Senate passes bill protecting disabled people

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate on Thursday approved major legislation that would expand protection against workplace discrimination for people with disabilities and overturn several Supreme Court rulings that curbed such safeguards in the past decade.

The measure, passed on a voice vote and without dissent, is similar to a legislation that sailed through the House of Representatives in June, 402-17.

Minor differences between the two bills are expected to be quickly resolved so that a final version can be sent to President George W. Bush to sign into law. It would expand the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, which was signed by Bush's father, President George Bush.

"This is the most important piece of disability legislation since the enactment of the ADA in 1990 and we are close enough to the finish line that we can see over," said Andrew Imparato, head of the American Association of People with Disabilities.

The 1990 law requires employers to make accommodations for disabled employees. The new bill, the ADA Amendments Act, addresses Supreme Court decisions that critics say restricted the law. The court has ruled that mitigating measures -- such as medication or a prosthesis -- make a person ineligible for coverage.

Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat and a chief sponsor of the bill, said the Supreme Court rulings put the disabled in an untenable position.

"The erosions of rights created by these court cases have created a bizarre Catch 22 where people with serious conditions like epilepsy or diabetes could be forced to choose between treating their conditions and forfeiting their protections under the ADA, or not treating their conditions and being protected," Harkin said.

"That is not what Congress intended when we passed the law and this bill is the right fix," Harkin said.

In an unusual show of election-year cooperation, disability advocates and the business lobby compromised to draft the new legislation.

Both the House and Senate bills again define a disability as a physical or mental impairment that "substantially limits" one or more major life activities. They increase the number of activities covered, add a category of bodily functions and allow workers to sue if they believe they are mistreated.

"Today's Senate passage of the ADA Amendments Act gives the nation a glimpse of the legislative process at its highest and best," said Nancy Zirkin, head of The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

"No narrow partisan politics barred the way to reinstating a vulnerable class of people with disabilities who had been excluded by narrow court decisions from the law's protections -- such as those with diabetes, cancer and bipolar disorder," Zirkin said.

(Reporting by Thomas Ferraro, editing by Bill Trott)