that simple.

Being nonpartisan, UP doesn’t support candidates or campaigns. We do support disabled citizens being educated on issues important to them. And if disabled citizens are properly informed--and I emphasize in a nonpartisan fashion--they will, as President Monroe once said, vote their interest.

Our most important issues are: Affordable housing, MediCal, Medicaid, educational loans (75% of the disabled community lives at or near the poverty line so they need this for education), enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act and and accessibility.

So our mission is to promote and protect the civil rights and economic interests of disabled citizens through the use of the ballot box with an emphasis on the permanent absentee ballot, which allows a disabled citizen to receive voting materials for every election without having to make a special request each time. We also want to make them aware of other services like curbside voting, easier access to polling places and a larger, more easily held version of the puncher used to mark ballots.

In a way, disabled people are the bridges between our society’s diverse communities. Disability cuts across racial, social, economic and gender lines. When black people can’t get along with Koreans, get some disabled people from each community in that room and there will be understanding. Disabled people have a kind of a special place and civic duty to become involved.

And if we do our job even half right, we, the disabled, could really help lead this country.