How New York City can make campaigns more accessible
Hi, I’m Rebecca Lamorte. I’m a lifelong labor advocate, community organizer, disabled New Yorker, and candidate for City Council in New York City’s 5th District.
As a young, disabled, and justice-oriented candidate, I want to demystify the process of running for office as I do it; to pull back the curtain and speak honestly about both the successes and the challenges I am experiencing on the trail.
To begin, I want to share the process of launching my Disability Justice and Accessibility Platform, and explain why we are committed to fighting for a Campaign Finance Board rule change that would make campaigning far more accessible for campaigns across New York City.
My Disability Story
December 7th, 2013, was a day that completely changed my life — and put me on the course to run for office. Up until then I was guilty of what every able-bodied person is: treating accessibility and inclusion as an afterthought.
I didn’t think about how unnavigable the city was.
That all changed when I was on 6 train home. As the train arrived at the 51st Street station, I was pushed: my leg was crushed in the gap between the train and the platform. I’ve had a degenerative nerve condition in my left leg ever since.
You can’t always see it, but when I’m out in the community, when I’m campaigning, when I’m going to the supermarket or walking my dog, I always have a cane with me. By the end of the day, I’m usually not moving so well. Stairs are difficult for me. I’ve experienced discrimination and neglect and felt unseen.
One day, not long after my accident, I showed up for my day-to-day work at City Hall, where I often go to I represent union workers, as a proud union member myself.
To get into City Hall, there’s a very large flight of stairs. I wasn’t able to climb them, so I looked at the Sergeant in Arms and said, “Excuse me, how can I get into the building? I can’t do these stairs.” I explained my accident and explicitly asked for help.
They responded that if I couldn’t walk up the stairs, then I probably shouldn’t be there.
That was the day that I chose to fight for everyone. If that’s how I — as a white woman with a job that takes me down to City Hall, close to the levers of power — was treated, then how are others being treated? Who’s speaking up for them? Who’s listening to their needs? Who’s fighting for them?
We Need Representation from Disabled New Yorkers
New York City doesn’t really have representation from disabled New Yorkers in government. That’s a major reason why we don’t have accessible transportation, and why we don’t have the services we need in our schools, and why we don’t have housing that’s fully accessible.
I required my own journey into the disability community to acknowledge the ignorance that able-bodied people easily foster. When your body is treated as the default, it’s easy to ignore what needs to change for everybody else. Seeing and feeling the injustices disabled New Yorkers face every day, I knew that disability justice would be central to my City Council campaign.
Our Disability Justice Platform
On March 10th, 2021, after months of research and participatory policy drafting with the support of advocates and movement leaders (a special thank you to Sara Fisch, Kat Bolton, Tory Cross, Jon Corn, Jules Good, Gregg Beratan, Alice Wong, the #CripTheVote team, and the 504 Democratic Club), I released our Disability Justice and Accessibility Platform. The platform moves beyond simply defining accessibility as access to physical space, emphasizes the intersectional nature of disability rights, and seeks to comprehensively reimagine how this city works for its 1,000,000+ disabled residents.
To make my platform truly collaborative and inclusive, I wanted it to feel like open source code. Our New York City model could serve as a model for everyone in the country. So we planned a kick-off event — a virtual town hall with disability justice advocates from across the continent — to garner feedback and cultivate community.
Our Accessible Platform Launch
Now, what good is a disability justice event without digital accessibility?
With the help of Sara Fisch and Tory Cross’ digital best practices, we built an inclusive, mindful run-of-show. We hired two ASL interpreters, utilized closed-captions and appearance descriptions when any of us would speak (Me: “I’m a white woman wearing glasses standing in front of two black bookshelves with some fun Christmas lights on them, a solidarity sign, and a dachshund statue, which tells you a little bit about what I’m into”), checked-in attendees individually in a waiting room, uploaded our event to YouTube with accurate captions, and published a transcript.
Some measures worked better than others. For instance, while our individual check-in system gave attendees a private opportunity to express accessibility needs, it put us around 20 minutes behind schedule.
In the future, we will open our events early for those who need more time signing in, and at the top of each event, let everyone know that they can unmute themselves or private message our staff to communicate or request further support.
Overall, we were proud of how many people were able to participate and feel seen and heard on our Zoom. It was one of those pandemic moments where digital life felt like a silver lining: we could all be together.
Accessibility Should Not Be Penalized
But, that togetherness came with a price tag.
Our ASL interpreters were present at a rate of $2.50/minute, multiplied by two for several hours.
Most campaigns attempt to host one substantive community event per week in this phase of the race, and accessibility is a non-negotiable for us.
If our team can’t afford to run a digital ad because we feature ASL interpretation at a virtual event, that is a trade off that I am more than happy to make.
But, it shouldn’t be a trade-off.
Making our campaigns accessible should not feel like a luxury cost. This extends to translating speech into any language to reach any and all communities in our city.
Campaigns should not be penalized for wanting to meet all their constituents where they are; to honor the diversity of all New Yorkers.
What far too many disabled New Yorkers experience is the response that their needs are too expensive, and too “extraordinary” to merit equal accommodation, representation, or participation.
This is separate and unequal treatment. As such, I believe New York City must reframe accessibility measures as an expense.
The CFB Rule Change We Need
I am calling for the New York City Campaign Finance Board to exempt accessibility, translation, interpretation, and inclusion costs from the Matching Funds Program’s spending limits.
The Matching Funds Program is a public good. Increasing the mileage of every individual, local donation levels our playing field and reduces the influence of big, corporate money in our elections. Since public matching is meant to make campaigning more democratic, exempting accessibility costs fits this ethos.
By exempting accessibility costs from the spending cap, each campaign can choose to spend differently — not every candidate wants to represent the same voters, nor defines accessibility the same way.
Of course, I believe in a shared baseline for inclusion, but this rule change would maintain individual and district-specific discretion.
In the short term, I hope that the Campaign Finance Board institutes an immediate rule change to exempt accessibility spending from the cap. And long term, I hope that the Campaign Finance Board creates education, funding, and support opportunities for universal campaign accessibility.
A key plank of our platform is to reform community-based social services and awareness. Every public gathering in our city should be accessible, and every elected official in our city should host monthly forums and conferences informing individuals about their rights and resources they can access for help with rent relief, healthcare, employment, and other needs.
Creating trust in government starts by including every constituent in our work, in the communities we serve and we help build. I believe making our campaigns accessible — where we make the promises we seek to keep if elected — is the first step towards truly representing all New Yorkers.
You can read our letter to the Campaign Finance Board, signed by 66 candidates across the city, here.
