Every September 17 is Constitution Day. And federal law already requires the head of
every federal agency to hand its employees educational materials about the Constitution
on that exact date — a duty Congress imposed in 2004 and has never repealed.

Almost nobody reads the Constitution aloud. 

We are asking the President to change that with a single sentence and a signature — no appropriation, no legislation,
no new office, no new employee - just an executive order and a public example.

READ THE CONSTITUTION THIS YEAR - Sept. 17th 2026

First, this year.  The President issues a Constitution Week proclamation each September.
Last year's — "Constitution Week, 2025," Proclamation 10971 — contained exactly one call
to action:  "I call on all teachers, school administrators, and State and local leaders to
educate America's pupils on the rights and responsibilities of citizenship under our
constitutional order."  Teachers were asked to teach. State and local leaders were asked
to lead.  The federal agency heads — the only officials in the country who carry a
Constitution Day duty written into federal law — were not asked for anything at all.  We
ask that the White House set an example by videotaping POTUS and the VP Vance reading the Constitution aloud with the West wing staff, and that this year's proclamation call on the head of each executive department and agency to hold a reading aloud of the Constitution on September 17.   Each cabinet secretary should convene his lieutenants to follow the White House's example, and host a reading.  A proclamation can be amended up to the hour it is issued.  This costs nothing and needs no lead time.

READ THE CONSTITUTION EVERY YEAR THEREAFTER 

Second, every year after.  Issue the executive order — "Restoring the Public Reading of
the Founding Documents" — so the reading does not depend on who is drafting next year's
proclamation.  The order does this:

- Each executive department and agency holds one reading aloud of the Constitution and its
  amendments — the whole text, not an excerpt — on September 17, or on the last business
  day before it if the agency is closed that day.
- The agency head decides the manner, the setting, and how employees take part — one
  reading, several by location, or a joint reading with another agency.
- Readings on Independence Day and on Juneteenth (or the working days prior) are encouraged, at each agency head's  discretion.
- No funds beyond those already appropriated. No facility. No new personnel. Readings are
  scheduled so they do not interfere with the agency's work.

The cheapest way to say yes is cheaper still: the Office of Personnel Management already
issues Constitution Day guidance and materials to executive-branch agencies every year.
Add the reading to that guidance and the order half-implements itself.

WHY NOW: We are in the 250th year of American independence. Executive Order 14189
established the White House Task Force on Celebrating America's 250th Birthday, chaired
by the President and vice-chaired by the Vice President, running through the end of 2026.
A recurring reading of the founding documents is the least expensive and most durable
thing the semiquincentennial could leave behind. Every parade ends. A standing order does
not.

On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote to his wife that the anniversary of American
independence "​ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by Solemn Acts of
Devotion to God Almighty" — and then, in his very next sentence, that it "ought to be
Solemnized with Pomp and Parade with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and
Illuminations." America has kept his second sentence for two hundred and fifty
years.  This petition asks the President to recover his first.

The model executive order is written and released into the public domain under CC0. It
is free to issue, amend, rename, or discard, and no permission is needed and no credit
owed:  github.com/jaredscribe/public-readings-of-the-founding-documents-act

CONGRESS DOES NOT HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE PRESIDENT

Congress can act here without the President, and in one respect it already has: five times since 2011 the House has voted itself permission to read the Constitution aloud on its own floor — never as a standing rule, always as a one-time authorization with an expiration date written inside the sentence, and the Congress now sitting did not grant it at all. A standing resolution would make the practice permanent and move it to the day that bears the document's name, and the House rule needs no presidential signature, no action by the Senate, and no committee fight over a statute.  The Senate could also act unilaterally by passing its own Chamber rule.  If they were to co-operate, we ask both chambers to pass the Public Readings of the Founding Documents Act, which would turn the schools' annual handout into an actual reading and carry Constitution Day into public libraries — the proposed legislation is drafted and released on the same public domain terms, waiting for a member willing to sponsor and advance it.

This petition belongs to no party and asks for no partisan advantage. The reading is of
the text itself, without commentary. The 2004 duty has sat on the books through four
administrations. No President has yet asked that the document be read aloud. This one
can.

A microphone, willing readers, and an hour. The oldest codified
national constitution, read aloud once a year by the government it created.

— declareindependence.net