Protesters display placards during a demonstration in front of the US Capitol in Washington
An online petition is calling on the US Department of Justice to arrest and try Republican leaders for their role in the 16-day shutdown of the federal government.
The petition posted this week on the progressive MoveOn.org calls on the Department of Justice to “arrest Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Speaker of the House John Boehner and other decision-making House Republican leaders for the crime of seditious conspiracy against the United States of America.”
The petition, which has garnered more than 29,000 signatures so far, argues that the House GOP leadership forced a government shutdown and threatened the US economy with a default in an attempt to extort the federal government into altering or abolishing President Barrack Obama’s healthcare law, widely known as Obamacare.
The US government went into a mode of partial shutdown on October 1, after congressional Republicans refused to pass a budget unless Obamacare was first defunded or delayed. More than 800,000 federal workers were subsequently furloughed, many federal health and safety inspections were suspended and the US economy was dealt a $24 billion blow.
Just one day after a bipartisan deal reopened the government and saved the US from an unprecedented default on its debt, several GOP leaders said they would renew their efforts to stop President Obama’s signature healthcare reform law.
On Wednesday, a short-term bill, which was brokered by Senate leaders, was approved by both chambers of US Congress just hours before Washington would have exhausted its ability to borrow money to pay its bills and sixteen days after most government operations were shuttered.
According to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll forty-four percent of Americans say the shutdown had hurt their families, including 19 percent who said it hurt a lot. Forty-six percent said it made no difference.