With eight months left in his term as a Colorado legislator, Rep. David Ortiz wants to ensure that disability rights advocacy continues after he leaves Capitol Hill.
“Disability rights aren’t something that everyone cares about because they don’t live with a disability or don’t have a loved one or someone they know who lives with a disability, so the world remains inaccessible in a very harmful way,” the Littleton Democrat told Colorado Newsline.
Ortiz, who was first elected in 2020, is Colorado’s first wheelchair user. During his tenure as a state representative, he has promoted numerous bills related to disability and accessibility issues, including strengthening the state’s discrimination laws against people with disabilities, granting wheelchair repair rights, and mandating insurance coverage for recreational prosthetic limbs.
He constantly introduces access-related amendments to other laws and urges legislators to consider every law from an accessibility perspective.
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Now he is preparing to leave the House of Representatives (he has decided not to seek a third term) and wants to take a permanent position in state government to weigh in on these issues.
“[Most people]don’t understand the barriers we have to overcome to get through life, and it’s past time to remove them. This office will be a focal point, or a hub, to make sure we’re coordinating our efforts to do that,” he said. “This isn’t tied to any particular administration or any particular lawmaker. Hopefully, this will be something that will be permanent.”
Ortiz’s proposed bill, 24-1360, would create the Colorado Office of Disability Opportunity within the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, which would serve as a resource on a wide range of disability issues in the state, from helping people obtain benefits to advocating for policy to the governor.
Additionally, the office will be tasked with conceiving and implementing a statewide strategy to promote economic stability and social integration of persons with disabilities.
“Our goal is that as this office is built and grows into what is envisioned in the law, the office will have the tools, the time and the knowledge to actually hold effective, in-depth stakeholder meetings on a range of topics that affect people with disabilities across all government agencies,” said Jack Johnson, public policy liaison for Disability Law Colorado, a nonprofit that focuses on civil rights and discrimination litigation.
Johnson said sometimes the disability community is only brought into the discussion after a bill has been introduced or there has been a major budget reconciliation, rather than being included in the discussion from the start, which can result in a lot of defensive and reactionary policy work.
“The Paradigm of Opportunity”
The bill outlines ambitious, broad mandates for the office, which supporters see as a center for current, sometimes overlapping efforts on disability issues in the state. The office would absorb, for example, the Colorado Disability Funding Commission.
“We’ve known for years that we needed a coordinated disability response because disability touches so many state agencies,” said Julie Raiskin, co-executive director of the Colorado Cross Disability Coalition, a disability advocacy group.
The adjustments will impact how people with disabilities interact with the state. Currently, there is often confusion about who to turn to for specific questions, such as benefits assistance, Raiskin said. But the adjustments could also streamline the state’s many disability-related committees, task forces and other advisory bodies.
We want to ensure that able-bodied Coloradoans can take advantage of the opportunities they take for granted.
“We need people in government who have a disability and disability perspective. We can’t expect the heads of state agencies to understand our community and know our issues, even if they have great intentions,” she said.
Ortiz believes the office will help change how Coloradans think about people with disabilities from a “paradigm of poverty” to a “paradigm of opportunity.” That means paving the way for people with disabilities to earn a living wage in fulfilling jobs, have stable housing and unimpeded access to public transportation. It also means opening up Colorado’s recreational and outdoor culture.
“We want to ensure able-bodied Coloradans have access to the opportunities they take for granted,” he said.
CDOO would be funded with money from the Disability Assistance Cash Fund, not the General Fund, which could be crucial as lawmakers, who have only about $20 million to spend on new programs this year, consider big-ticket bills over the coming months.
“We are eligible for general fund funding, but we have to fight like hell against all of the Disability Bill of Rights bills that have funding issues, so we’re happy to be able to avoid that by self-funding,” Ortiz said.
The cash fund is funded by fees for historic license plates — solid black, blue or red plates with white lettering, or “greenies,” the reverse of today’s standard green and white plates, that have become increasingly popular on Colorado roads. So far, the fund has raised about $6.4 million, according to the governor’s office.
Colorado Lt. Governor Diane Primavera speaks during a news conference in front of the Colorado State Capitol on Aug. 17, 2021. (Moe Clark/Colorado Newsline) Lt. Governor’s Endorsement
CDOO has been a long time coming, Reiskin said. The need for it became more apparent to disability advocacy groups as disability programs were cut during the Great Recession, but funding was always an issue, even as task forces and committees were formed. The license plate funding mechanism was key to getting the office off the ground, as was Lt. Gov. Diane Primavera, a champion for accessibility issues, bill supporters said.
Primavera added a senior policy adviser on disability issues to her team in 2020. She also moved the disability funding committee into her office, and since then, she said, revenue has grown from $100,000 over a decade to $500,000 per month.
“This office is intended to support the great work of each agency through collaboration and coordination, not change or take away authority, and will help agencies work toward the shared goal of thriving and independent Coloradans with disabilities,” she said at the bill’s first committee hearing last month. “HB-1360 will ensure that disability support policy work continues into the future.”
HB-1360 passed unanimously out of the House Commerce and Labor Committee. It needs approval from the House Finance Committee before it can be considered by the full House. It is also being sponsored in the House by Rep. Chad Clifford, D-Centennial. It does not yet have a sponsor in the Senate.
The legislative session ends May 8th.