Rights, Redistribution, and the Rise of the “Litigation State”: The Case of Disability Discrimination Laws

Abstract

Critics have long maintained that the rights revolution and, by extension, the postwar turn to litigation as a regulatory tool, are the product of a cynical legislative choice. On this view, legislators choose rights and litigation over alternative regulatory approaches to shift costs from on-budget forms (for example, publicly funded social provisions, public enforcement actions by prosecutors or agencies) to off-budget forms (for example, rights-based statutory duties, enforced via private lawsuits). This “cost-shift” theory has never been subjected to sustained theoretical scrutiny or comprehensive empirical test. This article offers the first such analysis, examining a context where the cost-shift hypothesis is at its most plausible: disability discrimination laws, which shift costs away from social welfare programs by requiring that employers hire and “accommodate” workers with disabilities. Using a novel dataset of state-level disability discrimination laws enacted prior to the federal-level Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and a range of archival and other materials drawn from state-level legislative campaigns, we find only limited support for the view that cost shifting offered at least part of the motivation for these laws. Our findings offer a fresh perspective on long-standing debates about American disability law and politics, including judicial interpretation of the ADA and its state-level analogues and the relationship of disability rights activism to other rights-based political movements.