‘Not very accessible at all’: How Capitol Hill still poses obstacles to lawmakers, advocates with disabilities

Sen. Tammy Duckworth has spent more than a decade on Capitol Hill. Yet, she still faces a daunting challenge on the Senate floor.

No, it’s not her colleagues on the other side of the aisle. It is doors—heavy doors—connecting the Senate floor to the cloakroom. The obstacle has rendered the cloakroom largely inaccessible to the lawmaker unless someone assists her.

Duckworth, 56, has used a wheelchair since she lost her legs, and partial use of her right arm, after her Army helicopter was hit in Iraq in 2004.

“I’ve been asking for an automated door there … I’m in my 8th year as senator?” the Illinois Democrat, who previously served in the House, told National Journal. “Still waiting.”

Inside the chamber, Duckworth said she is “stuck in the back row,” unable to gather or converse with colleagues unless they come to her. "I can't get down two tiers of steps to go sit and talk next to Sen. Cortez Masto or go over to the Republican side and come down halfway and go talk to [Sen.] Lindsey Graham because there are steps there. ... And I'm left out of many of the discussions and conversations that are happening,” she said.

Duckworth is not the only person on Capitol Hill having to navigate the aging complex with a disability. Various lawmakers and advocates with disabilities spoke with National Journal about what has improved in Congress and its affiliated office buildings and where challenges still remain.

Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, said the Senate has been very accommodating to his needs as he continues recovering from his stroke. The senator began his term last year with an auditory processing disorder as a result of the incident and has relied on closed captioning technology to continue his work. This includes a display monitor being added to his desk in the Senate chamber to help him follow along with floor action, debates, and speeches.

“At the center of it is this captioning tool, and as long as that captioning functions, there is absolutely no difference between myself before or after my stroke,” he said. “And that's been a liberation of that disability.”

“My hope for everybody is that there's that kind of a technology that can put you back to where you had your setback,” Fetterman, 54, said. The Pennsylvania senator added that he hopes “we're all able to make it so that everyone can feel comfortable and as fully productive as I think they deserve to be great.”

But Duckworth said Capitol Hill is “not very accessible at all.”

‘You never notice how inaccessible a place may be’

Duckworth described how her journey to cast floor votes can be lengthy when the elevator in the basement she relies on stops working, which she says happens frequently.

When she was on the House select committee on the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack, she would have to go to a different floor of the Rayburn House Office Building and then to a different wing to find the one accessible stall in a female bathroom.

As a senator, she now has more convenient bathrooms that she can use in committee rooms where she serves, but those are not available to the public.

Duckworth made headlines when the Senate rules were changed to allow her to bring her infant daughter onto the floor in 2018. She told National Journal the change was related to accessibility because there’s only one way she can get to the Senate floor, and she can’t go through the cloakroom.

“They said, ‘Well, you could hold your baby and vote from the cloakroom like [Sen. Kirsten] Gillibrand did,’” she recalled. “I said, ‘Yeah, except that there are stairs to get into the cloakroom.’ During the [Trump] impeachment trials, they had to put a very steep ramp in order to get me into the cloakroom.”

The Senate Sergeant at Arms told National Journal that due to the age of the building and the thickness of the walls, installing an automated door would require taking the entire Senate floor offline for weeks. The Senate Sergeant at Arms said they’re looking at adding power assists on the doors instead.

But Duckworth said pointing out the age of the building is “a standard answer to everything.” If the money and time is going to be put in to fix it, “fix it the correct way,” she said.

Duckworth said there could be other lawmakers who don’t have the strength or use of their upper body to use the door, even with power assist, and would need an automated door.

Over in the House, Rep. Jennifer Wexton, a Democrat from Virginia, has recently employed various tools to assist her in speaking on the House floor. The congresswoman was diagnosed with Progressive Supra-nuclear Palsy last year, which impacts a person’s ability to walk and speak.

Toward the end of July, she marked Disability Pride Month by using an AI voice model for the first time. “My battle with Progressive Supra-nuclear Palsy, or PSP, has robbed me of my ability to use my full voice and move around in the ways that I used to,” she said on the floor.

Earlier in July, Wexton, 56, told National Journal in written answers that she was grateful to her colleagues and their staff for making accommodations, like allowing her to use a text-to-speech app to make speeches in committee and on the floor.

“Just because my words are played from a device doesn’t make them any less mine or any less important to hear,” she wrote.

But Wexton said she was the exception, not the rule. “I’m hopeful that going forward in the next Congress this can be an area where we can find bipartisan agreement to make Congress more accessible for all,” she said.

Like Duckworth, she has had to adapt to getting around some of the older hallways and facilities in Congress by finding more accessible routes.

“You never notice how inaccessible a place may be until it’s you who relies on the accessibility accommodations,” Wexton said. “The older parts of the Capitol complex were not designed for [the Americans with Disabilities Act], so some doorways can be narrow and I do have to give my walker a bit of a shove to get across some raised thresholds.”

With the possibility that she will have to use a wheelchair on Capitol Hill, she has noticed potential challenges in her future, such as the layout of hearing rooms with raised platforms and stairs.

What has improved and what challenges remain

There have been efforts to identify and address challenges for lawmakers and staff.

During the 116th and 117th Congresses, there was a select subcommittee formed to review how well the institution is functioning, including its approach to accessibility issues. Then the 118th Congress established a Modernization Subcommittee within the House Administration Committee.

The select subcommittee published a report in December 2022 saying significant barriers remained and recommended various changes, such as prioritizing the installation of automatic doors and replacing door hardware that is difficult to grasp with one hand.

Republican Rep. Bryan Steil, who chairs the House Administration Committee, told National Journal in a statement that he was “focused on ensuring the House is open and accessible for every American.” His office said certain recommendations from the select subcommittee, such as designating a drop off and pick up zones near an accessible entrance, are in the process of being implemented.

The Architect of the Capitol did not provide a comment for this article.

The Office of Congressional Workplace Rights conducts inspections in the legislative branch to ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The office releases a report biennially on its findings.

The office has released a preview of the 117th Congress inspections that included the Capitol Grounds and House and Senate offices and committee rooms. A more detailed report will be released later. The preview identified many barriers associated with multi-use bathrooms and exterior routes, such as excessive slopes, gaps, or changes in level that could be a problem for individuals that use mobility devices, such as wheelchairs and walkers.

Jesse Shirek, government affairs specialist at the National Federation of the Blind who is blind and uses a white cane, found that despite the buildings’ age, he didn’t find it to be too different from other places and that the experience is varied.

He said the Rayburn House Office Building has signs that usually have braille and use high-contrast signs that could be useful for low-vision individuals. Shirek also praised the security personnel as respectful.

But there are other aspects of the facilities that aren’t as accessible to Shirek. “It’s my understanding that there’s a list of names [posted in buildings]. So if I’m in the Rayburn House Office Building, there would be a list of members of Rayburn listed alphabetically with room numbers, that isn’t something that I have access to,” he said.

He said providing tactile lists and maps to navigate the various office buildings would be helpful. “If I had access to tactile maps or even written descriptions of floor plans, it would be really much easier for me coming in,” Shirek said.

Within the Capitol building itself, he said removing his cellphone before entering the Senate gallery—a strictly enforced rule of the upper chamber—also presents challenges. The House galleries also prohibit cell phones. Shirek said there are tools on his phone that allow him to take a picture of a scene and the picture would be described to him. “It would be very beneficial for me to be able to hang on to my cell phone when I’m in the U.S. Capitol,” he said.

The Senate gallery—which allows the public to view the chamber—does not allow cell phones, even for individuals like Shirek, due to security concerns, said the Senate Sergeant at Arms. There are tools, like assistive listening devices, to assist people who are blind or have low vision in the accessible gallery, but the Senate Sergeant at Arms said these tools may not be the ones people prefer to use and the office is looking into newer options.

The Senate Sergeant at Arms is currently working on a reference guide for Senate staff to help navigate available accessibility options, such as accessible entrances, parking places, and how to get clearance to use electronic devices on the Senate floor if there is a need.

Websites and other digital technologies can be another barrier. The Office of the Chief Administrative Officer in the House has helped implement some changes. Samantha Carter, spokesperson for the office, told National Journal in an email that the CAO has an accessibility program for House public websites and has worked to improve closed captioning for committee proceedings for both online and in-person viewers.

Senators have recently flagged digital barriers in their chamber as well. Duckworth and Fetterman joined Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, chair of the Special Committee on Aging, in sending a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer earlier this year about the accessibility of Senate technology.

“The United States Senate can and must do more to ensure that its websites, electronic documents, and other technologies are fully accessible for people with disabilities,” the senators wrote. “For example, the Senate does not routinely scan its websites for accessibility errors. Automated scans can help to catch accessibility errors that are introduced over time.”

Issues with websites and technology aren’t limited to the Senate. Casey spearheaded an investigation into digital accessibility across the federal government that has found many deficiencies.

“Accessible government technology is important for ensuring that people with disabilities are equally served by their government and for ensuring public employees with disabilities can do their jobs,” the senators said in their April letter.

Bryen Yunashko, a national DeafBlind advocate, told National Journal executive meetings that are virtual often exclude individuals who are deaf and blind.

“While the government will happily provide sign language interpreters to be part of the video communication protocol, they will only allow DeafBlind [individuals] to have a tactile interpreter when on a federal site, and not for remote communication,” he said.

As a result, Yunashko said he doesn't participate as much in government “because what's the point if I have to miss half the meetings and the only way for me to avoid that is to personally fly in to DC every time there is a meeting, while the rest of committee members get to stay in their geographical region at no cost.”