Panel wants Constitution amended in case of attacked

San Jose Mercury News ^ | Tuesday, June 03, 2003 | FRANK DAVIES - Knight Ridder Newspapers

[Budge]

NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!!

[yooper]

"Do they really think they are that freakin important and they would even be effective in a crisis situation?"

You nailed it. This is about them and how important they think they are. In this scenario, which counts them as dead, they still want to dictate who will be in their seats following their deaths. I certainly don't want four months to elapse prior to filling the seats of the dead, but there has to be a better solution than this.

Maybe give the seats of the victim to the first runner up in the last prior primary election, so that the victorious party still retains the seat?

In any event, I'm not worried about this scenario.

[dpa5923]

Governors currently fill U.S. Senate vacancies, but without an amendment allowing similar temporary appointments to the House until elections could be held, the nation could have no functioning Congress

I fail to see the problem.

[Budge]

Bump!!

[envision]

Agreed, don't *^#! with the Constitution.

If terrorists wipe out a large portion of the House and Senate these bodies might be shut down for 4 months. And this is supposed to be ... a problem? The government and congress mostly devotes its efforts to abusing citizen's liberties anyway. The four months would be a vacation from abuse. Where is the problem?

The "solution" to the problem, proposed by the "bipartisan" comittee is to amend the constitution.

So it is to be current and past practioners of govt, who mainly acted to abuse citizen's liberties by enacting larger and larger govt, to whom we are to entrust amending the constitution to "fix" a "problem" they have identified with our system of govt.

This is like a comittee of foxes declaring there is a serious flaw in the chicken coop security system for which they propose another larger committee of foxes be called to work out recommended specific repairs to submit for Farmer Jones's approval. Farmer Jones had better notice it's a committee of foxes making recommendations, no matter how "sensible" their recommendations might be.

[A Navy Vet]

The less time our "representatives" are in D.C. the happier I am. If we need a Constitutional amendment it would be one to limit the time they spend in Washington dreaming up more ways to abridge my rights. As long as there is a functioning executive branch to wage a war, I say why be so quick to replace these clowns?

[Becki]

We routinely went 4 months without a functioning government in Washington. They would shut down and go home in the summer months.

That is, until the 50's when we began to pay them for being there. Then they found a reason to stay all year.

Becki

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

OK ill bite so lets make sure they are only in session 4 months out of the year ! the rest of the time they have to hold a job with us working class stiffs!

Oh and it needs to be an UNPAID status working for the government just the way it used to be. No special interest hooligans, theives and liars NO blood sucking lawyers No Medicle , dental, or eye coverage being so many in the country are doing without it [supposedly] they dont need it either !

No EX KKK , ACLU ,NAACP ,NAAWP or any other EX race based bigoted instituion or Union Leader.

Oh theres more im just to P^^^^^ to go on and on!

[c-b 1]

Globalist, wanna be Tyrants, one, and all.

[T. P. Pole]

If they are worried about the House of Representatives, then I have a suggestion. Let's go back to what is suggested in the Constitution, and toss out that law from 1911 that froze the size of the house.

Let's see - Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3:
"The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand"

US polpuation per Census 2000 = 281,421,906.
Divided by 30,000.

= 9,380.

Since you could never get nine thousand representatives in the same place at the same time, they would probably work from an office (or their home) in their district. They would actually live in their district. And, no airplane would take out even an majority of them.

Of course, there would need to be some way of voting remotely, but these days that would not be a problem.

What do you all think?

[Maximum Leader]

David Brinkley's theory was that once they air-conditioned the Capitol, congressmen lost any incentive to take the summer off.

[ChefKeith]

bttt for later read

[Becki]

David Brinkley's theory was that once they air-conditioned the Capitol, congressmen lost any incentive to take the summer off.

LOL!!! That, too!!

Maybe we should send PJComix' energy conservationists to DC!!

Becki

[lowbridge]

The Constitution must be amended to ensure the continuity of government in case Congress is wiped out by a terrorist attack, a blue-ribbon bipartisan commission will recommend Wednesday.

But what if a blue-ribbon bipartisan commission is wiped out by a terrorist attack? Then what will we do?

God help us all if that happens!

[DPB101]

A modest proposal:

Create a virtual congress. Nobody goes to DC. They must remain in their districts their entire term. Maxine Waters and Tom Daschle might have an entirely different view if they spent their time in South Central LA and SD rather than Georgetown.

The less elected officials get to know either other, the better off we are. Lobbyists, Federal bureaucrats, the media and elected officials all living and playing in close proximity to each other is a lethal mix.

[SwankyC]

As long as we have a leader in place, pres or vice pres, we'll be just fine.

Think about having a Clinton in office and say that again.

[MeekOneGOP]

[RichInOC]

Not necessary. Governors appoint replacement Senators. The state legislatures (who under Article I, Section 4 have jurisdiction over time, place and manner of electing federal legislators) figure out how to speed up from the current system for that particular special election, and then they get it done. If they're not in session, the governor calls them back to do it. They're not all going to get whacked at the same time, are they?

[philman_36]

Hegelian Dialect in motion.