2017: Year in Review

To say 2017 was an interesting and tumultuous year would be an understatement. This year we have seen the disability community under attack, defending against various legislation, policies, and actions by the current administration. From multiple attempts to repeal the ACA and cut Medicaid, to HR 620 … a bill that would weaken the ADA, to the tax bill, and the removal of disability rights guidance documents by the Department of Justice, people with disabilities are watching, speaking out, and fighting back.

In #CripTheVote’s second year, we were involved in the following activities:

-Posted a call for Medicaid stories by people with disabilities and published them online.

-Shared stories of activism by disabled people with advice for first-timers, definition of activism, and reflections on the relationship between identity and activism.

-Supported and welcomed a new offshoot of #CripTheVote in the lead up to the 2017 General Election in the UK: #CripTheVoteUK

-Published 3 guest blog posts

Elsa Sjunneson-Henry Goes to Washington, DC by Elsa Sjunneson-Henry

Taking Ownership of Our Advocacy Successes by Liz Jackson

Discovering political activism through my DeafBlind Community by Kit Englard

-Hosted 11 chats

2/6 Twitter Chat: Disability Identity and Activism

3/12 Twitter Chat: Protecting the ADA and Disability Rights

4/2 Twitter Chat: Disabled People in Public Service

4/29 Twitter Chat: First 100 Days

6/11 Twitter Chat: Media Coverage of Disabled People in the Age of Trump

7/16 Twitter Chat: Death Penalty and Disabled People

8/13 Twitter Chat: Discussing Disability Issues with Friends and Family

9/19 Twitter Chat: Education

10/1 Twitter Chat: Healthcare Activism and Next Steps

11/12 Twitter Chat: One Year Since Election Day

12/3 Twitter Chat: Mental Health, Ableism & Elected Officials

-Started a series of spotlight chats with disabled candidates:

10/9 Candidate Spotlight Chat with Jen Longdon

10/10 Candidate Spotlight Chat with Chris Haulmark

10/12 Candidate Spotlight Chat with Carrie Ann Lucas

Including the spotlight chats, #CripTheVote has hosted 29 Twitter chats since our formation in 2016. All of this would not be possible without you. Whether you participated in a chat, guest hosted with us, or used the hashtag to share your stories and information, we are thankful for your involvement. You keep us motivated as we head toward the future. 

Looking forward, we plan to continue organizing chats featuring guest hosts from our community featuring issues that we care about. We also plan on identifying and highlighting disabled candidates who are running for office in 2018.

Please join us on January 21, 2018 as we host a chat on chronic pain and opioids with guest hosts Alecia Deon and Alex Haagaard. Details coming soon: https://www.facebook.com/events/1794096123936515??ti=ia

Be on the lookout for our second Disability Issues Survey in early 2018! Check out the results of the 2016 survey here: http://cripthevote.blogspot.com/p/2016-survey.html

Feel free to contact us if you have any suggestions or feedback: cripthevote@gmail.com. We’re also still hoping to meet and highlight disabled candidates at the local, state, and federal level. If you’re running for office, or know of a disabled candidate, let us know, and introduce them to #CripTheVote!

Happy New Year,

Gregg Beratan, Andrew Pulrang, and Alice Wong

#CripTheVote Co-Partners

12/19: Organizer's Forum on #TaxOnDisability

This information is from the Organizer's Forum. For more about the forum's monthly calls you can email: disabilitymovement@gmail.com or go to their Facebook page for the latest.

ORGANIZERS FORUM: #TaxOnDisability

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2017
1-2 pm Eastern time, 12-1 Central time, 11-12 Mountain time, 10-11 am Pacific time

Call-in: 1-515-739-1285
Passcode: 521847#

To join through your computer, go to: https://www.freeconferencecall.com/wall/organizersforum

Hear about the new tax plan being considered by Congress and what impact it will have on people with disabilities. Discuss the potential for organizing now and in the future to protect our communities.

Speakers:

Amber Smock, Director of Advocacy, Access Living and Convener, Disability Power for Community Integration

Kim Musheno, Vice President of Public Policy, Autism Society of America and Chair, Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities

Annie Acosta, Director of Fiscal of Family Support Policy, The Arc
Please forward to your lists ASAP.

To give us an idea of who joins our calls, if you are interested in joining on Tuesday, please fill out this quick form! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform…

CART: The call will have real-time captioning (CART)! The website where you will be able to view the captioning is https://2020captioning.1capapp.com. Username: forum. Password: forum. Thank you to the National Disability Leadership Alliance for sponsoring the captioning of this call.

If you need additional accommodations to participate in the call, please let us know as soon as possible.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS! The Organizer's Forum has a call on the 3rd Tuesday of each month, 1-2 pm EST (10-11 am PST).

NOTE: We have a listserv for discussion on these issues. It's organizersforum@yahoogroups.com; please go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/organizersforum/ and click "Join this group!" We also have our separate announcement-only listserv to allow everyone to easily get notices about the Organizer's Forum, called disabilityorganizing@googlegroups.com. Please email us to be added.We also have a Facebook page! We can use this is a way to continue our conversation beyond the monthly calls. Please "like" Organizer's Forum on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php…

Background:

The Organizing Workgroup of the National Disability Leadership Alliance hosts these calls the third Tuesday of every month as a resource for disability organizers, in an effort toward building the organizing capacity of the disability community across the country. They generally follow the format of a Welcome followed by 2-3 experts in a given area speaking for a few minutes on their experiences, advice and challenges. The calls include a 20-30 minute question and answer period.
To ask questions via CART: Sign-in to the Chat function on the right side of the transcript and type your question. One of the call facilitators will read out any questions posted there.
Because we want to maximize the generously donated CART services, we will begin the call promptly at 1pm and end the call promptly at 2pm (eastern time).

December 3, 2017 Twitter Chat: Mental Health, Ableism, and Elected Officials