Disability Law: Problems and Proposals

1998 ◽  
Vol 91 (6) ◽  
pp. 518-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
R GREGORY LANDE
Keyword(s):  
Disability Law

Rights, Redistribution, and the Rise of the “Litigation State”: The Case of Disability Discrimination Laws

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
David Freeman Engstrom ◽  
David K. Hausman
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Test ◽  
State Level ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Cost Shifting ◽  
Disability Discrimination ◽  
Social Welfare Programs ◽  
Disability Law ◽  
Fresh Perspective ◽  
Legislative Choice ◽  
Cost Shift

Critics have long maintained that the rights revolution and, by extension, the postwar turn to litigation as a regulatory tool, are the product of a cynical legislative choice. On this view, legislators choose rights and litigation over alternative regulatory approaches to shift costs from on-budget forms (for example, publicly funded social provisions, public enforcement actions by prosecutors or agencies) to off-budget forms (for example, rights-based statutory duties, enforced via private lawsuits). This “cost-shift” theory has never been subjected to sustained theoretical scrutiny or comprehensive empirical test. This article offers the first such analysis, examining a context where the cost-shift hypothesis is at its most plausible: disability discrimination laws, which shift costs away from social welfare programs by requiring that employers hire and “accommodate” workers with disabilities. Using a novel dataset of state-level disability discrimination laws enacted prior to the federal-level Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and a range of archival and other materials drawn from state-level legislative campaigns, we find only limited support for the view that cost shifting offered at least part of the motivation for these laws. Our findings offer a fresh perspective on long-standing debates about American disability law and politics, including judicial interpretation of the ADA and its state-level analogues and the relationship of disability rights activism to other rights-based political movements.

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