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Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

whitehouse.gov

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Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#31

Post by edtechdev »

SpikeDad wrote: post #14

Thought I couldn't be less disappointed in the Obama administration but they don't cease to fail me. I think the first new petition should be to require petitions to return to 25K threshold.

This (decision by the White House, not your idea) is ridiculous, I'll definitely sign a petition to bring it back down to 25,000. It took an average of 18 days for petitions to reach the 25,000 threshold before it spiked after the election (because of all the secession petitions and Newtown and joke petitions like the Death Star).

Now if a petition doesn't cross the 100,000 threshold in 30 days they ignore it. Assuming the the number of petition signings falls back closer to what it was before the election, it will take an average of about 60 days to reach the 100,000 threshold, meaning most petitions will be ignored.

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#33

Post by martingordon »

The first thing I thought when I saw this post was that it was a response to the success of the Carmen Ortiz petition. I understand the change doesn't apply retroactively, but it would help future officials face less public scrutiny from these petitions.

The growth over the last two months were clearly due to the election and I doubt that that type of growth will continue. We will likely see a drop back down to previous levels, resulting in it being more difficult to achieve the requisite number of signatures overall.

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#34

Post by mathteacher1729 »

This is a nice interactive visualization of the top 50 White House Petitions in tabular, map, and graph form. You can sort by most popular, greatest average signature gain, and male/female ratio.

http://roadtolarissa.com/whitehouse/

The top 5 have sharp spikes in Nov / Dec 2012. Here is some analysis of the Texas Secession Petition: http://www.unc.edu/~ncaren/secessionists/daybyday.html and

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#35

Post by rprasad »

mtgx wrote: post #29
tokenadult wrote: post #10

The founders of the United States knew that a representative democracy (what they termed a "republic") has some distinct advantages over direct democracy. This fact was discussed at length in the jointly authored Federalist Papers. http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html History shows that this fact is rediscovered in each new generation through hard experience, on a bipartisan basis.

But that doesn't mean republics can't have more direct democracy elements in them. For example I love the idea of citizens being able to create a referendum (in a certain state, I believe) in Germany. You still have a threshold, so people don't start creating one for all sorts of crazy ideas, but this is a great example of how citizens can help improve the laws in their countries. I think this referendum is usually a…

For conflicting evidence, I would point to the California initiative process, which is the reason California's government is nonfunctional and almost bankrupt right now.

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#36

Post by samstave »

I'm of the opinion that this is in direct response to how quickly 25,000 signatures were raised to fire Ortiz.

How would they like it if the citizens of the US took the same tact: "Hey Obama administration, I'd like to inform you that I am choosing a different tax bracket arbitrarily with the same level of authority as you show me respect as a citizen."

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#37

Post by mtgx »

Congress should have a similar system, perhaps one for each representative and each senator. They could get a better sense for what the people they represent want. Rather now that's only done through e-mails (which probably never get read by the politicians themselves), phone calls (same thing, and a bit inefficient considering most people won't bother to call), and visiting in person (probably done by very few people).

They could even be done in a sort of Google Moderator/Reddit way, although perhaps more fine-tuned and with certain thresholds (but not too high, especially initially).

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#38

Post by harryh »

baddox wrote: post #7
obilgic wrote: post #2

Why not make the threshold dynamic?

They could simply reply to the x most-signed petitions every y weeks.

This solution seems ideal. And if your petition gets screwed because it happens to be created at the same time as X other super popular ones you could always re-create it for the next cycle.

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#39

Post by ChuckMcM »

Wow, that is a pretty stunning change. Granted it wasn't another 5x boost, is the "within 30 days" requirement also new or has that always been the case?

The only thing that would have made this change remotely reasonable if it included language that the administration would, in the presence of a 100K sigs in 30 days petition, actually respond to the petitition. But I noticed there wasn't any more commitment above "official response" for which "no comment" is sufficient apparently.

Reminds me of the Steve Martin spoof on DUI tests: http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_183855...

Re: Why We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People

#40

Post by ebertx »

haroldp wrote: post #13

Has anyone seen a good answer to one of these petitions? Or a policy change?

Good questions. I think they only promise to acknowledge the petition, not necessarily do anything about it. If they're raising the minimum number to 1 million signatures, I wish they would promise a bit more, though I don't know what.
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