• My name is Andrew Rice, I use he/him pronouns and I am a Democratic Populist running to represent the people of Connecticut’s 3rd congressional district!

    I was born in Danbury, Connecticut and have lived in Connecticut for most of my life. I have lived and worked in Connecticut’s 3rd congressional district for 15 years. As a scientist with a background in cellular and molecular biology, my life has been focused on the pursuit of scientific knowledge and how it can provide a better quality of life for all. Those who know me know I am a person with unparalleled passion for justice and human rights.

    With the exception of my magnificent mutt Yoshi, I have decided to be child free, partly because I am worried about what the future holds for those that will come after me. I am a renter because, like most people in my generation, I have been priced out of the housing market. My father, grandson of Irish immigrants, and my mother, granddaughter of Italian immigrants, both of whom take great pride in their heritage, provided a stable and secure home environment for me to grow up in.  It’s hard to imagine not being able to provide the same sort of environment for my child. I am grateful that Connecticut has blessed me with education, with work, and a fulfilling life. But those blessings have become more of an exception than a rule for the people of Connecticut, and it’s time for change.

  • During an event to raise awareness for Gaza, I encountered Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut’s 3rd congressional district and confronted her about the 2 million people in Gaza on the brink of starvation. I asked her why she could not call this a “genocide.” I asked her how she sleeps with herself at night. She responded, “very well.”

    I do not sleep very well at night knowing 2 million people starve. I do not sleep well knowing that while a genocide is committed with our tax dollars, there are people in our district losing their jobs, losing their ability to save or get ahead. There are people with multiple jobs struggling to pay for rent and groceries. Teachers wonder how they will provide quality education with ever growing class sizes. We worry about our environment and if we will hand the next generation a sustainable planet. 

    Rosa DeLauro has been in Congress since I was a toddler. Though I give Rosa credit for her work in women’s rights and education, she represents the old guard and resistance to the fundamental change that will be vital to the future of the democratic party. Twentieth century solutions are not meeting the demand of twenty-first century problems. Programs like Head Start are great, but at the end of the day, it is not enough to address the cost of living crisis. 

    If Rosa was truly supporting our district, why have conditions over the last 15 years gotten worse? As a member of the appropriations committee, Rosa has great influence on what Congress appropriates. And with that influence she sent 8.5 million taxpayer dollars to fuel the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time.

    If Rosa DeLauro truly represented the people, why is it that out of the $1.7 million dollars she raised last election cycle, only 5% came from small donations? How can she represent the true interests of the people when she takes corporate money from HP, Deloitte, AT&T, Verizon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and SpaceX?

    I ask the people of our district to imagine a better and brighter future for their kids and themselves. It is time for the working class to fight for what we deserve, the true value of our labor and our ideas, and build a coalition of people who demand that our needs are met. Together we are stronger. No one can change the future alone. So in this crucial time in our history, I ask the great people of Connecticut’s 3rd district to join us in this campaign!

  • Historical/Political*

    • FDR

    • Marin Luther King Jr.

    • Zohran Mamdani

    • Graham Platner

    • Bernie Sanders

    • AOC

    • Jesus Christ

    • Al Gore

    Fictional

    • Captain Katherine Janeway (Star Trek Voyager)

    • Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek TNG)

    • Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars)

    • Yoda (Star Wars)

    • Aragorn (Lord of the Rings)

    • Gandalf (Lord of the Rings)

    • V (V for Vendetta)

    *People identified in this section have not endorsed this campaign, have not contributed to this platform, and do not necessarily agree with all of my stances unless stated otherwise.

  • As a person who has spent their entire career in science, I tend to be data driven. The Founding Fathers of this nation included in our Constitution The Progress Clause, found in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution, granting Congress the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts. The Founders always wanted decisions to be guided by the best science and that will be reflected throughout the platform. In science, collaboration has yielded the most astonishing results over competition. In scientific collaboration, one idea is often enhanced when others from diverse backgrounds contribute their own ideas. This campaign will promote the ideas as explained, but what becomes law may differ. However, as a scientist I am always hopeful that should that be the case, it is because collaboration only enhanced our original proposals!

  • America has a truly compelling story to tell....

    America was a nation built by immigrants. A land where the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, could find refuse on a teeming shore, sending the homeless, tempest-tost to us. For those who could no longer call their lands home, whether it be fleeing from war, famine, religious persecution, or an inability to thrive, America became a new home for them. Over the centuries, people from across the world came to America, bringing with them their cultures, their values, their ideas, their foods, their styles, and their imagination to our shores. We defeated a tyrant from across the ocean, established one of the first modern democracies in the world. We explored new frontiers. We fought each other during a Civil War and came back together as one nation after it. We helped win two world wars, and became a symbol of peace and strength for the world, a “shining city upon a hill.” Throughout our history, people have braved the waters and the treacherous journey to embark on a new life filled with the promise of freedom and hope. But the promise of America has not been felt by all those that call her home.

    America has its darker moments, as we all do. The land that is now America was once home to thousands of indigenous tribes. All with unique cultures and histories, and collectively a deep connection and respect of their natural surroundings. When people from Europe were fleeing religious prosecution they found a vast wilderness that appeared “uncivilized.” But it was already quite civilized, just not by the standards of Europeans. The Natives welcomed these strangers to their lands as friends. Unfortunately, that friendship was taken advantage of, and the new colonists would go on to perpetuate centuries of genocide and land theft. To this day, native tribes are scattered, often left behind from federal investments and resources, and live with a greater risk of disappearing when venturing off reservations (they are forced to live on) into lands that were once theirs. Not only has there been a lack of any real action to right these wrongs, the Federal Government to this day continues to violate Indigenous People’s sovereignty, without providing any resources. The genocide of the native people must not be forgotten or downplayed and their continuing suffering must not be ignored.

    Another stain on American history is the enslavement of black people that were stolen from their homes in Africa. On August of 1619, a ship carrying 20 enslaved Africans docked near Point Comfort, in the English colony of Virginia. Chattel Slavery would expand and continue until it was “abolished” with the ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865. During the period of slavery, African slaves were forced to work morning until night, sleep in confined and packed quarters, were whipped, beaten, raped, mutilated, and even had teeth removed for white people’s denture (#GeorgeWashington). The treatment of the slaves was an absolute abomination, and for anyone who says “slavery wasn’t that bad” I urge you to go become a slave. Live how they lived, work like they worked, and be treated like they were treated and then come back and say if you still believe “slavery wasn’t that bad.” I would also argue, that slavery never ended it was just reclassified as prison labor. Prison labor disproportionately affects the black community and for those that break the same laws, black people face harsher sentencing. The poor treatment of black people continued under the era of Jim Crow laws and even though the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, many black people to this day still face the set backs as a community caused by historical mistreatment.

    We cannot change the past, but we can change the future. And that has always been the promise of America. The unfinished pyramid, the constant challenge of creating a more perfect union, for everyone! We can never forget the darkest moments of our history, but we can work to erase the stains of the past by finally addressing those wrongs in the present and building a better, thriving future for everyone. Many people say we cannot achieve this or that. But then many will also say that America is the greatest. I do not understand that dissonance. If we are the greatest, then why do we shy away from doing truly great things? The greatest do not shy away from doing the unimaginable. The greatest imagine the impossible, and then turn it into a reality. When the rest of the world was reaching for the skies, America dreamed bigger, and together we reached the Moon! Why call ourselves great and then not do great things for all our citizens? We are America, and together we can achieve whatever we put our collective efforts into! Why wouldn’t people want a strong social safety net so that they aren’t constantly stressed about finances? Why wouldn’t people want Medicare for All so that they aren’t constantly stressed about their health? Why wouldn’t people want more hours in their day to enjoy spending more time with family, and friends. Visiting local businesses and exploring the natural beauty of this country filled with beautiful spacious skies, amber waves of grain, purple mountain majesties, and fruited plains?! We can make America truly Great for everyone, and build a better future for everyone, together!

    As Woody Guthrie once sang….

    This land is your land, this land is my land
    From California to the New York island,
    From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters;
    This land was made for you and me.

    (Full Lyrics: https://woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/This_Land.htm)

  • I feel that the profit driven motive, inherent to the capitalist model, has robbed us of our true humanity. I hear people argue that capitalism is just human nature and it is the best system we have. And I take issue with both of those statements.

    First of all, I do not believe competition is inherent in human nature at all. Fossil records at the Peabody Museum at Yale tell the story of how the evolution of humanity from homo erectus to homo sapiens depended on massive cooperation. When mankind first conquered the wooly mammoth, it was not because of who could sell the better spear, but a coordinated effort built on cooperation, communication, trust and ingenuity. Society is built on cooperation. Without cooperation we would not have roads from our residences, to our workplaces. Capitalism conflates the idea of individualism and individuality. Individuality is about self expression, having your own thoughts and ways of solving problems. Individualism focuses on forcing the collective needs of living onto the individual in search of more profit. I have 6 neighbors on my street. We all never mow the lawn the same time or day. If we embraced community over individualism, we could all get away with having 1 lawn mower, and share the costs of repairs. However, Home Depot would only be able to sell 1 lawn mower and would miss out on the profit of selling 5 additional lawn mowers. Individualism takes care of that problem and now my neighborhood has 5 lawn mowers instead of just 1!

    Second of all, a system that has led to the largest wealth inequality throughout most of modern history, to a planet on the verge of ecological and climate collapse, to a society where people are too busy surviving instead of being given the time to thrive and experience the richness of human existence hardly deserves to be hailed as the best system we have. Scientific studies have shown us that “good lives can be achieved for all without requiring large increases in total global throughput and output. Provisioning decent living standards (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/living-standard) (DLS) for 8.5 billion people would require only 30% of current global resource and energy use, leaving a substantial surplus for additional consumption, public luxury, scientific advancement, and other social investments. Such a future requires planning to provision public services, to deploy efficient technology, and to build sovereign industrial capacity in the global South.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292924000493. In essence, abandoning capitalism is just good science. I imagine a world where the actions that people take are not only to their own benefit, but also to the benefit of society as a whole. Where a person who contributes to the well being of society gets more than those who contribute only to the benefit of themselves. Competition encouraged by the profit driven motive has only led to unfathomable greed. Greed is rightly recognized as one of the seven deadly sins, and today we can see why. We need to prioritize people over profit and the working class over the Oligarchy. They cannot thrive without our labor, and we outnumber them 1000 to 1!

  • I am exploring running as a Democrat, but not because of my belief in the ability of the Democratic Party to rise to the challenge and meet the needs of working people, but because of the unfortunate reality of how our electoral politics is set up and until Ranked Choice voting is a reality, I feel forced to run as a democrat. I have been a life long democrat (with the exception of registering as unaffiliated for several years). I campaigned for Joe Courtney in 2006 with the UCONN Democrats, and Obama in 2008, and 2012. I lived and breathed Blue No Matter Who. But recently I began to realize, I have yet to see Democrats actually champion bold policies like the New Deal, or the Civil Rights Act, or anything that truly revolutionizes people’s ability to thrive in America. And I came to the unfortunate conclusion that neither Democrats nor Republicans are there to solve problems. Problems are great fundraising platforms. Why would Democrats ever codify Roe vs. Wade if they could just use it every year as a way to scare people into giving $5 to protest a woman’s right to choose? Obi-wan Kenobi once said “ It is my experience that <politicians> focus only on pleasing those who fund their campaigns.” Maybe that is why it feels as if the Democrats are more focused on pleasing corporations and AIPAC, than the people they pretend to represent. 

    As a proud gay man, I have always had an unease about Republicans. Which was unfair because there are many Republicans that are wonderful people. But the current Republican Party is not the GOP of our grandparents. It is flat out National Authoritarian Fascism. And I hope one day Republican voters see how their elected representatives lied to them, robbed them of education, health, and happiness all under the guise of freedom. The Republican Party only believes in freedom as long as it is their version of freedom, and that is not freedom.


  • Our collective labor is workers’ greatest strength. A General strike would send a message the ruling class cannot ignore. Members of Congress should be organizing their constituents to a General Strike if the ruling class does not allow us to legislate new policy that would address the economic suffering of our people. Withholding our Labor is our greatest power.