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Democracy Chronicles

Andrew Straw articles

andrew straw

Andrew Straw is a person with disabilities who practiced disability law and engages in disability reform advocacy.    Straw was a Virginia lawyer and has served as corporate counsel for billionaire Alan M. Voorhees, who designed the Interstate Highway System and the Metro in Washington DC.  Straw then worked for the Chief Justice of Indiana and was the assistant dean in charge of the International Programs at Indiana University-Maurer School of Law.

He grew up in Indiana, where his brother, a retired USAF captain and twice a critical care trauma nurse veteran of Afghanistan, ran as a Democratic candidate for sheriff of Hamilton County in 2018.  Jason Straw is head of Indiana NORML and seeks reforms of the state’s marijuana laws like most other states have.  Jason is known as “Captain Cannabis.”

Andrew Straw was born at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, where his father was training as a U.S. Marine for his Vietnam duty.  Straw was thus poisoned on the first days of his life but was denied compensation and health care.  Straw v. Wilkie, 843 F. App’x 263 (Fed. Cir. 1/15/2021); Straw v. United States, 4 F.4th 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2021).  Straw started a group for people born or poisoned there called Children of Camp LeJeune.  Congress voted to compensate people like Straw and his dead mother from the poisoning (S. 3373, Title VIII, Sec. 804).  This new law has passed the U.S. House by 342-88 and the U.S. Senate by 86-11.  It will likely be signed by President Biden in early August now that it has passed both houses.

Straw has visited 16 countries and has lived in the United States, Italy, New Zealand, Turkey, and the Philippines.  Straw provided services to the Italian Foreign Ministry as a contractor and passed the written U.S. Foreign Service Officer Test in 1998.  For more information, Straw’s CV can be found here.  Straw has lived in the Philippines for over 4 years, from June 2018 – August 2022, studying disability access in that country, but may one day return to the United States when the human rights violations stop.

He is an asylum seeker due to the discrimination and human rights violations of state and federal courts in the USA.  Andrew Straw lives just 1374 km from where his father was stationed in Vietnam. See also. Straw is engaging in pro se law reform from a distance.

Court Decision Could Open Access to the Ballot for Disabled Candidates

by Andrew Straw - November 9, 2018

Ballot for Disabled Candidates

It makes no sense at all for states to be registering people to vote online, but then not using that same system to make it easy for voters to sign ballot access petitions. 

Filed Under: DC Authors Tagged With: Disability and Democracy, Independent Politicians, Third Party, Voter Access, Voter Registration

Docsmit: New Tool Helps Regular People Access the Legal System

by Andrew Straw - November 4, 2018

Docsmit: New Tool Helps Regular People

Sometimes, when a person wishes to file a lawsuit to have their rights enforced, the Court requires paper filings through the U.S. Mail. In 2018, this seems like an archaic method of filing documents, and it is archaic. Enter Docsmit.

Filed Under: DC Authors Tagged With: Money Politics, Voting Technology

How ADA Reform Legislation Can Expand American Democracy

by Andrew Straw - October 31, 2018

ADA reform legislation

When the ADA and Rehab Act can be used to expand democratic inclusion, that’s the moment when people with disabilities can make that great leap forward into public office, even if they are poor and disabled.

Filed Under: DC Authors Tagged With: Civil Rights, Disability and Democracy, Third Party, Voter Access

Disability, Democracy and Mixed-Member Proportional Representation

by Andrew Straw - October 27, 2018

New Zealand's Mixed-Member Proportional representation

New Zealand’s Mixed-Member Proportional election system would be good for disabled people in the United States because disability concerns could be heard in Congress more easily.

Filed Under: DC Authors Tagged With: American State Elections, Civil Rights, Disability and Democracy, Election Methods, Green Party News, New Zealand, Third Party, Voter Access

On Restoring the Right to Appeal to the Supreme Court

by Andrew Straw - October 23, 2018

Right to Appeal to the Supreme Court

The easiest way to change this system is for Congress and the president to repeal the Judiciary Act of 1925 and give us back the right to appeal to the Supreme Court.  That’s the system given to us by James Madison.

Filed Under: DC Authors Tagged With: Founding Fathers, Supreme Court

Postal Benefits for Blind Voters Can Improve Democracy For All

by Andrew Straw - October 18, 2018

Postal Benefits for Blind Voters

If you are a candidate and want to make sure that all your blind voters get to the polls early or vote early, you can mail a free no-postage postcard primarily in braille and provide a URL to your website that also is accessible to blind individuals.

Filed Under: DC Authors Tagged With: Absentee and Mail Voting, Disability and Democracy, Voter Access

Petitioning by Mail and State Voter Registration Webpages

by Andrew Straw - October 16, 2018

State Voter Registration Webpages

States need merely take the inexpensive step of creating an e-signing page that only registered voters can use, with a dashboard showing how many signatures each candidate has at any given time.

Filed Under: DC Authors Tagged With: Absentee and Mail Voting, American State Elections, Independent Politicians, Internet and Democracy, Third Party, Voter Access, Voter Registration, Voting Technology

Can Democracy Hold the Military Accountable for Poisoning Its Own?

by Andrew Straw - October 15, 2018

Hold the Military Accountable

Camp LeJeune is where I was born. It is currently an EPA Superfund site, and one author has described it as a “toxic hell,” the worst water poisoning disaster in U.S. history, worse even than Love Canal or rivers catching fire in the 1970s.

Filed Under: DC Authors Tagged With: American Corruption, Civil Rights

How Democracy is Thwarted For the Disabled Citizen

by Andrew Straw - October 13, 2018

Democracy is Thwarted For the Disabled Citizen

Frivolous is the word that judges and lawyers use to shut down disability rights, including the right to vote and the right to be a candidate, not to mention the right to walk on a sidewalk without it being full of snow and ice piles.

Filed Under: DC Authors Tagged With: American State Elections, Disability and Democracy, Supreme Court, Third Party, Voter Access

ADA Accommodations Could Mean Everything to Disabled Candidates

by Andrew Straw - October 10, 2018

ADA Accommodations Could Mean Everything to Disabled Candidates

There are so many ways in which a state can make it easy to sign and help someone get on the ballot. For instance, states could let disabled candidates collect their signatures with the absentee ballots.

Filed Under: DC Authors Tagged With: Absentee and Mail Voting, American State Elections, Disability and Democracy, Independent Politicians, Third Party, Voter Access

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Courts Off The Deep End, Again

By Andrew Straw February 1, 2023

Closing the courts, shutting down dissent, and violating the rights of whistleblowers. These are not the actions of an open, free society.

The Christian Evangelical Church

By Jack Jones January 22, 2023

I am not against Big Business having a voice, just not all the voices, and especially not an impersonator pretending to speak for God.

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DC AUTHORS

No One In Monterey County Is Good Enough To Serve In Legislature

By Joe Mathews January 9, 2023

California’s “democratic reforms” have left a place as… [key] as Monterey County without any state representation from one of its own.

In America, the Joe-mocracy Rules

By Joe Mathews December 27, 2022

A republic? A democracy? No, our country is an avuncular autocracy run by old guys named joe.

Property Rights, Indiana-Style

By Andrew Straw December 24, 2022

Indiana’s justices have replaced constitutional property rights with ad hominem politics. Replacing them starts with better governors.

To The American Oligarchs: Lay Off Us

By Jack Jones December 21, 2022

No matter how many jobs are ruthlessly pulled out from under us, we are still going to do what it takes to put food on the table.

Indiana’s Irrational Ballot Access System

By Andrew Straw December 4, 2022

Opposing the potential 2024 retention of the Chief Justice Loretta Rush will be key to preventing disability discrimination bad blood in Indiana courts.

Federal Judge Strikes Down Biden’s Loan Forgiveness program

By Jack Jones November 24, 2022

What is unlawful is the Texas federal judge’s decision to strike down President Biden’s loan forgiveness program, not the program itself.

DeSantis Battles Trump in Florida Steel Cage Match

By Steve Schneider November 20, 2022

We take you now to the much-anticipated DeSantis-Trump steel cage match, in which “DeSanctimonious” has promised to “kick Trump’s ass.”

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