“The government that led the way two decades ago in establishing legal rights for the disabled has failed to ratify an international agreement based on the very same law.
The U.S. Senate this week took up the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a United Nations treaty that was inspired by the Americans with Disabilities Act, a landmark law adopted in 1990.
But in order to ratify the convention, 67 senators were needed to vote for it. Only 61 did, after a block of Republicans refused to endorse the treaty that they claimed would jeopardize American sovereignty.
Several GOP senators did vote “yes,” including John McCain of Arizona, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Richard Lugar of Indiana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Others, though, voted in opposition, even after former senator and majority leader Bob Dole appeared in the Senate chambers to encourage his party’s members to back the convention. Dole, 89, arrived via wheelchair, having come from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he was being treated for poor health…”
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