Congress considers scenarios for what to do if calamity strikes

Congress considers scenarios¹ for what to do if calamity² strikes

Transcript³

Lawmakers are trying to answer how Congress could function if a catastrophe⁴ incapacitated members. A 2017 shooting at a GOP baseball practice, the pandemic and Jan. 6 have made the issue more urgent.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

There are lots of disaster contingencies⁵ in Washington. The president has a line of succession. There are designated escape routes, underground bunkers and preparedness experts at the ready. But what would happen in Congress if things went terribly wrong? A group of lawmakers is trying to think through some scenarios. Some of them might seem wild. But they present some very real and very tricky⁶ questions. NPR congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell has more.

KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE⁷: What if all the electricity goes out, air traffic is down and Washington grinds to a halt? What if a portion of the country is unable to have an election?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ED PERLMUTTER: This isn't just a hypothetical anymore.

SNELL: That's Congressman⁸ Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat⁹, speaking at a hearing where all of those scenarios were floated by lawmakers as disasters that could really happen. Perlmutter pointed¹⁰ to 2017, when a gunman shot at Republican members practicing for a charity baseball game, and the January 6 attack on the Capitol, where armed rioters were yards away from where members hid. Derek Kilmer, the chairman of the Select Committee on Modernization¹¹ of Congress, said this is an ongoing¹² concern. But this hearing was the most in-depth conversation Congress has had about the topic since the response to the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001.

DEREK KILMER: At the State of the Union this year, it struck me that, you know, if, God forbid, something happened to the Capitol, under the current law, Congress would be consistent of the people who had COVID and the folks who were boycotting¹³.

SNELL: That's because those people were the only ones who weren't in the building. Former Congressman Brian Baird, a Democrat, told the committee that with razor-thin majorities in Congress, any one of those events, including the shooting, could have left the country in a crisis.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BRIAN BAIRD: The reality is, had 20 members of the Republican conference been killed that day, the balance of power in the House of Representatives would have changed.

SNELL: And the Senate?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

BAIRD: One assassination¹⁴ can change the balance of power in the Senate. And that affects the Supreme¹⁵ Court for a lifetime.

SNELL: Former congresswoman, Cabinet member and one-time designated survivor¹⁶ Donna Shalala told the committee, things become more complicated if the two parties are affected¹⁷ unevenly¹⁸.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DONNA SHALALA: We don't want to shift from one party to another just because a certain party lost more members.

SNELL: But George Rogers, a former general counsel for the House Rules Committee, testified that the House faces a whole additional layer of trouble. The Constitution requires House vacancies¹⁹ to be filled by a special election, not appointment.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GEORGE ROGERS: The founders²⁰ didn't want appointments. At no point did Madison talk about the politically connected picking their successors.

SNELL: Special elections can take 150 days to complete. That could leave the House hobbled. And it opens a new question. Would House rules even allow them to legislate²¹ if a majority of lawmakers are dead or incapacitated? And what if people can't decide who's really in charge? The committee's top Republican, William Timmons of South Carolina, went down that rabbit hole.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

WILLIAM TIMMONS: Designated survivor kind of situation - we've all seen the show. He's getting sworn in as acting²² president. You got 30 members of Congress who are sitting here saying, well, we're going to elect a speaker. That new speaker then is going to say, I'm the president. And the designated survivor is going to say, well, are you? Then they're going to say, well, let's go to the Supreme Court. Oh, there's no Supreme Court. What do we do?

SNELL: Some of the experts recommended a constitutional amendment²³ to allow House members to be replaced by appointment. Here's Kilmer again.

KILMER: For what it's worth, it took a constitutional amendment to lay out a process through which vacancies in the United States Senate get filled. Interestingly enough, that has not happened for the House.

SNELL: But in the wake of COVID closures and ongoing cybersecurity fears, there is real pressure to come up with an answer soon.

Kelsey Snell, NPR News, Washington.

1 scenarios   

n.[意]情节；剧本；事态；脚本

参考例句：

• Further, graphite cores may be safer than non-graphite cores under some accident scenarios. 再者，根据一些事故解说，石墨堆芯可比非石墨堆芯更安全一些。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Again, scenarios should make it clear which modes are acceptable to users in various contexts. 同样，我们可以运用场景剧本来搞清楚在不同情境下哪些模式可被用户接受。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

2 calamity   

n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件

参考例句：

• Even a greater natural calamity cannot daunt us. 再大的自然灾害也压不垮我们。
• The attack on Pearl Harbor was a crushing calamity.偷袭珍珠港(对美军来说)是一场毁灭性的灾难。

3 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

4 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。

5 contingencies   

n.偶然发生的事故，意外事故( contingency的名词复数 )；以备万一

参考例句：

• We must consider all possible contingencies. 我们必须考虑一切可能发生的事。
• We must be prepared for all contingencies. 我们要作好各种准备，以防意外。 来自辞典例句

6 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

7 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

8 Congressman   

n.（美）国会议员

参考例句：

• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman.他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。
• The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics.这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。

9 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

10 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

11 modernization   

n.现代化，现代化的事物

参考例句：

• This will help us achieve modernization.这有助于我们实现现代化。
• The Chinese people are sure to realize the modernization of their country.中国人民必将实现国家现代化。

12 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

13 boycotting   

抵制，拒绝参加( boycott的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• They're boycotting the shop because the people there are on strike. 他们抵制那家商店，因为那里的店员在罢工。
• The main opposition parties are boycotting the elections. 主要反对党都抵制此次选举。

14 assassination   

n.暗杀；暗杀事件

参考例句：

• The assassination of the president brought matters to a head.总统遭暗杀使事态到了严重关头。
• Lincoln's assassination in 1865 shocked the whole nation.1865年，林肯遇刺事件震惊全美国。

15 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

16 survivor   

n.生存者，残存者，幸存者

参考例句：

• The sole survivor of the crash was an infant.这次撞车的惟一幸存者是一个婴儿。
• There was only one survivor of the plane crash.这次飞机失事中只有一名幸存者。

17 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

18 unevenly   

adv.不均匀的

参考例句：

• Fuel resources are very unevenly distributed. 燃料资源分布很不均匀。
• The cloth is dyed unevenly. 布染花了。

19 vacancies   

n.空房间( vacancy的名词复数 )；空虚；空白；空缺

参考例句：

• job vacancies 职位空缺
• The sign outside the motel said \"No Vacancies\". 汽车旅馆外的招牌显示“客满”。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 founders   

n.创始人( founder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was one of the founders of the university's medical faculty. 他是该大学医学院的创建人之一。 来自辞典例句
• The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. 我们宗教的创始人把这看作是道德的基石。 来自辞典例句

21 legislate   

vt.制定法律；n.法规，律例；立法

参考例句：

• Therefore,it is very urgent to legislate for the right of privacy.因此，为隐私权立法刻不容缓。
• It's impossible to legislate for every contingency.为每一偶发事件都立法是不可能的。

22 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

23 amendment   

n.改正，修正，改善，修正案

参考例句：

• The amendment was rejected by 207 voters to 143.这项修正案以207票对143票被否决。
• The Opposition has tabled an amendment to the bill.反对党已经就该议案提交了一项修正条款。