Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa continues to champion our civil rights with new legislative bills that seek to expand our captioning access! On March 13, 2013, Sen. Harkin introduced two important bills for the United States Senate to pass. The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) praises and applauds Sen. Harkin, whose late brother was deaf, for constantly leading the way to advancing equality for our community.
Both of Sen. Harkin’s bills mandate captioning — one in movie theaters and the other on airplanes. The first bill, S. 555, is entitled the “Captioning and Image Narration to Enhance Movie Accessibility Act” or the CINEMA Act, and seeks to amend the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to mandate that every movie theater with two or more screens provide both open and closed captioning as well as video description. The second bill, S. 556, seeks to amend the Air Carrier Access Act to require that in-flight entertainment such as movies shown on airplanes be captioned. See: Senate HELP Press Release.
Sen. Harkin’s office consulted with the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) for input with respect to these bills, and the NAD strongly urges Congress to pass these bills into law to ensure full and equal captioning access for 48 million deaf and hard of hearing Americans in all aspects of everyday life including theaters and airplanes.
“Senator Tom Harkin is a true hero to the deaf and hard of hearing community for his many instances of leadership on issues that are important to us,” said NAD President Chris Wagner. “The NAD is grateful to Senator Harkin for all that he continues to do for us.”