Advocacy Team
Witness Slips Needed for the Illinois Legislative Accessibility Act (SB 180)
Access Living friends and allies,
Tomorrow (3/23) at 10 am Central, the Legislative Accessibility Act (SB 180) is expected to be heard in the Illinois House Executive Committee.
As regular readers know, SB 180 is an effort to improve accessibility coordination for access issues related to our State Legislature, including but not limited to physical, communication and digital accessibility. We need your help to support SB 180 TODAY!
What will SB 180 do?
- Ensure that the Illinois House and the Senate designate a staffer who would coordinate disability access logistics for their respective chambers
- Create a reasonable accommodation request process for the legislature’s website, through which the public can request reasonable accommodations for hearings, meetings or visits
- Establish a working group to create an accessibility plan to phase in accessibility upgrades
What can you do to help?
We need your help to BOTH file an electronic witness slip and also to send an email to your Illinois state legislator.
File Witness Slip
1. Here is the link to file a witness slip in support of SB 180. Any individual can file a witness slip. When filling out the form:
- For firm/business/agency: put your organization, or “self”
- For representation: put your organization, or “self”
- For description: select “Original Bill”
- Mark yourself as a PROPONENT (this means you support it)
- For testimony: “record of appearance only”
Email Your State Rep
2. Here is the link to send your Illinois state representative a letter to ask them to support SB 180.
We need the Legislative Accessibility Act NOW.
It is beyond time for an active, ongoing process to phase in accessibility updates and ensure that the public can effectively engage with their state elected officials. Let’s get it done Illinois! Please share this alert with your friends and colleagues today.