Bill Introduced in New Mexico Would Require Captions on all Public TVs

SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO — A bill has recently been introduced in the state legislature of New Mexico that would require captions be turned on at all times during business hours on what are considered public TVs while the devices are in operation. This would include television sets in bars, restaurants, waiting rooms, gyms and other locations where the TVs are provided to offer news or entertainment to the public.

The bill, HB288, was drafted by Rep. Cynthia Borrego (D- Albuquerque) at the request of John Hooper, the president of the Santa Fe chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA). The bill mirrors provisions of city ordinances passed in Albuquerque and Santa Fe in recent years under the sponsorship of the Committee for Communication Access in New Mexico.

Similar laws have been passed in a number of cities that include Boston, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle and some states are following the lead of Washington and Maryland in considering such a regulation.  The text of the bill and its current status can be found here.

While thought to primarily benefit the 48 million hard of hearing and the Deaf people in this country, captions have also been found to be beneficial for second language learners and even for people with normal hearing in very noisy environments such as sports bars and gyms. They also help all people watching the TV in environments where it must be quiet such as medical waiting rooms.

Closed captioning makes TV programs, whether news coverage of an emergency or a network drama, more accessible for all those groups.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that captions be turned on in public venues when requested but, because of inadequate enforcement procedures, it is routinely violated. State laws, like the proposed one in New Mexico, change the requirement to be “captions on” whenever the TV is viewable to the public and enforcement would be handled by the NM Attorney General’s office. In the case of New Mexico, if the bill is passed and signed into law, there are statutory fines of up to $250 for a first offense and $500 for each subsequent offense.