Broad Disabled Rights Bill OKd : Discrimination: The measure provides access to jobs, plus transit and other public facilities. The House passes it by 403 to 20. President Bush has pledged to sign it.

In a vote hailed as the most significant blow against discrimination since Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the House on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a bill prohibiting a broad range of discrimination based on physical and mental disabilities.

To the cheers of disabled people parked in wheelchairs under the Capitol Rotunda, lawmakers voted 403 to 20 for the Americans with Disabilities Act. The wide-ranging measure would require that the disabled be provided with access to workplaces, public accommodations, transportation facilities and telephone services.

The Senate passed a similar bill by 78 to 8 last summer, and the House and Senate are expected to agree to compromise their differences quickly. President Bush, an early advocate of such legislation during his 1988 presidential campaign, has pledged to sign it into law.

“Make no mistake: ADA is first and foremost a matter of civil rights,” Rep. Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose) said after passage of the bill. “The act will help knock down the remaining barriers disabled Americans confront in their efforts to be self-reliant, productive members of society.”

The bill would provide sweeping changes affecting an estimated 43 million Americans with one or more physical or mental disabilities. Restaurants and hotels would have to serve disabled people, buses and trains would be required to find space for wheelchair-bound passengers and employers would have to make hiring decisions without regard to personal handicaps.

Although airplanes are excluded from provisions under the bill since the FAA recently established guidelines for disabled passengers, the intent of the legislation was clear: to provide disabled persons the same access to services and transportation as all other Americans.

House members rejected complaints from business groups that the bill would trigger an avalanche of costly legal claims from the disabled.

“This legislation is going to be a nightmare for small companies,” said John Sloan, president of the National Federation of Independent Business, a lobby for small business. “Congress failed even to identify the types of disabilities which are covered by the bill. There are more than 900 types of disabilities which may be included, but no one knows what they are.”

Among the 20 dissenters to the bill, four were California Republicans: Reps. William E. Dannemeyer (Fullerton), Wally Herger (Yuba City), Ron Packard (Carlsbad) and Norman D. Shumway (Stockton). Another Republican, Bill Thomas (Bakersfield), did not vote. The remaining 13 California Republicans and all 27 Democrats supported the bill.

As passed by the House, the disability bill would go far beyond the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discrimination against the disabled by the federal government or by groups receiving federal aid.

In addition to extending protections for disabled citizens to additional private facilities, the bill would order employers to change some practices restricting or excluding the disabled. For example, the bill would mandate that telephones be available for people with speech and hearing difficulty and that new public transit vehicles be equipped with wheelchair lifts.

According to the bill, a disability is a physical or mental condition that “substantially limits” an individual in a “major life activity” such as working, walking, talking or breathing. The bill also would apply to people with a history of physical impairment or disease, such as mental illness or AIDS.

Homosexuality, bisexuality and emotional and sexual disorders would not be covered. The House-passed bill also would exclude people addicted to illegal drugs from coverage under the 1973 law.

The bill’s employment measures would become effective in two years for businesses with 25 or more workers. Two years later it would apply to businesses with 15 to 25 workers.

The public accommodations features would forbid private services that cater to the public from refusing to serve the handicapped because of their disability. Such services include buses, restaurants, theaters, doctors’ offices, hotels and retail operations.

New and renovated facilities would have to include features to make them accessible to people with disabilities. Structural barriers such as stairs and narrow doorways would have to be removed, if it is “readily achievable” and doesn’t cause “undue hardship” on the business.

The bill’s transportation provisions would require public and private transit operators to equip new vehicles with lifts or other devices so wheelchair-bound travelers could use them.

During the debate on the House floor, dozens of disabled people watched on two television sets in the Capitol Rotunda. They booed and hissed when Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) defended his amendment calling for limits on the amount of damages the disabled may obtain from businesses or employers that break the law. They cheered loudly when the measure was defeated 227 to 192.

Rep. Glenn M. Anderson (D-San Pedro), chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee, said the bill would have an enormous impact on improving the mobility of disabled citizens.

“The House is making a long-delayed acknowledgment of the civil right of disabled Americans to the full and equal enjoyment of transportation services,” he said. “In all cases, the Americans with Disabilities Act provides strong guarantees that individuals with disabilities will be treated with respect and dignity while using transportation services.”

The House-passed bill includes an amendment allowing employers to prevent workers with “contagious diseases,” including AIDS, from handling food. The vote for the amendment was 199 to 187.

Rep. Chuck Douglas (R-N.H.), one of the amendment’s advocates, said he understands that AIDS cannot be communicated merely by contact with food. But he said restaurant operators wanted the provision to reassure the public.

“We understand that you can’t get AIDS because the cook cuts his finger and bleeds into the roast beef when he’s preparing it,” Douglas said. “But the customer out there may not buy that. And when they all leave and the restaurant goes out of business, what have you done for the restaurants of America?”

Opponents to the amendment argued that it would play to the public’s fear of AIDS. “The amendment is not about the reality of contagious disease,” said Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), a physician. “Let’s be honest. It’s about the fear of AIDS. This is what happens when you make public policy on the basis of fear and ignorance.”