Accessibility Statement
The Senate Majority Caucus strives to serve our constituents through our website. We are committed to providing accessible content to ensure that all Californians can participate in the legislative process.
As directed by Governor Davis in Executive Order D-17-00 issued on September 8, 2000, a comprehensive eGovernment initiative was launched that requires every agency and department to adhere to technical standards for accessible Web design and compatibility.
Likewise, Federal requirements mandating access for persons with disabilities were first imposed on State recipients of Federal funding by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Today there are numerous Federal statutes and regulations extending civil rights protections to persons with disabilities, including the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), as well as the 1998 Amendments to the Rehabilitation Act, where specific technical requirements for accessible web design have been published by the U.S. Access Board. This is important since Title II of the ADA recognizes the importance of communication and the necessity of the State of California to take appropriate steps to ensure that communications with persons with disabilities are as effective as communications with others.
The Senate Majority Caucus website adheres to the following guidelines:Accessibility Features
General
- Images and non-text elements all include descriptive ALT attributes. Complex images include a LONGDESC attribute that provides detailed information. This includes: images, graphical representations of text (including symbols), animations, applets and programmatic objects, ASCII art, scripts, images used as list bullets, spacers, graphical buttons, sounds (played with or without user interaction), stand alone audio files, audio tracks of video and video. [W3C WCAG 1.1; Section 508: § 1194.22 Paragraph (a)]
- Information that is conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup. [W3C WCAG 2.1; Section 508: § 1194.22 Paragraph (c)]
- Changes in the natural language of a document's text and any text equivalents are clearly identified (e.g., captions). [W3C WCAG 4.1]
- Clear and simple language as appropriate is used in this site. [W3C WCAG 14.1]
- Skip links to navigation, content, and search are located at the beginning of the source code. This enables users of screen readers to easily navigate the pages of this site. [Section 508: § 1194.22 Paragraph (o)]
- The site provides different types of searches to accommodate various needs and skill levels. [W3C WCAG 13.7 Priority Level 3]
Visual Design
- This site uses cascading style sheets (CSS) for visual layout. [W3C WCAG 3.3 Priority Level 2]
- The text in this site is able to be made smaller or larger by using the "text-size" options in browsers. This feature is most often under "View" in the menu bar. [W3C WCAG 3.2 Priority Level 2]
- The foreground and background colors provide suficient contrast. [W3C WCAG 2.2 Priority Level 2]
- Lists are properly marked up. [W3C WCAG 3.6 Piority Level 2]
- The documents in this site are organized so they may be read without style sheets. [W3C WCAG 6.1; Section 508: § 1194.22 Paragraph (d)]
- The design and navigation of the site is consistent across all pages. [W3C WCAG 13.4 Priority Level 2]
Tables
- Row and column headers are identified in data tables. [W3C WCAG 5.1; Section 508: § 1194.22 Paragraph (g)]
- Markup to associate data cells and header cells is used in data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers, use. [W3C WCAG 5.2; Section 508: § 1194.22 Paragraph (h)]
- Summaries are provided for tables. [W3C WCAG 5.5 Priority Level 3]
Applets and Scripts
- Pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported. [W3C WCAG 6.3]
Forms
- All form labels are explicitly associated with their controls. [W3C WCAG 12.4 Priority Level 2; Section 508: § 1194.22 Paragraph (n)]
Validation
- The CSS documents and HTML templates have passed validation.
Additional Resources
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
- Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
- Section 508 Standards