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California Assembly passed AB2072 with 47 to 7 votes. 20 had abstained.

It was voted early in this morning (California time) in a closed meeting with repeated requests for captioning and ASL interpreter during the political process.

Ella Mae Lentz created a vlog with a summary excerpted below:

“Disaster this morning at CA Assembly. They rushed AB 2072 through Assembly despite the OpposeAB2072 Coalition meeting with bill author Tony Mendoza yesterday. Worse still, they did not even consider THE COMMUNICATION OPTION OF CAPTIONS nor ASL interpreter! No captions were provided despite calls in before the Assembly to add captions and they scrambled to get an interpreter and luckily Norcal was able to provide them with one. “

The whole political process is simply…. disfranchising the Deaf Community, Deaf professionals, Linguistics knowledgeable of American Sign Language, Deaf Educators, and many people who wanted to be a part of the process.

Assemblyman Tony Mendoza was been contacted several times from the community, and there was a lack of collaboration or dialogue. That is disfranchisement.

What is disfranchisement/disfranchising?

disenfranchise [ˌdɪsɪnˈfræntʃaɪz], disfranchise
vb (tr)
1. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) to deprive (a person) of the right to vote or other rights of citizenship
2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) to deprive (a place) of the right to send representatives to an elected body
3. (Business / Commerce) to deprive (a business concern, etc.) of some privilege or right
4. to deprive (a person, place, etc.) of any franchise or right

This definition is best explained about a person has no right to vote. We, Deaf citizens are allowed to vote. That is not the issue.

The main issue is we are not being part of the bill writing process, not inviting us to have a dialogue, not allowing us to make amendments, and or not allowing us to have an input. The worst part, not having an access to the whole process except the people who oppose the bill were opposing on the ’sidelines’, and yet, the bill was rushed to the assembly floor and have this passed.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Why Assemblyman Tony Mendoza is so dead set to push the bill so fast, without including Deaf Community to work together?

Disfranchisement.

The possible next step is to prove that the Deaf Californians are disfranchised from the political process, especially this kind of bill. It may call for the legal action.

Best,
Amy Cohen Efron