The Latonya Reeves Freedom Act (LRFA; H.R.9401-Cohen/S.4865-Bennet) is bipartisan and bicameral civil rights legislation that addresses the injustice of people who need Long Term Services and Supports (LTSS) being forced into institutions.  The legislation has been pending for decades; older versions were known as the Disability Integration Act.  LRFA builds on decades of Disability advocacy and activism to end institutional bias and provide seniors and people with disabilities with Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) as an alternative to institutionalization.

Six House members from NY are currently cosponsoring LRFA.

NY cosponsors:

• Rep. Clarke, Yvette D. [D-NY-9]
• Rep. Goldman, Daniel S. [D-NY-10]
• Rep. Lawler, Michael [R-NY-17]
• Rep. Morelle, Joseph D. [D-NY-25]
• Rep. Tonko, Paul [D-NY-20]
• Rep. Torres, Ritchie [D-NY-15]

 

If your Representative is not co-sponsoring LRFA, please contact them using our link and tell them they should!  Below the link, we'll provide a longer explanation of why it is critically important that LFRA become law, and that it does so soon.

 

 

The legislation ensures Disability Freedom by:

• Clarifying that every individual who is eligible for LTSS has a federally protected right to receive services and supports in the community;
• Requiring that states and other LTSS insurance providers deliver services in a manner that allows Disabled individuals to live in the most integrated setting, have maximum control over their services and supports, and lead an independent life;
• Articulating the right to live in the community without creating unnecessary government programs, ensuring that states have broad latitude to determine how they will secure this right;
• Establishing a comprehensive planning requirement comparable to the process states used to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act which includes addressing disparities in the provision and availability of HCBS; and
• Requiring public entities to address the need for affordable, accessible, integrated housing that is independent of service delivery.

 

Put most simply, the LRFA would codify into statutory law the Supreme Court's Olmstead decision from 1999, which interpreted the Americans with Disabilities Act and related legislation to mandate that a person with a disability had a right to receive services in the most integrated setting.  But rights granted by a judicial decision can be rescinded by a subsequent decision.  Justice Clarence Thomas, the original Olmstead dissenter in 1999, has been laying the predicate to overturn the decision and wipe out the gains we have made; his 1999 dissent described exactly how he would reverse Olmstead, and, step by step, the Supreme Court in recent years has been following Thomas' road map.  It seems likely that Justice Thomas has enough votes, should the right case reach the Court's docket, to roll back decades of precedent and turn his Olmstead dissent into the law of the land.

Meanwhile, on June 18, 2026, the Trump Administration’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued a legal opinion that attempts to dismantle the federal integration mandate — the requirement that Disabled people be served in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.  The opinion, signed by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora C. Pettit, makes three core arguments.  

• First, it argues that Olmstead never actually established a legal mandate for integration. Five justices agreed that “unjustified institutional isolation” can be discrimination, but the memo argues there was no majority for the idea that states are required to move people into the community — that broader holding, it says, belonged only to the plurality.  
• Second, it argues that reading the Rehabilitation Act or the ADA to impose a universal integration mandate would raise serious constitutional problems under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Commerce Clause, and the Spending Clause.
• Third - and most immediately - it concludes that the HHS and DOJ regulations imposing the integration mandate exceed the agencies’ authority and should be rescinded. Under Loper (part of Thomas' road map), courts no longer have to defer to them.

 

The memo is careful to avoid calling for mass institutionalization. But removing the regulatory floor means states can make resource decisions that favor institutions — with no federal enforcement to stop them.

Passage of the Latonya Reeves Freedom Act would short-circuit all of this, and protect Disability Freedom by enshrining our right to live in freedom in statute and prohibiting states and LTSS insurance providers from using waiting lists, cost or service caps, and inadequate rates to restrict access to home and community-based services.