Transcript of “Rights
Here, Rights Now –
Episode 31: General
Assembly 2021 with Colleen Miller
Produced
by the disAbility Law Center of
Virginia.
[INTRO]: The
information provided on this podcast does not, and is not
intended to, constitute legal advice. Instead, all information, content
and materials available are for general informational purposes only.
[Enter host, Suzanne Herbst.]
[Suzanne
Herbst]: Welcome to Right Here, Right Now! A podcast about disability advocacy and
activism. I’m your Advocate Host, Suzanne Herbst.
[Enter host, Ren Faszewski.]
[Ren Faszewski]: And
I'm your Advocate host, Ren Faszewski.
[Suzanne
Herbst]: Every two weeks we dig into to relevant
issues, current events, and avenues for self-advocacy.
[Ren]: Because someone has to.
[Suzanne]: And
it might as well be us.
This
podcast is produced & edited by the disAbility
Law Center of Virginia, the Commonwealth’s protection and advocacy agency for
disability rights. Find out more at: www.dlcv.org.
[Enter, again, hosts
Suzanne Herbst & Ren Faszewski]:
[Suzanne]: Ren, we have
a very exciting episode today! Are you...excited??
[Ren]:
I love excited! [Laughter.]
[Suzanne]: It’s
better than not excited, I think! [Pause.] About 99% of the time, I think,
you know. […] It’s the little things.
[Ren]: [Agreeing.]
It’s the little things! So tell me, tell me… why am I excited?
[Suzanne]: We
have our Executive Director on the podcast today, Colleen Miller, talking to us
about the upcoming session at the VA General Assembly.
[Ren]: Ooo! This is exciting, and also, it’s a lot. And (I think)
that’s my favorite thing.
[Suzanne]: It’s
pretty on brand for the disAbility Law Center of VA.
Exciting & a lot. For our listeners, who just heard the words, Virginia
General Assembly, and are like: I’ve heard of it, but I don’t (really) know
what it is. You can go on back into our archives and check out episode 3 of our
podcast where we talk again to Colleen Miller about what is the Virginia
General Assembly and what dLCV’s role is when we go
in there
[Ren]: Yeah.
It's definitely-- check out-- it's ...kind of a really good primer we talked to
her last year right before the second so you know this year has been pretty nothing
really has happened.
[Suzanne]: So, I'm sure it's going to be
insanely pretty boring run-of-the-mill.
[Ren]: But,
before we jump into that let's go ahead & check out disability in the news!
[Federal
lawmakers have reinstated a popular Medicaid program that helps people with disabilities
move from institutions into the community. The program is called Money Follows
the Person and it has been renewed for three years under legislation that was
approved in December. This Medicaid program gives states extra funds to provide
employment, housing, and other services to allow people to transition from
nursing homes and other institutions, like state hospitals, into homes in the
community.
Money
Follows the Person officially expired in 2016 but since then it has been
granted eight short term extensions, but money still ran out across the
country, leaving people to stay within institutions due to a lack of funding.
The renewal is committing $450 million dollars annually to the program through
September 2023. The program also changed the amount of time a person has to be
in an institution to qualify to transition into the community, from 90 days to
60 days. This renewal came at the perfect time to get people out of
institutions during the pandemic into their homes and communities, where they
can be more safe and less exposed to the virus. Between 2008 and 2019 Money
Follows the Person has helped over 100,000 people leave institutions and return
back into their communities.]
[Suzanne]: All
right, and we are joined, as always, by our esteemed Executive Director,
Colleen Miller-- Thank you so much for joining us once again.
[Enter, Executive
Director Colleen Miller]
[Colleen]: Thank
you for having me.
[Suzanne]: And
we were talking about you- this is your fourth time on the podcast.
[COLLEEN]: Wow…
I feel like, so honored!
[Suzanne]: This is like
the Saturday Night Live Fifth timers Club! [LOL!] We're going to have to, like,
get you a jacket next time.
[Colleen]: I
look forward to that. [Laughter.]
[REN]: Like…
(for)… The Varsity Podcast Team!
[Suzanne]: So,
we are here talking about the general assembly of Virginia General Assembly--
before it officially starts up. Before this—the current (next) session even
begins! We heard there was…a special session?
[Colleen]: There
was.
[Suzanne/Ren]: What
happened?
[COLLEEN]: So,
just to put that in a little bit of context…last year the section ended in
early March of 2020 and shortly after that, of course the covid
crisis really over took everything. At the end of the session the legislature
had passed a two-year budget and it included a lot of things that we were
really happy about-- increased fremitus Supportive Housing, increase funding
for waivers slots, a lot of things that we are really excited about and then
Mark came, and everything ground to a halt as far as the state's economy was
concerned/ When the legislature came back in April to consider the governor's
amendments to the budget there were a lot of things that the governor and the
legislature simply put on to see how the economy was going to withstand the the COVID shut downs. So following up on everything being put on hold with the governor referred to as un-
allotted in the budget all of those things-- the senate reconvened in the late
summer, having a better idea of what the impact on the budget was going to be. Initially
that SESSION was supposed to just be to deal with the budget, but the other
thing that happened this year in the summer, was the explosion of race related
incidents and protests across state all across country and so the legislature
decided to expand the purpose of special session to deal with law enforcement
reforms as well as the budget. THAT special session lasted 85 days! it wasn't
continuous it was not like morning noon and night for 85 days all of our
legislators have other jobs so they had to actually take a day off here they're
only do a meeting for an afternoon or something like that in order to maintain
their other jobs. Butt it went a total of 85 days
which is longer than any regular session, TWICE the length of any regular that
just ended in early November and now we're getting ready for the next session
to start in January.
[REN]: So, it seems
like they don't have much of a break if obsessions turn can you tell us if
that's going to be a long session or short session and when exactly in January
to start?? (Good question.)
[COLLEEN]: Sure.
The session will begin under our Constitution, and that is the second Wednesday
of January. So, that will be Wednesday January 13th and also under the state
constitution the session last 30 days in an odd-numbered year. Usually ** what
happens is that the legislature agrees to extend at 30 days session to 45 days
in fact every year since I've been working in the legislature they had extended
it to 45 days in the odd-numbered year. But this year of the word we're getting
is that they will not be able to get a supermajority to agree to that extension
going to stick to a 30-day second part that is because I think mostly it's
because *both sessions* are going to be The House and the Senate are both going
to be meeting.
[SUZANNE]: That
answer leads to a little bit of the next question, which is, that we have those virtual meetings
which is obviously everyone is pretty familiar with how COVID has changed all
of our lives. But, how is COVID, you know, changing the way the general
assembly works this year? And, even in addition to the virtual meetings what do
you anticipate that to be like??
[COLLEEN]: So, the best we can do is kind of
look at what they did during the special session: The Senate met at the Science
Museum of Virginia and they met in person. They met live and in person but
the public participation was but the public participation was limited to either
virtual testimony or email testimonies sitting in written testimony in advance.
It was-- it did not go well it was not smooth so understandably why they were
doing things the way they were but it was really a very difficult schedule to
keep track of time because they were meeting in one room and science museum
they had successive committee meeting.
So,
as soon as one committee would stop the next to start. Which meant, if you were
following the third committee meeting you had to watch the first and second
committee meetings because you wouldn't know otherwise when it was going to
start stuff it was—really, really rocky to follow everything they met entirely
virtually they did not have any in-person meetings at all except for the
initial one to adopt the meetings virtually. And, they were not able to have a
simultaneous committee meetings that was produced that
I think they could only have—two-- to maybe the same time. But, they also
because they were not traveling to these meetings, they were also able
to spread them out more than the Senate was able (to). That's what we expect is
going to happen this year.
We
hope that they worked out some of the kinks, giving testimony via Zoom or via
whatever technology they had. So, it was not smooth was not easy often times as
they were having trouble connecting with the member of the public who is
speaking the committee assumed that that person was no longer there and so they
moved on to the next speaker before the first Speaker had even gotten connected
and it was it was rocky I'm hoping that they've worked out a lot of the kinks
before we head into this in January.
[REN]: Yeah,
I think that's one thing that we're all learning is trying to get through these
Growing Pains, as it were. yeah I think that's one thing that we're all
learning is trying to get through his Growing Pains as it were of course You
know, (I think that) part of dLCV, is that we have a
certain… point of view as another protection and advocacy Agency for folks with
disabilities so in regards to this next session what is dLCV
going to be focusing on and (what) is (it) particularly interested in??
[COLLEEN]: So,
as part of our mandate under OUR federal grants it's our responsibility to
educate policymakers about the implications of decisions that they're
considering. So, we try to be aware of absolutely every single bill that deals
with an issue concerning people with disabilities or that has the potential to
impact with disabilities. That's a lot. In
the past session we actively followed about 65 or 70 different bills. Hopefully
it'll be fewer this year because it got very strict limitations on how many
bills they can submit but we really try to look for absolutely anything that
can have an impact on people's disabilities and try to help the legislators
understand what that means for people with disabilities sometimes they have
considered a piece of legislation that they hadn't really thought about what it
means to assistive technology somebody who uses AT, Mobility assistance
somebody who might be deaf or blind that just sometimes don't even think about
how those general things impact.
The
first and foremost that's what we do we look at everything that they're working
on and try to figure out is there an impact on people's disabilities. And in particular
we are going to be aggressively pursuing three pieces of legislative reform
that build on work that we had been doing: The first of them deals with our serving of
polling places that we have done the last three elections to general elections
and primary election, we've surveyed it somewhere around 600 polling places,
and I have found a phenomenal number: in Spring 90% of the places that we went
to did not have adequate curbside voting!
This
time around some of the places that visited in November some of the pulling
officials told us they actually like to keep herds
curbside voting a secret! They don't really want people to know about it so we
are going to seek some legislation to put the application on polling places to
actually post a notice of how to activate your right to the curbside. Some
places do, do it well already so places actually post signs and cell phone
numbers. and we're half-staff station out in the
parking lot to help you with it. We want that to be uniform Another thing that
we are going to be looking at is to increase the Protections in our State Human
Rights Act for people with disabilities to be free from discrimination in
employment last year the legislature expanded the Human Rights Act to cover a
lot of other categories from the employment discrimination but they neglected
to include disability in that so we're working together with the Attorney
General's office to try to remedy that deletion that Omission last year we're
looking at affirmatively on our part is to get access to community incident
report// reports filed by Community providers who are licensed by the
Department of Behavioral Health and developmental Services when they allege
potential abuse or neglect. We typically get those reports when they concern
would have called serious incidents which are medical incidents involving
people and Community Services, but we would like the rest of the incident
reporting system which would give us information about allegations and what we’re
seeing to code change/change to give us access to.
[Suzanne]: Those
reports that is those are three really big things that were running after this
year! So, what are you know what that or even aside from that: what are your
hopes and dreams for this session?
[COLLEEN]: This
session is likely to be shortened session. One of the nightmares I have… {LOL}
members of the legislature that we should expect the session will start most
mornings at 7 in the morning and run until 8 or 8 or 9 at night and so I guess
I have a hope and dream of one day getting a good night's rest??
But we are we are absolutely going
to be excited to see some of the programs that work out of last year's budget
hopefully being restored t and some better funding for permit permanent
Supportive Housing which really matters to our clients with significant mental
illness who need that kind of support and hopefully seen increase in funding
for developmental disability waiver slots. Medicaid waiver slots Some of the
budget items were going to be looking at real we've always been looking for
increased funding for services for people with traumatic brain injury on we've
already kind of gotten the word that that's not going to be included in the
governor's budget, so it's possible that some legislators will put in
amendments to increase Ed funding and if they do we will absolutely help.
That
is it's going to be a lot of discussion still in this session about police
reforms and we will be looking for those particularly interested in how those
police reforms affect people with mental illness and their encounters with law
enforcement, OR, with autism or communication barriers and their interaction
with law enforcement and also the use of law enforcement at school settings
which is a very dangerous and problematic thing that we do here in Virginia.
[Ren]: Well
I foir one am in favor of a good nights
sleep! {LOL} Those all sound like wonderful things that we're really going to
be rooting for. So, clearly we have a lot of ideals that we want to pursue! I
just want to ask about this last November which was kind of hectic. A lot of
things happened did the election in November really change anything about this
section or what our plans are for DLCV’S involvement in the session?
[COLLEEN]: You
know, I don't think that the National election had much of an impact on on
Virginia legislature we elect our governor in Virginia one one
year after the presidential election each year so there will be an active
Governor's race that has really already begun that is likely to have an impact
on the upcoming session as several of the candidates for Governor are in a
legislature and they will undoubtedly use this session to strengthen their own
political base your own political House of delegates to a year and a half a
year ago we elected an entire new house of delegates and turn you sent it and
so this coming November the house of delegates will be up again but in this
November there was really no significant change to the to the legislature, OR,
the election!
[Suzanne]:
So thank you so much all of our
listeners are SO prepped and ready for this General Assembly session perhaps
even more so than you are calling at least emotionally and mentally?
[COLLEEN:] If I could you just ask our
listeners to follow us during the legislative session we have an active Twitter
account where we let people know what's going on with the legislature
frequently with pictures and other fun things like that and so so get on our Twitter account and follow us that way we
everyday do legislative highlights legislative updates usually around a
particular subject matter so one day we might talk about ADA issues, it might
be mental health issues but we try to keep our constituents informed about what
the legislators do I need on a daily basis twice a day if it's a really busy
session.
So,
please get on our website get on our Facebook page and get on our Twitter and
follow what's going on at your text people with disabilities thank you so much
thanks for letting us letting us know how we can follow that thank you for
being here today thank you in advance for your 13 hour days what are going to
be coming up we hope for sleep for you I always say I wish I could we can go
skiing when the session is over so I'm already looking forward to that crossing
the days off on the calendar really hard during the general assembly and then
that is exactly right and now a DLC TV highlight.
[Suzanne]: Thank
you so much thanks for letting us letting us know how we can follow that thank
you for being here today thank you in advance for your 13 hour days what are
going to be coming up we hope for sleep for you!
[COLLEEN]: I
always say I wish I could we can go skiing when the session is over so I'm
already looking forward to that crossing the days off on the calendar really
hard during the general assembly
[Suzanne]: That
is exactly right! And now a dLCV
highlight.
[dLCV received a critical incident report from
a state psychiatric facility regarding Mr. K’s death after he fell out of bed. dLCV requested to review the records and discovered that,
while the facility had done an internal investigation and found that staff had
not complied with the doctor’s orders for fall precautions, the facility had
not conducted an abuse and neglect investigation into the incident. dLCV filed a human rights complaint on Mr. K’s behalf,
alleging neglect. The facility followed up on the complaint and their
investigation concluded that Mr. K’s rights had been violated and substantiated
neglect. As a result, the facility revised their policies regarding fall
precautions, retrained all staff, and initiated new policies to ensure that
such an incident wouldn’t happen again.]
[Ren]: Thanks
again to the esteemed Colleen Miller for chatting with us today!
[Suzanne]: Absolutely!
She’s just so knowlegable and we’re so lucky to not
only have her as our ED, but to have her right down the hall. REN: And for any
of our listeners who want to follow up and with DLCV during the session? We’re
on Twitter and we’re going to be following everything so follow us
[Suzanne]: AND
I’m sure our listeners are thinking MORE POLITICS, THAT’S what you want from
me?? But, there’s a lot going on and we’re very excited about it! Absolutely! Thank all of you for listening to
this episode of Right Here Right Now, brought to you by the disAbility
Law Center of Virginia. We are available
on Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.
[REN]:
If you need assistance or want
more information about dLCV and what we do, you can visit
us online at www.dLCV.org.
[SUANNE]: You
can also follow us on Twitter
@disAbilityLawVA.
[REN]: We also have a Facebook
disability Law Center of Virginia—share that with your friends.
[SUZANNE]: Until
Next Time, I’m Suzanne H.
[REN]: And I’m Ren Faszewski.
And this has been RIGHTS HERE
[SUZANNE]: Rights
NOW.
{END OF TRANSCRIPTION]