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.
Andrew Straw articles
Andrew Straw is a person with disabilities who practiced disability law and engages in disability reform advocacy. http://disability.andrewstraw.com/ 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.
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 was passed in the U.S. House by 342-88 and the U.S. Senate by 86-11. On August 10, 2022, it became Public Law 117-168, 136 Stat. 1802-1804.
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 at www.andrewstraw.com. Straw has lived in the Philippines for a7 years, from June 2018 – present, studying disability access in that country, but may one day return to the United States when the disability human rights situation improves.
Straw is an asylum seeker due to the discrimination and human rights violations of state and federal courts in the USA. http://cpa.andrewstraw.com Andrew Straw lives not far from where his father was stationed in Vietnam.
Straw is an active court reform advocate. See:
PROFILE: http://profile.andrewstraw.com
On Restoring the 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.
Postal Benefits for Blind Voters Can Improve Democracy For All
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.
Petitioning by Mail and 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.
Can Democracy Hold the Military Accountable for Poisoning Its Own?
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.
How 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.
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.
Ballot Access for Disabled Candidates in Illinois
I am a new writer for DC and I am disabled. The only thing that makes me feel better after a lifetime of suffering from disabilities is to push hard for disability rights. I started a political party for people with disabilities, Disability Party.