Another Look at Presidential Politics–Predictions for the Workplace–McCain on ADA Restoration Act

For a summary of the proposed ADA Restoration Act contained in a previous post, click here.

Senator McCain was a strong proponent of the Americans with Disabilities Act when it was passed in 1990. Some disability groups have said that McCain also supports the ADA Restoration Act (click here for an example), but I have been unable to find anything from the horse’s mouth on this.

McCain’s support of disability causes is well known, particularly as those causes relate to veterans. Of course, McCain himself suffers from what would probably be a disability under the ADA definiton as a result of his years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

I’m reluctant to say that McCain supports or doesn’t support the ADA Restoration Act at this point. I’m inclined to believe that, given his history, he would work toward a compromise on this legislation to make it possible for more employees to be covered by the ADA without opening Pandora’s box, which the ADA Restoration Act would do, in my opinion, because it would eliminate a key part of the present ADA definition of disability. Presently, disability is defined as “mental or physical impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” The ADA Restoration Act would remove “that substantially limits one or more major life activities.”