A powerful tool translates legislation into plain language so people with disabilities can understand and have a say in the laws and policies that impact their health and wellbeing.
To shape policies that affect our health and wellbeing, we can all agree on the need for access to legislation written in plain language. This can help us understand decisions that affect us and work together to build communities where everyone has an opportunity to live their healthiest life.
But many of us struggle with dense, legalistic language. For many people with disabilities in particular, this barrier can prevent full participation in civic life.
Inclusive strategies matter. Sixty-one million Americans have at least one disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Structural barriers have harmed our health, wellbeing, and autonomy for too long. One-third of the disabled population lives in the South, and most are people of color.
As someone with cerebral palsy living in Georgia, I know how crucial it is to understand and have a say in the laws and policies that will impact our wellbeing. That’s why I co-founded New Disabled South (NDS) with Kehsi Iman Wilson. We work at the intersection of racial and disability equity. Our mission is to improve the lives of disabled people and build a strong disability justice movement in the region. Complex legislative language is a barrier to advancing our vision. I remember reading bills five or six times as I tried to understand them, and this is what I do for a living! It became clear to me that many people do not get involved in government because they don’t understand legislation and policy.
That’s why we created the Plain Language Policy Dashboard.
Plain Language as an Equity-Promoting Tool
Despite the anti-discrimination provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as requirements in the Plain Writing Act for federal agencies to use clear language that the public can understand, government communications are still confusing.
This is especially problematic at the legislative level, where the bills that will become public policy are written and considered. NDS’s Plain Language Policy Dashboard translates pending legislation in 14 southern states into language that everyone, including the most marginalized disabled people, can understand so they can participate in the civic process.
The dashboard uses bill tracking software to identify relevant legislative proposals and artificial intelligence (AI) to summarize them. We don’t depend entirely on AI, however, and a member of our team ensures that the plain language translations are accurate. This human element is essential.
Consider this difference between the language of an original bill and its translation:
The database sorts pending legislation by state and into six broad topics: accessibility, civil rights, criminalization, poverty and care, democracy, and education. Some topics are disability-specific or disproportionately impact people with disabilities, while others affect everyone. The AI algorithms we use are continually tweaked to ensure they are useful, and as noted, a human being reviews every summary for accuracy because policy and legislation have so much nuance and subtle details.
Impact and Expansion
Since launching in November 2023, our dashboard has attracted about 3,000 active users per month. Along with creating a baseline of knowledge within a state, it helps inform advocates about regional trends.
For example, Alabama has enacted a law to criminalize people who provide certain assistance to absentee voters; similar legislation, which has particular resonance to people with disabilities, is being considered in Louisiana and Mississippi. Other common challenges to voting rights are apparent in the database, as is legislative activity related to bans on the subminimum wage, gender-affirming care, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
NDS is uniquely positioned to call attention to those commonalities. By doing so, we break down the silos in which local advocates with limited resources often operate and create an opening for them to cooperate in service to equity.
Beyond legislation, NDS also uses plain language in our reports, press releases, and other communications, as well as our advocacy work. For instance, we ran a $100,000 media campaign in Georgia to explain the benefits of using Medicaid waivers more broadly to cover home- and community-based services as an alternative to institutionalization. By talking about the racial equity and financial implications in plain language, we won historic levels of funding for non-institutional services.
Expanding the Vision
Enthusiasm for our dashboard has encouraged us to broaden its scope. As it translates an increasing number of bills into plain language, we are advising other groups considering similar tools and working with a partner to add audio recordings. We also have a long-term vision to use plain language to promote accurate information in spaces that are notorious for spreading falsehoods.
We believe in the power of building coalitions and community capacity so people with disabilities can have a stronger voice in policymaking. Our Southern Disability Justice Coalition is a network of disabled organizations and leaders across the South who are sharing resources and information. Aligning with other grassroots efforts to drive change and forge new partnerships is core to our mission and a way to bring disability justice to the fore.
Every social justice issue is also a disability justice issue. But a lot of social justice and movement spaces don’t have that disability justice lens, which leaves a lot of people in our community out. Through involvement with the Southern Leadership for Voter Engagement (SOLVE), a 200-member network of voting rights groups, for example, we remind advocates that disabled people should be among their target constituents. We take the same approach in coalition work with racial justice, LGBTQIA+ rights, and other movement organizations who surely have many disabled members, out or not.
As with the dashboard, our goal is always to go from education to action. Plain language allows everyone—not just people with disabilities—to better understand complex issues. Combine that with the local alliances NDS is helping to empower and the stage is set to cultivate civic purpose and make more diverse voices heard.
About the Author
Dom Kelly is co-founder, president & CEO of New Disabled South, a nonprofit organization. He has been organizing in the South since 2009, committed to building a progressive future for disabled people in the region.