Copyright 2000 Journal Sentinel Inc.
Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel
October 2, 2000 Monday FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 01B
LENGTH: 940 words
HEADLINE:
Mentally ill expected to speak with a louder voice at the polls
BYLINE: MEG KISSINGER AND DAVE UMHOEFER of the Journal
Sentinel staff
BODY:
Richard Peevy has been
eligible to vote since 1972, the year Richard Nixon beat George McGovern for
president. But the idea of going into a voting booth and closing the curtain
made Peevy's heart race. He just couldn't do it.
So, like many people
with persistent mental illness, he stayed away from the polls. This year, Peevy,
47, plans to cast his first vote in a presidential contest, and he's proud of
that. "It's my civic duty," says Peevy, of Milwaukee, who suffers from paranoid
schizophrenia.
Peevy is one of thousands of people with mental illness
targeted to be registered this election year as part of the National Alliance
For the Mentally Ill's Voter Empowerment Project.
The nationwide effort
was launched in February. The group is calling the effort "I Vote, I Count
2000."
In Milwaukee, groups such as the Grand Avenue Club, an
educational, vocational and recreational organization for adults with mental
illness, are working to empower those with psychiatric illnesses who might not
vote because they are afraid of crowds or lack fine motor skills as a result of
their medications.
At a meeting on Tuesday, state Sen. Gwen Moore
(D-Milwaukee) urged a room of 30 or so Grand Avenue Club members to vote.
"If you vote, I guarantee you, you will have politicians listen to you,"
she said. "They will be at your door. They will send you letters. If you vote,
you make a difference."
The registration campaign is not without
controversy. It was mocked by nationally syndicated columnist Don Feder, who
joked that, next, "Al Gore will pledge to put psychos in his Cabinet." That
prompted the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill to respond that people from
all walks of life have struggled at times with mental illness and that mental
illness is no partisan issue.
Forty-four states -- including Wisconsin
-- prohibit some people with mental illness from voting. Wisconsin does not
automatically ban a person who has been judged incompetent from voting, as many
states do. But it does allow a judge, at another voter's request, to declare
someone ineligible to vote if he or she has been found to be incompetent or
under a guardianship.
That baffles James Pelzek, who handles personal
finances for clients of Wisconsin Correctional Services in Milwaukee, which
provides services to the mentally ill. Pelzek registered Peevy and Peevy's
girlfriend, Joyce Gordon, to vote.
" Why don't we just do that for the
cancer patients, too?" he asks facetiously.
Aside from convicted felons,
people with mental illness are the only adults who are asked to prove their
ability to vote, says Kay Schriner, political science professor at the
University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Schriner also is the director of a
three-year project on voting rights funded by the National Institute on
Disability and Rehabilitation Research.
Schriner says she hears
complaints about efforts to expand voting rights for people with mental illness
all the time.
"There is profound opposition," she says. "And it is
unnecessary."
In 1997, Maine voters by a margin of 61% to 39%, rejected
a repeal of the constitutional prohibition against voting by people adjudged
mentally incompetent.
In a country where some voters cast their ballots
based on the color of a candidate's tie or the fact that he does not like a
certain vegetable, "we may be overly concerned about the competence issue,"
Schriner says.
Nationally, 5 million people are considered to have a
debilitating form of mental illness. Another 40 million have a milder form,
according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
That is a sizable
block of voters. Moore reminded the group at the Grand Avenue Club that, in a
democracy, majorities rule. She urged them to attend hearings, write a note to
their representatives or make a phone call to register their opinions.
"
If you all pack in a room, that makes a dramatic impact, believe me," she said.
Both major-party presidential candidates have earned praise from the
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill this year.
Gore wants to require
private health insurance plans to provide full mental
health coverage for children -- another step toward full
parity between mental and physical ailments.
Tipper Gore, his wife, has championed the issue after revealing her own
struggles with depression. The vice president has proposed a string of
initiatives aimed at expanding community health services, reducing
discrimination and funding more treatment for homeless people, many of whom have
mental health problems.
In Texas, Gov. George W. Bush
signed parity legislation into law. Thirty-two states --
Wisconsin is not one of them -- have some form of insurance parity on the books.
Bush said in June that he supports action to promote independent living
and helping the disabled find work and participate fully in community life. He
wants to create a commission to recommend reforms in the mental health treatment
system.
The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill is pushing for the
passage of the Omnibus Mental Illness Recovery Act, which seeks consumer and
family participation in planning mental illness services;
parity for mental health insurance; access to
newer medication for patients in health care plans; and
financing for assertive community treatment programs. It also would eliminate
the penalty for those on Medicaid who can work; limit the use of restraints to
emergency safety situations; create more jail diversion programs for the
mentally ill; and fund more housing.
As for Peevy, he's excited at the
prospect of filling out his ballot.
"It feels good thinking about it,"
he says.
LOAD-DATE: October 2, 2000
