The disabled target the Corbett administration

HARRISBURG - A few weeks ago, an activist in a wheelchair was trying to make her way to the second-floor Capitol office of Gov. Corbett's scheduler when a guard stopped her at the elevator.

As Pam Auer tells it, the guard said she couldn't ride up because she had no state-issued badge - the kind routinely given to state employees, lobbyists, and journalists - and no appointment.

Auer could see other badgeless people streaming into elevators or climbing the stairs without being questioned. She concluded that she was being singled out for her wheelchair.

"The governor doesn't want to hear from, see, or acknowledge people with disabilities," said Auer, who has spina bifida and fibromyalgia. "There is a history with this governor denying us access, and all we want to do is talk about preserving home- and community-based services."

The incident was the latest in a simmering feud between the Corbett administration and advocates for people with disabilities - especially those willing to engage in noisy acts of protest.

Days earlier, no-trespassing signs and ropes appeared for the first time in recent memory, blocking access to the upper floors of the Capitol's five-story south wing. That prompted threats of civil-rights suits, as well as gripes from Democratic legislators with offices on those floors.

Other groups, such as large gatherings of students protesting Corbett's proposed college funding cuts, have staged rallies in the Capitol in the weeks since, and no signs or ropes have been erected.

Department of General Services spokesman Troy Thompson said the administration was enforcing a state code that makes the upper-floor offices private areas.

"The Capitol police are trying to decrease the amount of activity on the upper floors because of safety and blocking ability to do business," Thompson said. "It is a policy that we believe is sound."

Thompson said no one was being singled out. "It is not a selective process," he said.

That response did not satisfy the Disability Rights Network or the American Civil Liberties Union. The groups sent a joint letter to the Corbett administration, saying the policy violated free-speech rights as well as the Americans With Disabilities Act, which mandates equal access for the disabled.

"It appears that the Capitol police are excluding individuals from this part of the Capitol if they have a history of disruption or if they are merely suspected of intending to cause a disruption," the groups wrote, adding that police seemed to assume individuals were likely to cause a disruption "because they used wheelchairs."

Corbett's chief counsel, Stephen Aichele, met Thursday with lawyers from the Disability Rights Network and the ACLU of Pennsylvania.

ACLU staff attorney Mary Catherine Roper said Aichele voiced the administration's concerns about protesters blocking Capitol hallways and disrupting work.

"If there are more incidents with people with disabilities being denied access to parts of the Capitol where everyone else has access, we will react to that," Roper said. "Let's hope they react to real security threats, not imagined ones."

Kirsten Page, a spokeswoman for Corbett, said the governor wasn't trying to shut anyone out. She cited Thursday's meeting with the Disability Rights Network. "Numerous meetings have taken place over months, including meetings with Department of Welfare Secretary [Gary] Alexander, Aging Secretary Brian Duke, and the governor's senior staff," Page said.

The chief underlying issue for the activists is a new round of proposed cuts and freezes in funding for programs serving the mentally and physically disabled. The programs, already squeezed by former Gov. Ed Rendell's administration, face 20 percent cuts in Corbett's proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Corbett has said repeatedly that rising costs and flagging revenue force his administration to make difficult budget choices.

There have been several public clashes over the last year between the administration and disability-rights activists, some of whom have camped out overnight on the Capitol grounds and marched on the governor's mansion. Four protesters were arrested in February for blocking a street outside the Capitol when they were denied access to the Department of Public Welfare building.

The activists admit they are loud and unafraid to practice civil disobedience, even if it means locking the brakes on their wheelchairs in the middle of the street. They say all they want is the governor's ear, briefly, to discuss the budget cuts and proposed changes in the way services are provided to the disabled.

"We make a little noise," said Bob Stoner, an organizer with the disability-rights group ADAPT who has traveled 51/2 hours from his home in New Castle to Harrisburg about a dozen times in the last year. "But often we are here to negotiate, attend a hearing, or visit people, not just protest.

"This administration is very hostile to people with disabilities," Stoner contended. He said the last administration regularly talked with the activists - an impression echoed by former Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo, who said he was often dispatched to talk to protesters.

"They came fired up," Ardo said. "But once they had an opportunity to make their case, they went home."

House Democratic leaders say the security policy is blocking access to their offices, too. "It's not the governor's building; it's the people's building," said House Democratic leader Frank Dermody (D., Allegheny), whose office, along with those of nine other lawmakers, is on the upper floors of the south wing. "They've been through security, they should be able to see their representatives."

Thompson, the general services spokesman, said Capitol police were initiating training programs to better deal with protesters, which the ACLU's Roper applauded.

Also, for reasons that weren't immediately clear, no ropes or other barricades appeared Thursday when some disabled activists went to the Capitol to make their views known at a budget hearing.

But if a truce is breaking out between the administration and the activists, it is fragile. Roper said the Disability Rights Network and the ACLU were ready to go to court and seek an injunction if Capitol police stop people in wheelchairs again.

"We use our right to have a voice," said Auer, who takes care of herself but who worries about cuts in home aid for the disabled, such as her and her husband. "We just want the same access everybody else has."