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Veterans often lose VA healthcare, disability benefits, and education access during incarceration, disrupting PTSD and addiction treatment when continuity matters most.
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Veterans Don’t Stop Being Veterans at the Prison Gate
Jul 20, 2026
A veteran’s PTSD doesn’t disappear when they enter prison. Traumatic brain injuries don’t cure themselves. Addiction doesn't vanish behind bars. Yet many of the systems designed to help veterans manage those conditions stop at the prison gate.
When veterans are incarcerated, they often lose access to VA healthcare, struggle to use education benefits, and face major cuts to disability compensation. The problem is not eligibility. The problem is continuity.
Most discussions about incarcerated veterans focus on what happens after release. How do we help them find housing? How do we reconnect them to treatment? How do we reduce recidivism?
Those are important questions. But they ignore a more basic one: Why are we waiting until release to reconnect veterans to services they were already receiving before incarceration?
Veterans in the criminal justice system often struggle with PTSD, addiction, trauma, and other serious chronic health conditions. They also face a higher risk of opioid overdose and suicide than veterans who have never been involved with the legal system. Yet many lose access to the VA care that was helping them before they entered prison.
The solution should start with healthcare. Veterans who were receiving VA treatment for PTSD, addiction, traumatic brain injury, or other serious conditions should not be cut off simply because they enter prison. Prison healthcare is not a substitute for VA care, especially for veterans with service-related conditions. The VA and the Bureau of Prisons should pilot a continuity-of-care model that allows eligible veterans to keep receiving VA-directed care for mental health and addiction through telehealth, care coordination, and partnerships with federal correctional facilities.
This is not about excusing criminal behavior. It is about recognizing that treatment interruptions make reentry harder and the risks greater. A veteran stabilized on medication for opioid use disorder should not lose access because custody begins. A veteran receiving mental health care through the VA should not have to wait until release to reconnect with care.
The same principle should apply to education. Education is one of the most effective tools for reducing recidivism and improving employment after release. A veteran who enters prison with unused GI Bill benefits should not leave in the same position years later. If incarceration is supposed to prepare people to return successfully to their communities, then helping veterans earn a credential, complete coursework, or develop job skills should be part of that mission.
Disability compensation also needs a continuity approach. Under current law, a veteran rated 100% disabled can see monthly compensation drop from as much as $4,000 to less than $200 after 60 days behind bars. The disability has not changed. The veteran’s service has not changed. Only their custody status has.
Anthony Badial-Luna is an Air Force veteran and Master of Science Candidate in Georgetown University's Addiction Policy and Practice program. His research focuses on justice-involved veterans, addiction policy, and continuity of care during incarceration and reentry.
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A group of people waving small American flags at sunset.
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Why I’m Using My Influence to Defend Democracy Now
Jul 20, 2026
It was about this time of year in 1997 that I moved across the country and took my first job in the sector broadly known as “civil society.”
Since then, I have grown in my career. I have developed a profile. By dint of sheer survival and longevity, I have accumulated seniority.
For most of that time, I have worked in the field of democracy. It is a broad field, yet in its way a narrow one. It consists, for the most part — though not exclusively — of people who have devoted themselves to learning about and improving the structures that enable self-governance.
I have been comfortable in that field for decades.
Now, democracy in the United States faces a new threat, and so does the field. For many of us, it is hard to know what to do. Our training runs toward bridging divides, toward creating collective solutions to shared problems.
A malevolent force is now actively undermining and pulling down our democratic structures, and that training feels insufficient to the new task.
This malevolent force has set about creating new facts on the ground that will permit autocracy. It has also energized an exclusionary, racist, retrograde stream of American culture. A segment of our population is actively working to build a white Christian theocracy.
In my professional realm, where I carry some personal influence, my profile is one of institutionalism and centrism. Recently, I have begun speaking up in ways that those who have known me for years may find surprising. This includes blog posts about being a dissident and regular videos chronicling our slide into autocracy.
I am much more angular. Why?
Part of the answer is an awakening. As Donald Trump and the MAGA movement have targeted people of color, gay people, trans people, immigrants, and more, I have come closer to the personal stories of the people being targeted. I have learned how excruciating these times are for people I know and work alongside. For years, I thought of democracy as neutral toward equity — a set of structures that would serve everyone, so long as we maintained them well. I now see questions of equity and inclusion as central. A democracy that excludes some of its people is not a democracy at all. And so I see the race away from the gains of the civil rights era as fundamentally antidemocratic – as much so as the current administration’s overt attacks on journalism, civil society, and governance itself.
I am also convinced that people like me — specifically those with a similar professional profile — must speak up now and act more than ever.
What do I mean by people like me? In my case: senior, male, White, holding some positional authority and a measure of influence. I do not fool myself that I have great sway. But through the years, I have collected little bits of political, social, and professional capital.
It is my obligation, and the obligation of those similarly situated, to spend that capital in every way I can imagine, with as much energy as I can muster — to join the coalition of those working to hold back autocracy, and to hold back our shameful rush toward a white Christian nationalist society.
What might happen if more people like me speak up and act? It gives permission. Others who are similarly situated are watching. Many of them see what I see. They may hold back because the risks are real — to their institutions, their funding, their standing — and because the ingrained reflex of balance is so strong. I do not blame them. But when a colleague, someone with a similar profile, speaks plainly and remains standing, the calculation may change. It may become easier for the next person to say, too, what they see, and then to act.
That is what I am hoping for. I cannot move the country. Perhaps I can help move people like me.
For what, after all, am I saving my accumulated capital? If it remains unspent at a moment like this, it is wasted.
I intend to spend mine.
Brad Rourke is the Kettering Foundation's chief external affairs officer and director of DC operations. This piece was originally published on his personal blog. The opinions contained are his individual views and do not represent those of the Kettering Foundation.
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Protesters rally for abortion rights outside of the Idaho Statehouse in downtown Boise, Idaho, on May 14, 2022.
Sarah A. Miller/Idaho Statesman/AP
Idaho Voters Will Weigh In on One of the Strictest Abortion Bans in the Country
Jul 20, 2026
Idaho voters will weigh in on their state’s abortion laws this November. The secretary of state’s office certified a ballot measure that could, if passed, overturn one of the strictest bans in the country, the campaign to restore abortion rights in Idaho confirmed on Monday.
The measure would enact a new law establishing a state right to “reproductive freedom,” which it defines as allowing residents to make their own decisions in areas including fertility treatment, contraception and abortion. But it would not amend the state’s constitution, meaning it could still be overturned by the state’s Republican legislature. Currently, Idaho bans abortion in nearly all circumstances, with a narrow exception if staying pregnant threatens someone’s life.
Abortion rights dominated the 2024 elections, but have since taken a political backseat to concerns over the economy. But polling shows voters — including conservatives — oppose near-total prohibitions like Idaho’s.
Supporters gathered more than 100,000 signatures from Idaho residents in support of adding the measure to the state’s November ballot — well above the state’s requirement, which is 70,725 signatories spread across at least half of Idaho’s legislative districts.
Medical professionals say that Idaho’s exception has been incredibly difficult to navigate. Doctors specializing in pregnancy-related health care have left the state in droves, citing the law’s harsh penalties and saying it made it impossible for them to provide proper medical care. Some residents have moved away after struggling to get medical care when experiencing pregnancy-related complications.
Idaho’s ban has already been subject to legal challenges. In 2023, seven plaintiffs — including four women who sought abortions in Idaho after experiencing pregnancy complications — sued the state, seeking to both broaden and clarify the medical exceptions in the law.
Last year, a state court ruled that doctors should interpret the law’s exceptions broadly, and that patients could receive abortions if they had health conditions or complications that meant staying pregnant could threaten their lives. But the court also said patients could not receive abortions if they discovered fatal fetal anomalies in their pregnancies or if they had a mental health condition that made pregnancy dangerous.
More than a dozen states have had abortion-related ballot measures since the 2022 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. In most of those cases, abortion rights supporters have won, including in many states that lean conservative.
Idaho is not the only state where voters will get to address their state’s abortion law. In Virginia and Nevada — states where the procedure remains legal — residents will consider ballot measures that would amend their state constitutions to protect abortion rights.
And in Missouri, voters turned out two years ago to amend their constitution in favor of abortion rights. But this fall, they will be asked once more to weigh in, considering a measure that would amend the constitution once more to overturn those same protections.
Though Idaho has consistently supported Republicans — who largely oppose abortion — a January survey from Boise State University found that 60 percent of Idahoans supported the language in the abortion rights measure. Polling conducted by Idahoans United for Women and Families, the organization spearheading the ballot campaign, has similarly found majorities opposing the state’s abortion law.
Idaho Voters Will Weigh In on One of the Strictest Abortion Bans in the Country was originally published by the 19th and is republished with permission.
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A pole with a sign that says polling station
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The New Fight Over Election Observation
Jul 19, 2026
As a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the U.S. has signed the foundational agreement committing all participating states to open elections to external scrutiny and inviting fellow members to observe through the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The 2024 ODIHR observation mission to the U.S. found the fundamentals reassuring—a well-run process, active engagement, free campaigning—but issued 31 recommendations to align U.S. elections with international standards and commitments. Four stand out: federal pre-clearance legislation against discriminatory election-law changes; reassessing the Electoral College; balanced representation in election administration; and guaranteed access for international and nonpartisan observers—notable, since 17 states still legally bar international observation, which is at odds with commitments made by all 57 OSCE states. Yet over a year later, follow-through is thin: no pre-clearance restoration, no Electoral College review, unchanged observer-access laws. Where movement exists—in disinformation tools, in financial disclosure—it remains piecemeal.
An uncomfortable convergence
As part of its methodology, ODIHR typically deploys a Needs Assessment Mission (NAM) months in advance, followed by a report and, depending on the findings, an observation mission. This was the sequence before 2024's vote, but as of this writing, ODIHR's public calendar lists the November 3, 2026, U.S. midterms as upcoming, with no needs assessment or any other recorded activity. The pre-election assessment should already have happened. This isn't proof Washington declined to invite ODIHR—but it breaks with recent cycles, arriving as the administration steps back from other multilateral engagement.
The OSCE's founding agreement is reciprocal: every state invites others to observe its elections. A cluster of authoritarian and backsliding states has quietly abandoned that accord. Russia blocked ODIHR from its 2021 State Duma elections and issued no invitation for the 2024 elections. Belarus hasn't invited ODIHR since 2020. Tajikistan's 2025 mission was canceled due to accreditation delays. Georgia invited ODIHR less than a month before its 2025 local elections—which ODIHR said was incompatible with credible observation. None formally renounced their commitments; they simply made the invitation late, conditional, or absent. The U.S. pattern for 2026 sits uncomfortably close to that category: no rejection on record, just an absence where an invitation should be. Perhaps the writing was on the wall all along, since in 2024 several state election officials refused to meet with ODIHR observers due to perceived concerns about foreign interference.
Diverging tactics abroad
Disengaging from scrutiny at home doesn't predict behavior abroad, where Russia and the U.S. diverge sharply in method—even as the underlying instinct to influence outcomes rather than submit to independent assessment looks similar.
Russia has built a parallel institution. In April 2026, under the patronage of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Moscow hosted a conference that drew over 150 delegates from 60-plus countries, formally establishing the International Association for Political and Electoral Expertise (IAPEE), which is backed by Russia's Presidential Administration, the Foreign Ministry, and the Central Election Commission. Its governing board includes figures with documented histories in the occupied Ukrainian territory and Belarus's 2020 election. IAPEE mimics the form of observation—recruitment, deployment, published findings—while replacing oversight with reciprocal validation, in which governments endorse each other's elections. Lavrov cast it as an "immune response by the global majority" against Western "electoral neocolonialism". Russia has already invited IAPEE to observe its own September 2026 State Duma vote—a model built for export across the Global South.
The United States has hollowed out its own infrastructure, then filled the gap with partisan actors. Rather than building a rival institution, the Trump administration cut funding to organizations that long conducted standards-based assessments abroad—the National Democratic Institute and the Carter Center among them—as part of a broader dismantling of USAID's democracy programming.
That withdrawal hasn't meant disengagement—just a different kind of engagement, as diplomats, appointees, and members of Congress move into the space once occupied by professional missions. The House Intelligence Committee led a bipartisan election observation mission to Honduras in November 2025. Republican Senator Bernie Moreno observed Colombia's 2026 election while making his preferences for a winning side known, prompting claims of interference. The U.S. Embassy in Peru deployed its own observers nationwide during the tense 2026 runoff—prompting allegations of influence from left-wing outlets. A long-term Trump ally and political nominee led a U.S. “election observation” delegation and traveled to Romania in May 2025 to monitor the presidential rerun.
These deployments fall short of the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation, which requires comprehensive, long-term observation across the pre-election, election-day, and post-election periods, oriented toward the process rather than any particular result, and culminating in timely, accurate, impartial public findings. Members instead offered political commentary, praised favored administrations, or lent their presence as a marker of U.S. support—grey-zone validation rather than genuine observation.
Same effect, different design
Russia and the U.S. aren't running the same playbook. Moscow builds an alternative community—a charter, training pipeline, governing council—to escape post-2022 isolation while preserving the appearance of norm-following on its own terms. Washington constructs no new institutions; it quietly disengages from the ones that exist, while funding cuts create a vacuum that diplomats, appointees, and members of Congress fill ad hoc.
The functional result converges: standards-based scrutiny is displaced by actors serving a political-influence agenda—propping up favored governments or candidates within each country's sphere of interest, while the language of observation lends unearned legitimacy. In both, a government's posture toward oversight abroad mirrors its posture at home: diminished tolerance for scrutiny domestically and grey-zone validation internationally are two expressions of the same retreat from accountability.
What would change the trajectory?
Domestically, effective steps can be taken before the 2026 midterms: issue an ODIHR invitation without delay; repeal or preempt state laws that bar international and nonpartisan observers; and address the 2024 recommendations.
Internationally, the U.S. should restore the boundary between diplomacy, partisan endorsement, and impartial observation. First, the U.S. should rebuild support for missions meeting the Declaration of Principles criteria. Second, it should bar members of Congress, appointees, and embassy staff from self-designating as "election observers" unless they have a genuine, independent mission. Finally, it should use the U.S. platform inside the OSCE to defend the Copenhagen Document against Russia's sovereignty-first alternative—while closing the gap between what Washington asks of others and what it accepts for itself.
Ancuța (Anna) Hansen is the director of Perseveras Consulting.
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