Advocates for the disabled are calling it an ominous sign that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed the first-ever suspension of a 35-year-old state law designed to protect services for the state's disabled residents and their caretakers.
Schwarzenegger made the suggestion as part of a sweeping package of midyear budget cuts to help shrink a multibillion-dollar deficit. Program supporters and their families, who plan to rally at the Capitol on Wednesday, say the cuts would create long waiting lists for services and devastate those caring for disabled relatives in their homes.
"For this administration to propose it out of the gate is cause for great alarm for people with disabilities and their families and their advocates," said Virginia Knowlton of Protection and Advocacy, a private, nonprofit law firm focusing on the civil rights of disabled people.
The new Republican governor is not the first to propose cutting back services for the disabled. But he is the first to call for the suspension of the Lanterman Act, which was written by former Republican Assemblyman Frank Lanterman and signed into law by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, also a Republican.
Advocates call the law a "civil rights act" for the disabled.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/ca/budget/story/7863652p-8803833c.html