Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., urged the House Administration Committee to endorse his bill authorizing a study of how members of Congress could communicate and vote if they are dispersed and can't return.
Langevin has suggested that lawmakers use an Internet- and satellite-based system to communicate their locations and let colleagues know they are not incapacitated. They could also use the system to monitor the government's response to the disaster.
Congress should also look at establishing alternate meeting locations, a means of deliberating and a way for the general public to follow its actions and ensure a democratic process is being followed, he said.
"Many of our colleagues do not understand just how necessary" an emergency plan is, Langevin told the committee.
Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., said he would only back a very narrow study because a broader one would create too much pressure for a "virtual Congress."
He argued that technology could undermine "the key component upon which Congress is based and functions -- the personal, face-to-face interactions between and among its members as they seek to deliberate, debate and reach consensus on any number of issues."
Any elimination of that quality would lead to "the questioning of the very relevance of the institution," Dreier said.
Congress is a long way from any decisions on emergency planning. In addition to Langevin's bill, there are proposals for commissions and constitutional amendments to deal with disaster issues, including questions about how to proceed if the president or large numbers of lawmakers are killed or incapacitated.
Congress has historically resisted allowing members to communicate or vote from remote locations, such as in the event of family illness, because doing so would lead to an avalanche of requests for all sorts of circumstances, Dreier said.
Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said Congress should decide on alternate meeting places in the event the Capitol is destroyed, and members should have communications equipment to get in touch shortly after an attack.
But he said an "e-Congress" of members voting and conducting business via e-mail, web cast or telephone from remote locations would eliminate an essential quality of representation: interacting with other members to reconcile points of view from around the country.
"I know of no major piece of legislation that could -- or should -- have been passed without such personal contact," Ornstein said.
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