The Doomsday Bill: Congress After September 11

On July 30, 2005, Congress approved a plan that would quickly replace members of the House in the event that a large portion of them may die in an attack or disaster of any kind. This Bill, called the Doomsday Bill, would require special elections within 49 days if more than 100 of the House’s 435 members were killed. Constitutional amendments in the US require a two-thirds majority in both chambers of the Congress and ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.

Since September 11, 2001, there have been multiple evacuations of the Capitol due to incidents large enough to cause alarm. New procedures such as this Doomsday Bill are said by Congress to leave too much power in the hands of the president during a national emergency. So why do we have a president if he’s not apt to handle such situations?

Representative Brian Baird, one of few lawmakers active on the issue commented that “Changing what constitutes a quorum in this way would allow less than a dozen lawmakers to declare war on another nation.”

Normally, 218 lawmakers out of the 435 members are needed to declare war, pass laws and validly conduct the people’s business. But under the new rule a majority is no longer needed when circumstances arise, including natural disaster, attack, contagion or terrorist attacks rendering representatives incapable of attending House proceedings.

Do you think it is a good idea to put declarations of war and vital decisions in the hands of possibly 10 or less people if the situation would ever arise? What happens during the time these “special elections” are occurring? What will be the qualifications for those to be in the running? This Doomsday Bill was said to have happened under a shroud of congressional darkness, personally I believe that we all should have had knowledge of this and had a chance to speak our thoughts on something as serious as something entitled “The Doomsday Bill”. Was there another motive for this to be created other than the September 11th attacks? Is there something extremely important that is happening that the government is withholding information from the people?

It seems as though the President and Vice President are just spokespersons for Congress. We don’t need spokespersons, in times of disaster, attack, or realization that certain laws need passing, we should all pull together as a country and help the victims, fix what was destroyed, rebuild lives, not create a war to get even and destroy other peoples lives. This Bill, when the time comes for it to be put to use, will cause controversy. In my opinion we should not entrust our lives to a few selected people. Even with a full government we can’t set correct priorities and clean up after disasters. Louisiana is prone to hurricanes and after Katrina the levy needed rebuilt, we dumped tons of money into helping to rebuild Iraq, and now its’ hurricane season again and the levy isn’t ready to be strong enough to withstand another hurricane. I’m not against helping Iraq, but think about our homeland, think about the possibility of lives being lost here as well. Life is too precious to be so quick to say war. Stand tall to our beliefs; because America will have to fight for our own lives once this Bill comes to stand.