Good thing I always keep a bag packed.
Phaedrus
********
Congress Called Unready for Terror
by Frank Davies
The Miami Herald
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Constitution must be amended to ensure the continuity of government if Congress is wiped out in a terrorist attack, a blue-ribbon bipartisan commission will recommend today.
In the event of another attack like Sept. 11, 2001, special elections to fill vacancies in the U.S. House would take too long under the current system -- averaging four months, depending on the state -- the panel found after a yearlong study.
Governors currently fill U.S. Senate vacancies, but without an amendment allowing a similar system to make temporary appointments to the House until elections can be held, the nation would have no functioning Congress in a time of great crisis.
''In the event of a disaster that debilitated Congress, the vacuum could be filled by unilateral executive action -- perhaps a benign form of martial law,'' the commission found. ``The country might get by, but at a terrible cost to our democratic institutions.''
The 15-member panel, chaired by longtime presidential advisor Lloyd Cutler and former Sen. Alan Simpson, includes two former House speakers -- Democrat Tom Foley and Republican Newt Gingrich -- and two former White House chiefs of staff, Ken Duberstein (under President Ronald Reagan) and Leon Panetta (under President Bill Clinton).
The doomsday scenario facing the Continuity of Government Commission seemed the stuff of a Tom Clancy thriller or narrow constitutional scholarship -- until the fall of 2001.
It is widely theorized that the fourth hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was headed for the U.S. Capitol. And the anthrax-by-mail attacks that shut down a Senate office building revealed another vulnerability.
A WARNING
''The issue is real now,'' said University of Miami President Donna Shalala, the former Health and Human Services secretary and commission member.
''Those attacks were a warning about how would we govern if there were some terrible tragedy,'' she said. ``The answer is we would have to go to the governors.''
After the Sept. 11 attacks, members of the House wrestled with the issue of their own mortality. Several members proposed plans for replacement, but many resisted any change in the tradition of the ''people's House,'' where representatives have always been elected.
Two of Washington's leading think tanks, the conservative American Enterprise Institute and more liberal Brookings Institution, focused attention on issues of continuity after a terrorist attack.
With the support of congressional leaders, scholars Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann helped create the commission, which will also look at the executive branch and judiciary. Co-chairs Cutler and Simpson sought members with a range of ideologies and government background.
TORTUOUS PROCESS
''These are pragmatic, experienced people, and after receiving this report, I would expect Congress to do something,'' Shalala said.
Commission members will hold a press conference today. They plan to meet with Vice President Dick Cheney and hold a reception on Capitol Hill.
Adopting a constitutional amendment is a tortuous process, requiring a two-thirds vote by both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of state legislatures.
After lengthy debate, commissioners agreed unanimously that an amendment was the only solution to allow quick reconstitution in time of crisis.
Similar amendments were proposed in the 1950s and 1960s under the threat of nuclear attack, but never advanced.
`DODGED BULLET'
''The problem of vacancies in the House is more or less the same as it was during the Cold War, but there is a much greater likelihood of an attack incapacitating large numbers of members,'' the commission report found, citing the threat of anthrax and smallpox.
The panel favors a concise amendment that would empower Congress to legislate several sensitive issues: how many vacancies would trigger emergency replacements, how is ''incapacitation'' determined and how would an incapacitated member be able to return to work.
Congress has not come to grips with such issues, ''and the further we get from the horror of the 2001 attacks and the dodged bullet, the tougher it gets,'' Ornstein said.
''But with the second anniversary of Sept. 11 looming, I hope this will nudge Congress to do something after so long,'' he added.
Phaedrus
********
Congress Called Unready for Terror
by Frank Davies
The Miami Herald
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Constitution must be amended to ensure the continuity of government if Congress is wiped out in a terrorist attack, a blue-ribbon bipartisan commission will recommend today.
In the event of another attack like Sept. 11, 2001, special elections to fill vacancies in the U.S. House would take too long under the current system -- averaging four months, depending on the state -- the panel found after a yearlong study.
Governors currently fill U.S. Senate vacancies, but without an amendment allowing a similar system to make temporary appointments to the House until elections can be held, the nation would have no functioning Congress in a time of great crisis.
''In the event of a disaster that debilitated Congress, the vacuum could be filled by unilateral executive action -- perhaps a benign form of martial law,'' the commission found. ``The country might get by, but at a terrible cost to our democratic institutions.''
The 15-member panel, chaired by longtime presidential advisor Lloyd Cutler and former Sen. Alan Simpson, includes two former House speakers -- Democrat Tom Foley and Republican Newt Gingrich -- and two former White House chiefs of staff, Ken Duberstein (under President Ronald Reagan) and Leon Panetta (under President Bill Clinton).
The doomsday scenario facing the Continuity of Government Commission seemed the stuff of a Tom Clancy thriller or narrow constitutional scholarship -- until the fall of 2001.
It is widely theorized that the fourth hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was headed for the U.S. Capitol. And the anthrax-by-mail attacks that shut down a Senate office building revealed another vulnerability.
A WARNING
''The issue is real now,'' said University of Miami President Donna Shalala, the former Health and Human Services secretary and commission member.
''Those attacks were a warning about how would we govern if there were some terrible tragedy,'' she said. ``The answer is we would have to go to the governors.''
After the Sept. 11 attacks, members of the House wrestled with the issue of their own mortality. Several members proposed plans for replacement, but many resisted any change in the tradition of the ''people's House,'' where representatives have always been elected.
Two of Washington's leading think tanks, the conservative American Enterprise Institute and more liberal Brookings Institution, focused attention on issues of continuity after a terrorist attack.
With the support of congressional leaders, scholars Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann helped create the commission, which will also look at the executive branch and judiciary. Co-chairs Cutler and Simpson sought members with a range of ideologies and government background.
TORTUOUS PROCESS
''These are pragmatic, experienced people, and after receiving this report, I would expect Congress to do something,'' Shalala said.
Commission members will hold a press conference today. They plan to meet with Vice President Dick Cheney and hold a reception on Capitol Hill.
Adopting a constitutional amendment is a tortuous process, requiring a two-thirds vote by both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of state legislatures.
After lengthy debate, commissioners agreed unanimously that an amendment was the only solution to allow quick reconstitution in time of crisis.
Similar amendments were proposed in the 1950s and 1960s under the threat of nuclear attack, but never advanced.
`DODGED BULLET'
''The problem of vacancies in the House is more or less the same as it was during the Cold War, but there is a much greater likelihood of an attack incapacitating large numbers of members,'' the commission report found, citing the threat of anthrax and smallpox.
The panel favors a concise amendment that would empower Congress to legislate several sensitive issues: how many vacancies would trigger emergency replacements, how is ''incapacitation'' determined and how would an incapacitated member be able to return to work.
Congress has not come to grips with such issues, ''and the further we get from the horror of the 2001 attacks and the dodged bullet, the tougher it gets,'' Ornstein said.
''But with the second anniversary of Sept. 11 looming, I hope this will nudge Congress to do something after so long,'' he added.
