Politics in America is a funny thing, because as much as we claim we want our voices to be heard, attempts to expand the reach of voters’ voices seems to result in things like petitions to deport Justin Bieber or separate Williamsburg and East Williamsburg. Which is already a thing. But hey, we’re in a new touchy feely era of New York politics, so progressive macher Brad Lander, city council representative for Park Slope, Cobble Hill and Gowanus, has agreed to join a new website that lets any brain-dead slob with an internet connection lob a question his way and get the rest of the internet riled up about it.
The website, AskThem.io, is modeled after We The People according to Capital New York. But instead of limiting the questions to the President of the United States, where they can usually be ignored, AskThem works on a much more local basis, which means that the cranks asking questions have much more power if their questions gain some steam. Finally, you’ve got a way to harass your local elected officials without resorting to making a phone call.
There’s no word yet on what the threshold is to require a question be answered (it’s 100,000 signatures on a We the People petition), but any politician signed up on AskThem is required to answer one or two questions per month. The service launches on February 10, so get your army of crazies together to start pushing your demand for funding to track down the elusive Gowanus canal monster and maybe you can help prove, for the umptheenth time, that democracy just doesn’t work.