What would happen if a bomb wiped out the federal government? By Michelle Cottle<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tCall him the Cassandra of Capitol Hill. For nearly two years Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has been running around Washington auguring doom and calling on lawmakers to ponder a horrific question: What would have happened if United Flight 93, brought down in the fields of southwestern Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001, had departed Newark on time? <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t\u00a0\u00bbWe know that United 93 crashed in Pennsylvania only because it left forty minutes late,\u00a0\u00bb Ornstein says; otherwise its passengers would not have learned that their hijackers were on a suicide mission, and so would have had little incentive to risk storming the cockpit. Rather than roaring to earth near the town of Shanksville, Flight 93 would have continued south to Washington, where the terrorists, it is now believed, intended to guide their stolen missile into the dome of the Capitol. \u00a0\u00bbHundreds of people could have been killed,\u00a0\u00bb Ornstein says. Hundreds of others could have been gravely injured. \u00a0\u00bbThe Capitol dome is cast iron, so if the plane had hit it the way those planes hit the Trade Center, you would have had molten iron raining down on the heads of hundreds or thousands of people.\u00a0\u00bb In considering the potential carnage, Ornstein says, it occurred to him, \u00a0\u00bbWait a minutewhat does that mean for a quorum?\u00a0\u00bb The Constitution dictates that House members may be replaced only through special elections, which take months to organize. \u00a0\u00bbSo at the worst possible time,\u00a0\u00bb he says, \u00a0\u00bbthere’s no Congress\u00a0\u00bbwhich means no one with the authority to declare war, appropriate money, or make laws. \u00a0\u00bbWhat you’re doing is condoning for what would be a sizable period of time a form of martial law. And when people say, ‘Well, what’s so bad about that?’ I say, ‘Two words: John Ashcroft.\u00a0\u00bb’<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThanks to the passengers of Flight 93 (and the inefficiency of the airlines), Congress escaped catastrophe on 9\/11. But next time, Ornstein says (and he is certain there will be a next time), it may not be so lucky: \u00a0\u00bbAs you think about the history of al Qaeda, they go after a target and if they don’t get it, they’ll come back in a couple of years.\u00a0\u00bb Ornstein’s mission is to prod lawmakers into writing, in effect, a collective will that would prepare the federal government to handle mass casualties within its ranks. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThrough endless phoning, lobbying, and writing on the subject, Ornstein has recruited enough supporters to create a blue-ribbon commission. Launched last fall, the commission is co-chaired by the former senator Alan Simpson and the former White House counsel Lloyd Cutler, and includes such political luminaries as the former congressmen Newt Gingrich and Thomas Foley. Operating under the deceptively soothing name Continuity of Government Commission, these political insiders and constitutional scholars spend their time debating macabre questions: Precisely how many House members must die to trigger a state of emergency? What constitutes a quorum if fifty senators survive a sarin attack but twenty of them are temporarily incapacitated? Worst case: who assumes the presidency if a deranged Islamist sneaks a nuclear suitcase bomb into an inaugural (Ornstein’s doomsday scenario of choice), vaporizing not only the President and the Vice President but also most of the Cabinet, the Supreme Court, and Congress? <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe commission’s first report, released this spring, recommended ways to cope with the sudden decimation of Congress. A second report will tackle casualties in the executive and judiciary branches. Although differences among the commissioners abound, all agree that the current system threatens to leave the nation rudderless in its most vulnerable hour. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tIn reviewing existing law, the commission has outlined some of the more outrageous scenarios that could come to pass. For instance, the Constitution says that the House may conduct official business only when a quorum is presentcurrently at least 218 of the 435 members. Since the Civil War, however, the House parliamentarian has interpreted a quorum as a majority of members \u00a0\u00bbelected, sworn, and living,\u00a0\u00bb in Ornstein’s words. Ornstein finds this interpretation not only constitutionally dubious but also, in practical terms, absurd. \u00a0\u00bbYou could end up with, say, eight members being alivefive of them constituting a quorum,\u00a0\u00bb he says. Imagine a three-person quorum consisting of the ultraconservatives Tom DeLay, Ernest Istook, and Dan Burtonor of the leftists Maxine Waters, Charles Rangel, and Nancy Pelosi. How legitimate would the country consider such a body? Even more frightening, Ornstein adds, this abbreviated quorum could elect a new speaker of the House, who would then jump up the line of succession for the Oval Office. As set by the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (which Ornstein calls \u00a0\u00bban abomination\u00a0\u00bb), the line now goes from the Vice President to the speaker of the House to the Senate president pro tempore (who until two years ago was the terrifyingly dotty Strom Thurmond) and then down through the Cabinet, according to the order in which the offices were created. \u00a0\u00bbYou have a provision in this law,\u00a0\u00bb Ornstein says, \u00a0\u00bbwhich is just mind-bogglingthat if you go down to the Cabinet level to fill the presidency, the speaker can at any subsequent point bump that person and assume the office.\u00a0\u00bb In other words, if a catastrophe made Secretary of State Colin Powell acting President, a quorum of Burton, Istook, and DeLay could elect DeLay the new speaker, and he could elbow President Powell right out of office. Not scared yet? Assuming that the Supreme Court had also been destroyed in the blast, President DeLay would then be in a position to fill all those vacancies. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tIn recommending a new strategy, most of the commissioners settled on a short, simple constitutional amendment granting Congress the authority to establish guidelines for selecting temporary members in an emergency. (Making the amendment itself more detailed, Ornstein says, would increase the risk of \u00a0\u00bbunintended consequences.\u00a0\u00bb) Congress could fashion whatever system it chose, but Ornsteinamong othersfavors having the nation’s governors take the lead in selecting replacements. Following an attack each governor would determine whether a majority of his or her state’s congressional delegation was \u00a0\u00bbdead, missing, or out of service.\u00a0\u00bb If so, the governor would sign a proclamation to that effect; if a majority of governors signed such proclamations, each governor would make temporary appointments. As for whom the individual governors would appoint, Ornstein favors a provision like the one added to Delaware’s constitution during the Cold War, whereby each elected official, before being sworn in, compiles a short list of possible replacements. In an emergency governors would pick from these lists. \u00a0\u00bbSo you still have gubernatorial discretion,\u00a0\u00bb Ornstein reasons, \u00a0\u00bbbut you make sure it’s somebody that basically fits within the guidelines set by the former incumbent.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe commission just recently turned its attention to the issue of presidential succession, but Ornstein long ago began a dialogue with the White House about what he regards as a necessary overhaul. \u00a0\u00bbJust making sure one Cabinet schnook is kept away from the State of the Union is not adequate anymore,\u00a0\u00bb he says. \u00a0\u00bbAnd you’ve got all kinds of people in the line of succession who should not be. Look at this Cabinetor look at the last Cabinet. Or any Cabinet where the President makes choices based on ethnic considerations or geographical considerations or ideological considerations.\u00a0\u00bb What’s more, the Constitution stipulates that the line of succession should go from the Vice President \u00a0\u00bbto such other Officerscapital Oas Congress will designate,\u00a0\u00bb he says. \u00a0\u00bb’Officer’ means an executive-branch officer. And the Constitution makes it clear that a member of Congress\u00a0\u00bbsuch as the speaker of the House and the president pro tem of the Senate\u00a0\u00bbcan’t be an executive-branch officer.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tBut despite the commission’s labors, and Ornstein’s relentless lobbying, Congress seems disinclined to take up the cause. In February of last year a House judiciary subcommittee held hearings on the subject. \u00a0\u00bbIt was a perfectly good hearing,\u00a0\u00bb Ornstein told me. \u00a0\u00bbBut it became clear to me during and afterward that Steve Chabot, who’s the chairman of the subcommittee, really had no intention of doing more than holding a hearing … And I think that was probably pretty much the direction he got from the speaker and the chairman of the committee.\u00a0\u00bb And although amendments dealing with congressional continuity have been introduced in both the House and the Senate, the amendments appear unlikely to move toward a vote anytime soon. \u00a0\u00bbFor the life of me,\u00a0\u00bb Ornstein says, \u00a0\u00bbI can’t understand how smart people in positions of authority and those who care about their own institutions can look at this and not say it is irresponsible for us not to take some steps to protect the country.\u00a0\u00bb The foot-dragging appears to have several causes. \u00a0\u00bbThere is some resistance to the notion of a constitutional amendment,\u00a0\u00bb Ornstein says, \u00a0\u00bbalthough I have to tell you that a lot of that resistance comes from people who support amendments on abortion and flag-burning and the like.\u00a0\u00bb Other members cling tightly to the traditional House, a body composed entirely of elected membersdistinguishing it from the Senate, to which governors may appoint replacements. Still others think in personal terms. \u00a0\u00bbThey think of their governors replacing them and say, ‘Well, I’m not going to let him replace me,\u00a0\u00bb’ Ornstein says. He can understand, for example, the unease of New York Democrats at the idea of having George Pataki replace them. \u00a0\u00bbBut you know, what you have to say to these people is, ‘You’ll be dead. Consider the alternatives.\u00a0\u00bb’ <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tTherein lies perhaps the biggest problem. Unsurprisingly, most lawmakers are less than eager to contemplate their own violent demise. \u00a0\u00bbTo the degree that they’ve been willing to grapple with the dangers,\u00a0\u00bb Ornstein says, \u00a0\u00bbtheir attitude is that what you have to prepare for is to make sure you can evacuate in the case of an emergency. They don’t even think that the worst-case scenario is that they’re all dead.\u00a0\u00bb Ornstein acknowledges that there’s something a bit creepy about discussing the repercussions of mass slaughter in the chilly, bloodless terms of constitutional law, but he maintains that the issue is too important to ignore. \u00a0\u00bbThink of a couple with small children,\u00a0\u00bb he says. \u00a0\u00bbThey go off together on some dangerous trip, without any resolution of custody issues. They basically say, ‘Aw, everybody will sort it outeven though I’ve got a sister who will take it to court because she doesn’t like my in-laws. It’ll work out.’ We would look at those people and say, ‘How irresponsible can you get? That’s really dumb.\u00a0\u00bb’ <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tMichelle Cottle is a senior editor of The New Republic.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit \u00eatre lu avec la mention classique \u00e0 l’esprit, Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only..]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Preparing for the unthinkable<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\tBush’s shadow government is a start, but only a start, By Norman Ornstein<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tThe overblown flap over whether President Bush notified congressional leaders that he had created a \u00a0\u00bbshadow\u00a0\u00bb government assembled in a secret location outside the capital distracted attention away from the real issue: how seriously the White House takes a terrorist threat on Washington. The news reports suggest that U.S. intelligence especially fears the ossibility that the remaining al Qaeda network might obtain a \u00a0\u00bbsuitcase\u00a0\u00bb nuclear weapon that could destroy a wide swath of official Washington.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe shadow-government initiative is a prudent one. But if the Bush plan to send 100 or so senior civil servants outside the capital would provide some assurance of continuity in government in the event of a disaster, it is no panacea. The prospect of the country governed during its worst moment by a group of unelected bureaucrats, none officers of government under our Constitution, is an unsettling one. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe Bush move should be only the first step in a wholesale rethinking of issues of succession and the continuity of governance in an era of terrorism. Now that the president has acted, Congress needs to step up to the plate in two additional important areas: ensuring the continuity of Congress in the event of a catastrophic attack on Washington, and revamping the Presidential Succession Act to ensure the continuity of presidential leadership.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tIn both areas, we have critical lapses in our Constitution and laws. Start with Congress. If United flight 93 had left on time on Sept. 11 instead of 41 minutes late, its brave passengers might not have known they were headed for a suicide mission. The plane was headed for Washington, and might well have crashed into the Capitol at around the same time as another plane hit the Pentagon–just before 10 a.m., with a House chamber and the Capitol building itself filled with members and staff. A plane crash followed by jet fuel explosion might well have killed 200 or more members of Congress and sent hundreds more to burn units in hospitals. That would have meant no Congress for weeks or months during a time when Congress authorized the use of force to respond to the attacks, appropriated vast sums of money for disaster relief and military buildup, beefed up aviation security, and took numerous other key steps during the crisis.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tWhy no Congress? The Constitution requires a quorum of half the members of each house of Congress to do official business. This requirement has been interpreted since the Civil War to mean half the living membership. Theoretically, if 430 members of the House were killed in an attack, three of the five remaining members could constitute a quorum and act representing a tiny slice of the country, and making decisions up to and including a declaration of war. But if hundreds of members were alive but incapacitated, there would be no quorum, and no Congress.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe problem is a limited one in the Senate, where the Constitution allows states to make appointments when vacancies occur. All House vacancies have to be filled by election and special elections to the House typically take anywhere between three and six months. But the current process, whether via appointment to the Senate or election to the House, does not contemplate widespread disability. In the age of terror, with anthrax or smallpox in the arsenal of attack, disability may be a greater danger than death.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tWhat is needed is a narrowly targeted constitutional amendment allowing when large numbers of members are killed, missing or disabled for temporary appointments by governors or state legislatures to Congress to replenish the body until members are able to return to service, or until special elections can be held to fill seats vacated by deceased lawmakers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tDuring the Cold War, amendments with this intent passed the Senate several times, but were never taken up by the House. Rep. Brian Baird (D., Wash.) has introduced an amendment in this Congress. It needs debate and refinement, which should be well under way. But with the exception of one hearing, Congress has so far shown no great interest in pursuing the issue, preferring denial of the problem instead.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tAt the same time, Congress should reconsider presidential succession. The Constitution, supplemented by the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, sets a line of succession in place if the president is killed, from the vice president to the speaker of the House, the president pro tempore of the Senate, on through the cabinet in order of the creation of the posts (starting with the secretary of state).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tWe should go back to square one on the act itself. One question is whether it is appropriate for members of Congress to be in the line of succession for the head of the executive branch including those from the opposite party of the president. A second is whether it is a good idea to include in the line the president pro tempore of the Senate, traditionally the most senior (and often oldest) member of the majority party. A third is whether the line should extend through the entire cabinet, potentially leaving the secretary of education or of veterans affairs to take over the reins of power during a monumental crisis.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\t*** <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe most urgent question now is how to expand the line of succession to include some figures from outside Washington. When the president delivers his State of the Union message, one member of his cabinet is always designated to be away from the House chamber at an undisclosed location–so that if the Capitol takes a direct hit, with the president, vice resident, speaker, president pro tem and the cabinet all in the House chamber, one figure in the line of succession will be alive.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tBut we must now contemplate the possibility of a surprise attack taking out all of Washington, leaving nobody in line for the presidency and a situation of chaos, with dozens perhaps jumping up to say \u00a0\u00bbI’m in charge here.\u00a0\u00bb The best option is to include governors in the line.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThe Constitution requires those in line of succession to the presidency to be officers of the United States. Attorney Miller Baker has suggested allowing the president to deputize several governors as heads of their state militias, making them officers, and allowing him some say in the succession to his own office.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tThere may be other, and better ideas. But Congress needs to take the president’s lead and act quickly to consider them, protecting our institutions, our democracy and all of us from the worst consequences of a worst case scenario that is now all too real.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\t[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit \u00eatre lu avec la mention classique \u00e0 l’esprit, Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only..]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Comment sauver Washington de l’apocalypse Il faut mesurer l’intensit\u00e9 de certaines r\u00e9flexions aux USA, des r\u00e9flexions qui ne sont rien d’autre que des paniques ou des hyst\u00e9ries, ou les deux \u00e0 peine polic\u00e9es. Un homme, qui appartient \u00e9videmment \u00e0 la mouvance que l’on peut qualifier d’int\u00e9griste aux \u00c9tats-Unis (aussi bien les n\u00e9o-conservateurs, int\u00e9gristes de l’expansionnisme… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4012,4013,3380,4015,4014,4016,4011],"class_list":["post-65624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes-de-lectures","tag-apocalypse","tag-continuity","tag-folamour","tag-governement","tag-of","tag-ornstein","tag-orntein"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}