1. Four years ago, during the last Texas gubernatorial race, Wendy Davis ran a commercial of an empty wheelchair, and the narrator spoke about how Greg Abbott has worked against the rights of disabled people.
2. She got criticized for the commercial. But facts were indisputable: Despite the fact that he has a disability and despite his own multi-million dollar legal settlement, Abbott voted to prevent disabled people from suing the state for violating the ADA.
3. "In a series of legal cases in his three terms, Abbott’s office has fought a blind pharmacy professor in Amarillo who wanted reflective tape on the stairs to her office; two deaf defendants in Laredo who asked for a qualified sign language interpreter in their courtroom...
4. "...and a woman with an amputated leg. In that case, the state argued she was not disabled because she had a prosthetic limb."
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dallasnews.com/news/local-pol…
5. Republicans- all over the country- thought the metaphor of an empty wheelchair was offensive; it probably cost her a ton of votes. But disabled people applauded the ad, b/c it starkly illustrated Abbott's hypocrisy. And a wheelchair isn't an offensive image to the disabled.
6. (In that respect, the ad was ahead of its time, b/c it asked viewers to recognize Abbott's own agency as a disabled man).
7. Wendy then held a press conference in Ft. Worth with a dozen of the state's leading disability rights activists, all of whom supported her candidacy and believed that Texans needed to understand the truth about Abbott's record.
8. There was also a disabled law school student who spoke. After he finished, he asked her staff to help him slide his chair away from the microphone in order to make room for the next speaker.
9. The conservative media- Fox News, Michelle Malkin, the Washington Free Beacon- then criticized Wendy for exploiting this student. They said her campaign "shamelessly dragged" him across the stage.
They called him a "campaign prop."
They called him a "campaign prop."
10. Well, to those who may not know me, I was that student.
And I'm definitely not a prop.
But I do find it incredibly ironic that Ted Cruz is now running a commercial featuring a disabled veteran as a proxy to attack anyone who protests against police brutality or racism.
And I'm definitely not a prop.
But I do find it incredibly ironic that Ted Cruz is now running a commercial featuring a disabled veteran as a proxy to attack anyone who protests against police brutality or racism.
11. I respect the man's service to our country.
But b/c I also respect his agency as a human being and as someone w/ a disability myself, I think it needs to be said: Patriotism has nothing to do w/ the physical act of standing.
But b/c I also respect his agency as a human being and as someone w/ a disability myself, I think it needs to be said: Patriotism has nothing to do w/ the physical act of standing.
12. It's a terrible metaphor. He's profoundly wrong. And that doesn't make him a "campaign prop," but it does underscore the difference between campaigns that champion policies that help disabled Americans as a cause and those that use us whenever it's politically convenient.
