Paul Eric Strauss (born April 11, 1964) is an American politician and attorney serving as the
senior United States shadow senator from the
District of Columbia
)
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, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
since 1997. He succeeded
Jesse Jackson, the first person to hold the elected position of a
shadow senator
The posts of shadow United States senator and shadow United States representative are held by elected or appointed government officials from subnational polities of the United States that lack congressional vote. While these officials are not ...
for
Washington, D.C.
)
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, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
He is a member of the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
.
Early life and education
Strauss was born to a Jewish family, in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, raised in the
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...
of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, and graduated from
Dwight School. His father was a painting contractor for Yankee Stadium.
As a youth, Strauss was active in politics, volunteering for the
election campaign
A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by which representatives are chosen or referend ...
s of
Mario Biaggi
Mario Biaggi (October 26, 1917 – June 24, 2015) was an American politician, attorney, and police officer. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from New York from 1969 to 1988.
Prior to his political career, Biagg ...
,
Hugh Carey
Hugh Leo Carey (April 11, 1919 – August 7, 2011) was an American politician and attorney. He was a seven-term U.S. representative from 1961 to 1974 and the 51st governor of New York from 1975 to 1982. He was a member of the Democratic Part ...
, and
Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1 ...
.
At 17, he interned for
New York City mayor Ed Koch
Edward Irving Koch ( ; December 12, 1924February 1, 2013) was an American politician, lawyer, political commentator, film critic, and television personality. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and was ma ...
with his own desk and phone in the
Tweed Courthouse
The Tweed Courthouse (also known as the Old New York County Courthouse) is a historic courthouse building at 52 Chambers Street in the Civic Center of Manhattan in New York City. It was built in the Italianate style with Romanesque Revi ...
.
He moved to Washington, D.C., in 1982 at the age of 18,
later earning his bachelor's degree (1986) and
Juris Doctor (1993) at
American University.
Career
Strauss is a former chairperson of the District's Board of Real Property Assessments and Appeals.
He has also been a
union organizer
A union organizer (or union organiser in Commonwealth spelling) is a specific type of trade union member (often elected) or an appointed union official. A majority of unions appoint rather than elect their organizers.
In some unions, the orga ...
for
Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local
Local may refer to:
Geography and transportation
* Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand
* Local, Missouri, a community in the United States
* Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...
25. Strauss is an
attorney and principal of the Law Offices of Paul Strauss & Associates,
P.C.,
a law firm specializing in
real estate
Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...
,
business, and
family law
Family law (also called matrimonial law or the law of domestic relations) is an area of the law that deals with family matters and domestic relations.
Overview
Subjects that commonly fall under a nation's body of family law include:
* Marriage ...
.
In his first political campaign in Washington, D.C., he mobilized other college students to register to vote against raising the drinking age to 21.
Shadow Senator
Prior to being elected as a shadow senator in 1996, Strauss served in several locally elected government positions. He served as the at-large member of the D.C. Democratic State Committee, Chairperson of the Democratic Party's D.C. Statehood Committee, Chairperson of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3E, and Chairperson of Neighborhood Planning Council #3. Strauss was first elected to the Advisory Neighborhood Commission in 1986 as the youngest chairperson and served as a commissioner there until 1996.
As one of the District of Columbia's two shadow senators, Strauss lobbies the U.S. Senate and the
U.S. House of Representatives on behalf of the citizens of D.C. in their attempt to gain full federal representation, self-determination, and eventually
admittance to the Union
In electrical engineering, admittance is a measure of how easily a circuit or device will allow a current to flow. It is defined as the reciprocal of impedance, analogous to how conductance & resistance are defined. The SI unit of admittance ...
as the 51st state. As a shadow senator, Strauss cannot vote on matters before the Senate.
In 2006, Strauss ran for the
Council of the District of Columbia to represent
Ward 3.
He came in second place in the
Democratic primary, receiving 15% of the vote, while
Mary Cheh
Mary M. Cheh (born 1950) is an American Democratic politician from Washington, D.C. In November 2006, she won a seat on the Council of the District of Columbia representing Ward 3.
Background and family
Mary Cheh was born in Elizabeth, New ...
received 44% of the vote.
Strauss was selected to be a
superdelegate to the
2008 Democratic National Convention
The 2008 Democratic National Convention was a quadrennial presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party where it adopted its national platform and officially nominated its candidates for president and vice president. The convent ...
where he endorsed
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
.
Strauss was re-elected in 2008. Strauss received 65% of the vote in the September Democratic primary, while Democratic challenger Phil Pannell received 33%. In the November general election, Strauss faced Republican Nelson F. Rimensnyder,
D.C. Statehood Green Party candidate Keith Ware, and Libertarian Party Candidate Damien Lincoln Ober. Strauss received 82% of the vote, giving him his largest margin of victory ever.
Strauss was again re-elected in 2014, with 77.3% of the vote.
In 2014, Strauss launched the "51 Stars" campaign, enlisting the help of 51 celebrities and public figures to support the initiative for D.C. Statehood and endorse the District of Columbia as the fifty-first star on the
U.S. flag
The national flag of the United States of America, often referred to as the ''American flag'' or the ''U.S. flag'', consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the ca ...
upon admittance to the union. Notable endorsers of the public service campaign included
Dave Chappelle,
Rosario Dawson
Rosario Isabel Dawson (born May 9, 1979) is an American actress. She made her feature-film debut in the 1995 independent drama ''Kids''. Her subsequent film roles include ''He Got Game'' (1998), '' Josie and the Pussycats'' (2001), ''Men in Bl ...
,
Jonathan Banks
Jonathan Ray Banks (born January 31, 1947) is an American actor. Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Chillum Heights, Maryland, while attending Indiana University Bloomington Banks did theatre. In 1974, he moved to Los Angeles where he be ...
, and others.
Strauss testified to the
U.S. Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs in 2014 regarding the New Columbia Admission Act of 2013. His testimony argued the historical case for D.C.
statehood, saying "We are all Americans. We all deserve to participate in the democracy our nation’s founders set before us. To deny basic rights to the citizens of the National Capital, makes a mockery of our attempts to act as a model of democracy for the rest of the world."
In February 2015, Strauss traveled to Iowa to encourage Democratic and Republican party chapters to discuss D.C. statehood at their local caucuses, and inspired the Polk County Democrats to pass a resolution in support of D.C. statehood in March.
He traveled there again the following year for the
2016 Iowa caucuses, after running political ads from the national "51 Stars" campaign. Working with a new bipartisan group called
Iowans for D.C. Statehood, Strauss took the opportunity to address Democratic precincts in Iowa.
At the Iowa caucuses in 2020, Strauss and shadow Senator
Michael Donald Brown
Michael Donald "Mike" Brown (born August 5, 1953) is the junior United States shadow senator from the District of Columbia since 2007.
As a shadow senator, Brown receives no pay from the government, receives no budget from the government, and c ...
took over the campaign bus left behind by
John Delaney of Maryland, who had
exited the presidential race.
Decorated with a banner and signs promoting D.C. as the 51st state, the bus was parked outside the
Des Moines Marriott Downtown, where hundreds of journalists were staying.
Strauss spoke to ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' and said he expected nearly every precinct in every county to pass resolutions in favor of statehood for D.C.
International diplomacy
![Paul Strauss (51814808794) (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Paul_Strauss_%2851814808794%29_%28cropped%29.jpg)
Strauss has engaged in various efforts on the international stage. In 2014, he visited
Nagaland
Nagaland () is a landlocked state in the northeastern region of India. It is bordered by the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh to the north, Assam to the west, Manipur to the south and the Sagaing Region of Myanmar to the east. Its capital cit ...
in India to take part in the 3rd biennial NER Agri Expo, an exposition attended by farmers, investors, agriculturists, business houses and entrepreneurs.
In 2015, Strauss appeared before a panel of the
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization
The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, or simply UNPO is an international organization established to facilitate the voices of unrepresented and marginalised nations and peoples worldwide. It was formed on 11 February 1991 in The Ha ...
(UNPO) and citing the lack of statehood for Washington, D.C., successfully petitioned for the District of Columbia to become the first and only North American participant in the international body.
In June 2018, Strauss addressed the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
in
Brussels, Belgium to discuss the issue of D.C. statehood. The event was classified as a formal “exchange of views,” and was chaired by former
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...
Alex Mayer
Alexandra Louise Mayer (born 2 June 1981) is a former British Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the East of England region for the Labour Party. She took up the post in November 2016 following the resignation of Richard Howitt, and ...
of the United Kingdom in conjunction with the Secretariat of the European Parliament's Delegation for Relations with the U.S. Lucia Parrucci, DC's advocacy officer from the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, and
Richard Schiff
Richard Schiff (born May 27, 1955) is an American actor and director. He is best known for playing Toby Ziegler on ''The West Wing'', a role for which he received an Emmy Award. Schiff made his directorial debut with ''The West Wing'', directing ...
, an Emmy Award-winning actor and democracy activist joined Strauss for the presentation.
Mayer, a former United Kingdom
Labour Party member representing the
East of England region, expressed support for D.C. Statehood at a
plenary session
A plenary session or plenum is a session of a conference which all members of all parties are to attend. Such a session may include a broad range of content, from keynotes to panel discussions, and is not necessarily related to a specific st ...
in the European Union following Strauss's visit, saying "We in the European Parliament call out human rights violations across the world. I see no reason not to do so in this case too. The citizens of D.C. are denied the basic rights that others living in liberal democracies take for granted. It is time that this 200-year injustice was ended."
He is an honorary member of the Global Committee for the Rule of Law.
Personal life
On October 1, 2008, Strauss was arrested for drunken driving. He was found to have a blood-alcohol level at twice the legal level of intoxication. On May 29, 2009, he pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to a 60-day suspended jail sentence, 11 months of supervised probation, a $300 fine, and $100 fine to be paid to the victims of violent crime compensation fund.
Strauss lives in the
Observatory Circle
Observatory Circle is a street in Washington, D.C. It runs from Calvert Street to Massachusetts Avenue near 34th Street. Established in 1894, the street follows an incomplete loop, forming an arc rather than a circle. Number One Observatory Cir ...
/
Glover Park
Glover Park is a neighborhood in northwest Washington, D.C., about a half mile north of Georgetown and just west of the United States Naval Observatory and Number One Observatory Circle (the Vice President's mansion). Every morning and evening, ...
neighborhood in the District.
Electoral history
References
, -
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strauss, Paul
1964 births
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American politicians
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American politicians
American University alumni
Trade unionists from Washington, D.C.
Lawyers from New York City
Lawyers from Washington, D.C.
Living people
People from the Upper East Side
Politicians from Brooklyn
Politicians from Manhattan
United States shadow senators from the District of Columbia
Washington College of Law alumni
Washington, D.C., Democrats
Jewish United States senators
Jewish American trade unionists
21st-century American Jews