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It's a fact of electoral politics that the candidates court labor, African-Americans, women, seniors and anyone else whose collective vote might make a difference. If a minority or special interest group has impressive numbers, it's pursued with zeal. Except for one. People with disabilities have been courted only in the most peripheral of ways -- handshakes and highminded platitudes, one or two appearances at events we sponsor, and a non-primetime appearance for a disabled speaker at each major political convention.

We've been acknowledged, but hardly wooed. That's odd, because our numbers should knock any politician's socks off. There are 54 million Americans with disabilities, 45 million of voting age. The numbers can be disputed, but that we're an immense voting bloc is incontestable. We should be formidable. We should be king-makers. In spite of some real victories, we're not. Not yet. One reason is that of the 45 million voting-age people with disabilities, 14 million didn't vote in the 1996 presidential elections. Once that could have been written off to a lack of wheelchair-accessible transportation and polling places. Not now. Colorado -- and the nation -- has made enough progress on access and voting by mail that few of us have reason not to vote. Had we voted at the national rate for nondisabled people in 1996, reports the National Organization on Disability, 5 million more votes would have been cast in the presidential election.

We have another problem, partly thrust upon us and partly self-inflicted. We're socially isolated and politically fragmented -- too many separate disabilities with too many conflicting priorities. That, too, is changing. The Internet has given us a communication network and stronger lobbying groups have given us a more unified voice. What we lack now is a national disability agenda.

At the risk of presumption, I'd like to suggest the nucleus of a basic disability platform. If you're planning to vote on disability issues alone -- and I'm not saying that anyone should -- here's a quiz that can be applied to any candidate for public office. Our most comprehensive human rights protection is the Americans With Disabilities Act, but its constitutionality and applicability to the states are now being challenged in district courts and the Supreme Court.

Enforcement of the law is weak and slow. Will you go on record with a pledge to uphold the ADA and work for better compliance? The section of the Fair Housing Act that requires new multi-family housing with more than four units to be accessible to people with disabilities must be the most widely ignored law since Prohibition. (The FHA also protects against housing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status and national origin.) Will you support accessible housing by enforcing compliance? The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act requires integrated, not segregated, schooling for disabled children. It says that separate education is not equal education. Will you support continued funding for IDEA?

The Medicaid Community Attendant Services and Supports Act, now before Congress, will give aging and disabled people who need personal assistance services the option to receive them in the community, not an institution. Will you vote for MiCASSA (S. 1935) and help implement it in your state after passage?

People with disabilities have the highest unemployment rate of any minority, but many don't work because they can't earn enough to pay for their personal assistance services. MiCASSA and the Work Incentive Improvement Act are steps in the right direction, but are you committed to totally eliminating work disincentives?

Universal health care is one way to remove work disincentives. Do you support it? Medicare coverage of prescription drugs? Long-term care?

Voters: How do your candidates stand on all these issues?