What Happens If Congress Gets Blown Up? (with John Fortier)

The topic of this episode is, “What Happens If Congress Gets Blown Up?”On a sunny Tuesday morning 25 years ago, Congress reconvened. Speaker Dennis Hastert called the House of Representatives to order, and then the Illinois Republican recognized Representative Earl Blumenauer. The bow-tie-wearing Democrat from Oregon then began delivering a speech criticizing the marketing of tobacco.He was the first of three members who were queued up to give speeches that morning. Only a handful of representatives were in the chamber. Most lawmakers were in their personal offices preparing for a full day of votes, hearings, and meetings, which would begin at 10:00 AM. Much the same was happening across the Capitol, where senators and their staff were preparing to start the day’s business.But by 9:45 AM, legislators were fleeing the Capitol, and Hastert, the leaders of the Senate, and other top legislative branch officials were being whisked away to an undisclosed location in Virginia by the Capitol Police and their personal security details. Planes had struck and set aflame the two World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.United Airlines Flight 93 out of Newark, New Jersey, with enough fuel to carry it to San Francisco, had also been hijacked, and it was heading toward Washington, DC, and possibly the US Capitol. Were it not for the brave passengers of Flight 93 who stormed the cockpit and brought the plane down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the federal government could have been crippled for months.A quarter of a century has passed since that terrible day, September 11, 2001. Yet, unfortunately, it appears that Congress still is not fully prepared to recover and to resume its duties should a large number of its members be killed or disabled. This is a problem, and it is a problem that should have been solved long ago, because the legislative branch is the heart of our federal government, and our system will not work unless we have a fully functioning Congress.To discuss this issue, I have with me today my colleague, John Fortier. He is a senior fellow here at the American Enterprise Institute, the author of many books, and, critically, he served on two commissions studying the continuity of Congress.Read the full transcript here.