Blog - An American Question Time?

President Obama’s Q&A session last week with House Republicans in Baltimore became a surprise sensation in the political world and now a diverse coalition of political, business and media figures are asking for more.

As strange as it seems, having the president face questions from lawmakers on live television is an unprecedented thing in this country. So much of our political discourse either happens behind closed doors or in tightly controlled media environments. The openness of the Baltimore event, in contrast, felt like a breath of fresh air.

People of all political stripes, such as conservative godfather Grover Norquist and The Nation magazine’s Katrina vanden Heuvel, are now calling for regular “question time” events where the president would take questions from the House and Senate caucuses in both parties. “Question time” refers to the British practice in which the prime minister regularly appears before Parliament to answer questions.

If this is something you’d like to encourage, sign the petition at demandquestiontime.com.

It should also be noted that OpenCongress.org Director David Moore and Sunlight Foundation Director Esther Dyson are both signatories to the petition.