By Cliff Montgomery – Mar. 21st, 2013
The Huffington Post apparently has uncovered a little gem “from the depths of the White House’s ‘We the People’ petition website.” On Tuesday, some enterprising person or group began a petition they hope might pressure Congresspeople “to prominently display their financial backers and monetary support from various lobbies,” according to the Post.
The American Spark has decided to quote the entire petition below:
Require Congressmen & Senators to wear logos of their financial backers on their clothing, much like NASCAR drivers do.
Since most politicians’ campaigns are largely funded by wealthy companies and individuals, it would give voters a better sense of who the candidate they are voting for is actually representing if the company’s logo, or individual’s name, was prominently displayed upon the candidate’s clothing at all public appearances and campaign events.
Once elected, the candidate would be required to continue to wear those “sponsor’s” [sic] names during all official duties and visits to constituents.
The size of a logo or name would vary with the size of a donation. For example, a $1 million dollar contribution would warrant a patch of about 4″ by 8″ on the chest, while a free meal from a lobbyist would be represented by a quarter-sized button. Individual donations under $1000 are exempt.
A certain “J.S.” from Saint Louis, MO created the petition on Tuesday – it’s not immediately clear if “J.S.” refers to a person or to a group of individuals.
Signatures will be taken on the White House’s petitions website until April 18th, 2013. Interested parties need 100,000 people to sign the suggestion before anything may come of it. Perhaps no one is surprised that, as of this writing, over 10,000 people have already signed it.
To be fair, this petition service can only effect the Executive Branch and its activities – which means that it can’t actually influence Congressional lawmakers (i.e., the Legislative Branch).
But the apparent surge of interest in this little petition may reveal the anger of several average Americans, who understandably feel that many lawmakers care more about receiving massive ‘political donations’ from wealthy individuals than just about anything else.
Therefore this suggestion may still serve to publicly humiliate members of Congress – especially if it soon obtains 100,000 signatures.
Some petitions that may actually effect Executive Branch activity have obtained the necessary signatures in recent weeks.
The Huffington Post pointed out that “a call for the White House to prevent a controversial cyber-security bill from becoming law,” as well as “another protesting the suspension of the military’s popular tuition assistance program have surged past 100,000 signatures.”
It’s an important matter. As the White House admitted on its petitions website, “the right to petition your government is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Throughout our history, Americans have used petitions to organize around issues they care about from ending slavery, to guaranteeing women’s right to vote, to the civil rights movement.”
But in spite of this truth – some cynics might even say, precisely because of this fact – the White House has a few odd rules for the petitions that may hurt their chances for success.
For instance the White House recently has changed the number of signatures needed before a petition is considered official, from 25,000 to 100,000.
And a note on the petitions website declares that “it’s up to you to build support for petitions you care about and gather more signatures. A petition must get 150 signatures in order to be publicly searchable on WhiteHouse.gov.”
“Over time, we may need to adjust the petition signature thresholds, but we’ll always let you know what the thresholds are,” adds the note.
