by Claire Stanley
Advocacy can come in so many different shapes and sizes. We could lobby Congress for a new piece of legislation, or we could bring a lawsuit against a company for an inaccessible website. Why do I bring this up? The tool an advocate uses can be influenced by the current environment. An advocate might be discouraged by the changing environment around them; the past tools they used may be less effective in the new environment. However, advocates should not be discouraged. Instead, they should shift their tactics based on what is currently available to them.
An example of this has been used in the current administration. One of President Trump’s practices has been to limit the development of new governmental regulations. As a result, in his second administration, he put out an executive order that said a new agency regulation could be developed only if 10 pre-existing regulations were rescinded. For advocates, this seems discouraging. We often want new regulations to accommodate people who are blind or have low vision. However, there are pre-existing regulations that work against the needs of the blind and low vision community.
So, with that in mind, advocates thought they could use the current policy as a way to rescind regulations that do not benefit the blind and low vision community. A long-lasting rule known as the eyeglass exclusion is a policy ACB has worked to overturn for a long time. Related legislation has been a legislative imperative on more than one occasion. But, when advocates understood the new executive order, they thought they could use this opportunity to ask the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to eliminate an existing regulation. In 2026, a coalition of advocates met with CMS to propose this very idea. It is still unknown if CMS will move forward with the request. However, it was exciting to use a current policy to advocate for an issue we have been pushing for so many years.