White House Answers Online Petitions, Ducks Tax-Return Issue
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UPDATE: February 26, 2018: After a year of silence, the White House petition website "We The People" is back online, and the Trump administration is starting to address the backlog of petitions signed by the American people. Mostly.
The White House is ducking the high-profile petition - signed by more than 1.1 Americans - calling on President Donald Trump to release his tax returns. The administration said the question "is not within the scope" of the site as it "does not address an action or policy of the Federal Government."
An August 2017 petition asked that "AntiFa" - a collection of self-proclaimed anti-fascist activists - be declared a terrorist organization. The White House responded that the president opposes violence, but federal law provides no "mechanism for formally designating domestic terrorist organizations."
Responses to the other petitions that reached the 100,000-signature threshold required for an official reply can be found here.
Read Countable's earlier coverage of this story below.
UPDATE February 1, 2018: The Washington Post reports that the White House petition website, "We The People" is back up online. Despite a promise that the new site would be improved, saving taxpayers $1 million annually, the only change seems to be a note about promising prompt response:
“100,000 Signatures in 30 Days. Get an official update from the White House within 60 days.”
Several petitions previously featured on the site critical of President Trump or his policies are still there and collecting signatures.
The original Countable story discussing the disabling of the site in December is below.
What’s the story?
The White House is temporarily removing the "We The People" petition tool after 11 months of silence.
The site was set up by the Obama administration in 2011 and promised a response to all petitions drawing more than 100,000 signatures.
Why does it matter?
The Trump administration hasn’t responded to any of the 17 petitions that have met the signature threshold since the President took office. Some of these include petitions calling for President Donald Trump to release his tax returns, asking for the anti-fascist group Antifa to be recognized as a terrorist organization, and requesting that liberal financier George Soros be declared a terrorist.
The White House said the new site, set to launch by the end of January, will save taxpayers over $1 million dollars a year. And a note posted on Petitions.WhiteHouse.Gov promised:
"All existing petitions and associated signatures have been preserved and will be available when the site is relaunched. Following the site's relaunch, petitions that have reached the required number of signatures will begin receiving responses."
What do you think?
Have you used We The People? Do you support revamping the site to save taxpayers money? Should Congress pass a law requiring the White House to respond to petitions with a certain number of signatures? Hit Take Action and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.
—Josh Herman, Asha Sanaker
(Photo Credit: Petitions.Whitehouse.gov)
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