A direct line to the White House on the issues and concerns that matter most

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

-The First Amendment, United States Constitution

We The People is Live!

Welcome to We the People on WhiteHouse.gov. This tool provides you with a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.

"When I ran for this office, I pledged to make government more open and accountable to its citizens. That’s what the new We the People feature on WhiteHouse.gov is all about – giving Americans a direct line to the White House on the issues and concerns that matter most to them.”

– President Barack Obama

The right to petition your government is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. We the People provides a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. We created We the People because we want to hear from you. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.

HERE'S HOW IT WORKS:

The idea of petitioning the White House or the government isn’t new, but this online platform is. Since the White House has never featured anything like this, we expect to make some adjustments to improve the platform based on how people use the system and your feedback.

For example, right now, the threshold for a petition is 5,000 petition signatures in 30 days. If a large number of petitions are reaching that threshold, it may increase so that the workload is manageable and so that we can respond in a timely fashion.

As we make adjustments to how the system works, we’ll keep you posted on those changes using the White House blog, and you can see all blog posts related to We the People. And if you have any specific suggestions to improve We the People please let us know.

We The People: Your Voice in Our Government