The Results are In: Election 2006 and What it Means to the Disabled Community & Others

by Leroy Moore Jr. of the National Minorities with Disabilities Coalition

The National Minorities with Disabilities Coalition, NMDC, views the recent election as a serious turning point in the disabled movement and a wake up call for this country’s political arena. As we witnessed, this election year brought out record number of candidates with disabilities and candidates with disabilities of color to some high political positions from Governor to House of Representatives to the Senate. These results, however, could have been better and hopefully are just a starting point. NMDC would like to share with you what this election means for not only minorities with disabilities, who ran for office and for the whole disabled community but for the political arena.

Out of ten known races involving candidates with disabilities in New York, California , Maine, Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland, only two disabled candidates won their races: David Paterson, now Lieutenant Governor of NY and reelected member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisor, Michela Alioto Pier. What does this mean for the future of candidates with disabilities in all political parties? Although many of the disabled candidates that NMDC covered in this year’s election were newcomers to the political arena, the two who won their race are well known in their parties and came into the race with a treasure of supporters, contributions, a well- oiled political machine and a family name.

Both Paterson and Alioto are not only people with disabilities but both have a family legacy in politics in their cities. David Paterson’s father, Basil Paterson, is a longtime political leader in New York and Harlem and was the first African American to be nominee of a major party for statewide office in New York. His father’s political work spans from the 1950’s and 60s to the 80’s. The same is true for Michela Alioto-Pier. Alioto-Pier is the granddaughter of former San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto, and the niece of Angela Alioto, former President of the SF Board of Supervisors. Joseph Alioto served on the San Francisco Board of Education from 1948 to 1954, and in the 1960s, served as the chair of the city's Redevelopment Agency. He entered the mayoral race in 1967.

Some of theses races involving candidates with disabilities were close and made historical inroads in the political arena. For example, Brooke Ellison, a person with quadriplegia who was running for the Senate in New York, lost her race to a well known Republican, John Flanagan, but the race was close for a newcomer. Flanagan got 59 percent of the vote to Ellison's 40 percent. Ellison is no Arnold Schwarzenegger even though her name and face were in Hollywood. She starred in the last movie Christopher Reeves directed about her life, but her star power is not as bright as all other movie stars that have walked onto the political stage.

In another interesting study about press coverage, the NMDC tracked the amount of media around disabled candidates in the past election. Although the candidates did get some media attention around their campaigns for being persons with disabilities running for office, compared to well-known candidates the coverage was sparse. The well-known candidates were asked about a vareity of subjects by the media, while candidates with disabilities received very little media attention and it was only related to only one issue, their disabilities.

Many of the third party disabled candidates were excluded from debates. Martina Robinson was quoted in an article as saying that she was excluded from the Governor’s debate in Massachusetts. She believed it was based on her disability because it takes time for her aide to interpret to the audience what she says due to the cerebral palsy that affects her speech.

Now, in the post election media coverage, a diverse group of experts are analyzing what the election meant for their communities and the result of the Democrats taking over the Senate and the House. These experts and their comments represent people of color, women, immigrants, gays and lesbians and even youth but once again, eventhough this election had a record number of candidates with disablities, the voice of the disabled community is missing.

Disabled or not, in this election voters played it safe and went with the more well-known names from the two major political parties. The question is if you are not born into a political family dynasty how do you get the name, support and the backing of the political machine? Our answer at NMDC is to keep on running.

Martina Robinson, who was running for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts on the new Green-Rainbow Party ticket, took the words out of my mouth when she was interviewed for the Boston Globe article. Robinson said that, she knows ‘the odds are steeply stacked against her.” She wants to win and thinks she has a chance, but winning is not her sole objective. She also said she hopes to set an encouraging example for other disabled people.

In the race for Governor in Massachusetts 54 percent of voters picked Democrats Deval Patrick and Timothy Murray, followed by 23 percent for the Green Rainbow Party's Grace Ross and Martina Robinson. Bringing up the rear with 11 percent of the votes each were Republicans Kerry Healey and Reed Hillman and Independents Christy Mihos and John Sullivan. Although the Grace Ross & Robinson ticket got only 23 percent of the vote, they did come in second place. This is huge for a newly formed party and it is first time that African American woman with a physical disability ran for a high political office in that state. It is also interesting to point out that the newly elected Governor Deval Patrick is the first Black Governor of Massachusetts, but it is not known if his administration will look toward Robinson for advice on disability issues in the state.

Although many of the disabled war veterans who ran for office lost, like Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Phil Avillo in Pennsylvania and Phillip Morris Napier, the question now is will the new Democratically controlled House & Senate listen to these disabled war veterans or more proactively will they take on their campaign promises and platforms?

Another interesting detail of the above candidates are they were all Democrats or Independents. Were there any Republican disabled war veterans in this year’s election? In the Duckworth and Roskam race in Illinois for the House of Representatives, Duckworth, a Filipino war veteran who is an amputee received 49% of the vote and the newly elected Representative, Roskam received 51% of the vote. This was a very close race for a first-time disabled Filipino candidate.

So the National Minorities with Disabilities Coalition (NMDC) believes that the major question for the above disabled candidates now is, “what will be their future in the political arena?” How can we, in the disabled community learn from their candidacy and what will be the affect of the disabled vote and upcoming disabled candidates on the current political parties? NMDC will keep an eye on the political arena and disabled candidates.