Former Democratic congressman of Iowa, Tom Harkin, spoke to the Brandeis community twice on Wednesday discussing the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections, his history as a congressman and social policy related to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which he introduced into the Senate in 1989.
“Thank goodness the House will be Democratic,” Harkin said in a Q&A session with Dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, David Weil. Later in the evening he gave a keynote lecture on meaningful work for people with disabilities.
Tuesday’s midterm elections saw Democrats take control of the House as Republicans maintained a majority in the Senate.
A former representative who served in both chambers of Congress, Harkin said that Democrats reclaiming the House meant that Republican efforts to unravel Social Security, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would be stunted.
He also said that he was surprised by many of the results of Tuesday’s elections such as the loss of Democratic candidates Claire McCaskill in Missouri and Joe Donnelly in Indiana. He criticized President Donald Trump, stating that he doesn’t understand “the depth of support for the most repulsive person ever elected president.”
“I think we’re going to have the next two years as a clash,” he said. Harkin pointed to a comment by Trump earlier this week in which Trump stated that if Democrats use their majority in the House to launch investigations into his administration, he will take a “war-like posture.”
Harkin said that in the future, “my party, the Democratic party, has to learn how to speak to and represent people in more rural areas.” He stated that he is not surprised that labor unions have turned towards Republican candidates after Democrats failed to pass labor reform on multiple occasions in past decades.
In his keynote address, Harkin spoke to privatization of Medicaid by the governor and legislation in Iowa. “Medicaid has always had an institutional bias,” explained Harkin. “If you qualify for institutional care under Medicaid, Medicaid must pay for that, but if you want to live in the community on your own and get long-term support services, Medicaid does not have to pay for that.”
He went on to describe different ways in which companies have been increasing the number of disabled people on their staff. In a distribution center in Connecticut that Harkin visited, Walgreens hired “persons with disabilities, broadly speaking. Intellectual disabilities, mental disabilities, physical disabilities and any combination thereof,” recalled Harkin. Out of the 700 employees working at that center, 40% of the employees were people with disabilities.
“Some people you’ll recognize as having disabilities, some people you won’t. Sometimes we had to make modifications in a work space, but we found out many times when we made a modification to a workspace, the next person that worked there may not have had a disability but found it was better for them too,” said Harkin.
Harkin also looked to the future with the further integration of people with disabilities in the workforce. “My challenge to businesses last year was to double their rate of employment of persons with disabilities in competitive integrated employment over the next 10 years,” explained Harkin.
He also wanted the formation of “local youth disability employment boards” that would be made up of individuals from various businesses and youth leaders with physical or intellectual disabilities. The purpose of the boards would be to integrate the two groups of people, the employers and the employees, together into one. Finally, Harkin wanted “to make hiring persons with disabilities part of their diversity portfolio.”
There was a signer who signed Harkin’s entire speech for people with disabilities who were audibly impaired.
