John Sununu, the father of the current governor of New Hampshire, was George H. W. Bush’s Chief of Staff when the Americans with Disabilities Act worked its way through Congress. Bobby Silverstein, primary Senate sponsor Tom Harkin’s point man on ADA, accompanied Harkin and Senator Ted Kennedy to a White House meeting, at which Sununu objected to some of ADA’s provisions because he felt they were hard on business.
Bills don’t just work their way through Congress by themselves. The drafting and garnering of support for legislation is done by staff, who are brilliant, as well as ideologically and intellectually committed to making the world a better place. Bobby, who passed away recently, was the Senate architect and engineer of ADA. He had the audacity—after referring to one of dozens of notebooks he had wheeled to the White House on a cart—to rebut Sununu.
Sununu yelled in Bobby’s face, and Kennedy yelled back. According to Senator Harkin, he said something like, “You want to yell? Yell at me. Leave the staff out of it. Fight with the big boys.” Bobby prevailed.
Bobby involved United Spinal when the ADA was being drafted. We were there to help craft the ADA accessible transportation requirements, having successfully sued MTA in New York City and SEPTA in Philadelphia. The oldest, largest rail cities in the US had agreed to retrofit at least “key” stations, make all new buses accessible, and provide paratransit with meaningful service criteria. Bobby included these mandates in the ADA for all transit.
Robert “Bobby” Silverstein spent his adult life in Washington, DC, and was probably America’s foremost expert on the interface of law with disability. He shepherded dozens of bills benefitting people with disabilities through Congress, then left to analyze and create disability policy at George Washington University, and for the past fifteen years, was a partner with the firm of Powers Pyles Sutter and Verville.
Bobby was smart, funny, strategic and compassionate. His passing has left an enormous void for his wife, children and grandchildren. He is an irreplaceable disability rights leader. His contribution to the history of disability rights is quietly legion, but will be acknowledged by historians and the rights movement forever.
—James Weisman