The petition that was started on October 20 on the “We the People” petition website has failed to get the minimum number of signatures required to trigger a response from the White House. Would be visitors trying to access the petition’s page on the website are greeted by a message that reads, “The petition you are trying to access has expired, because it failed to meet the signature threshold.”
The petition had until November 19 to get 100,000 signatures. It got close, lacking somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 signatures to hit the mark as of the last known count, but since it didn’t get all the way there it will not be getting a formal response from the White House.
Does this mean federal employees will not be getting an extra day of leave at Christmas? Not necessarily.
The petition was started to draw extra public attention to the issue, but the decision is ultimately made by the president, and this would have been the case regardless of the outcome of the petition. As we discussed in a recent article on the subject, when the day before or after Christmas falls on a Friday or a Monday, the historical data are fairly promising for giving federal workers the day off. FedSmith.com users said in a recent survey they believe the president will ultimately grant the extra day off, but the reality is nobody will know for sure until a formal announcement is made by the White House.
We will continue to keep our users up to date on any news that develops.
