The Kansas Supreme Court has dismissed a complaint brought by a former House candidate who wanted to force the Legislature to provide better services to constituents who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Chief Justice Lawton Nuss issued a one-page order last Friday dismissing the petition filed by Chris Haulmark, who ran unsuccessfully for the Kansas House last year seeking to become the state’s first deaf lawmaker.
Haulmark filed a suit asking the court to force lawmakers to provide a sign language team and better captions for audio and video streaming.
However, the court turned down Haulmark’s petition because it failed to “state a cause of action over which this court has original subject matter jurisdiction.”
“This dismissal is not a decision on the merits of any allegations raised in the petition and does not prohibit the filing of any cause of action in the district court,” Nuss wrote.
Haulmark said he understood why the state Supreme Court couldn’t rule on disability issues that are covered by federal law.
“I’ll just go ahead and do this through the federal district court.”
He stressed that he didn’t think the Legislature was complying with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
In addition to the sign-language team and the improved captions, Haulmark also asked for 100% accurate transcriptions of the proceedings to be posted on the legislative website within 24 hours.
Haulmark contended in his petition that the current audio and video streaming were unconstitutional because they did not provide “professionally accurate English captions.”
He acknowledged that the video streams provided by the Legislature include captions but that they weren’t sufficiently accurate to be understood by people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
He cited examples of captions that incorrectly use vocabulary, contain improper sentence structure and don’t identify the person speaking.
Haulmark told the court that he asked for a professional sign language interpreting team at the start of last year’s legislative session but was denied. The petition said Haulmark was told that 48 hours advance notice is required to provide a sign language interpreter.
