After greater than every week of uncertainty over the congressional election results, Republicans appear to have done so gained control of the US House of Representatives — Solidifying the primary state GOP trifecta since 2017.
But the party's razor-thin majority poses further uncertainty for each Republicans and Democrats, as a single emptiness could tip the balance for power within the nation's Capitol.
That possibility has raised questions on a rarely discussed topic: the power of aging or ailing federal lawmakers to do their jobs effectively — and even keep their seats.
The average age of the 118th Congress in November was 57.9 years within the House and 64 years within the Senate. Next 12 months, greater than a dozen California lawmakers will likely be among the many 20 oldest members of the House; Starting with 86-year-old Maxine Waters, soon to be the third-oldest member of Congress, this list of Democrats includes Nancy Pelosi, Doris Matsui and John Garamendi.
Additionally, quite a few elected officials have disclosed cancer diagnoses or other serious health problems lately. Garamendi, who represents California's eighth District, was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in July and started chemo-immunotherapy in Sacramento. The 79-year-old incumbent is returning to Congress for his ninth term after garnering support from 74% of voters within the Nov. 5 election.
There is currently just one approach to replace a sitting federal lawmaker who’s physically or mentally incapacitated but has not voluntarily resigned: a two-thirds vote to expel the member from either house, allowing his state's governor to carry a special election. That has This has never happened within the history of Congress.
More than 110 years ago, the seventeenth Amendment ensured that senators could possibly be temporarily appointed before a special election to fill a emptiness that will be declared even when a member of Congress dies or leaves office before the tip of his or her term.
But House members should not have similar transition options.
Federal lawmakers have sporadically discussed calls for a constitutional amendment that will allow the House of Representatives to fill vacant seats with temporary appointments, arguing that elected officials should have the opportunity to call a listing of successors to forestall delays of voters could turn it the wrong way up.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, one in every of the Bay Area's most distinguished Democrats, is one in every of several advocates who argue that having a substitute plan is a matter of national security and continuity of presidency.
“It's pretty obvious that if you really wanted to decapitate the Democratic government, you would have to wipe out the House of Representatives,” Lofgren said in an interview with DC on Thursday. “I don't mind mentioning it because anyone with a brain who is a foreign enemy already knows this. It’s not a secret.”
Lofgren, 76, said the approach to prevent violence from being essentially the most attractive option for bad actors to vary the bulk within the House of Representatives is to amend the Constitution to create a path to revive Congress before one Catastrophe occurs.
There's a recurring problem: A constitutional amendment requires support from two-thirds of every chamber of Congress and ratification from three-quarters of state legislatures.
Lawmakers have previously sounded the alarm that Congress's narrow margins of power could possibly be quickly upended in a disaster like Sept. 11, the 2017 GOP baseball practice shooting, the pandemic and the Jan. 6 rebel. But as tensions cooled after each of those crises, initiatives to vary House rules on vacancies were downgraded or ignored by the last seven speakers.
While Democrats were in the bulk in 2019, Lofgren was assigned to the nonpartisan caucus Select Committee on Modernizing Congresswhich adopted 97 recommendations over 4 years to make Congress a more efficient and effective institution.
That list included a review of plans to have each member of Congress create a listing of possible successors. In the event of that member's death, his state's governor would choose an individual from this list to serve until the subsequent election – the identical idea discussed in 2001, 2017 and 2021.
Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., chairman of the committee that was disbanded last 12 months, said the chance that majority power could shift for months was “terrible.”
“And our reaction can't be, 'Well, that's never going to happen.' Or, 'Well, we'll deal with it when the time comes'” Kilmer said in September. “Because when the time comes, it will be too late.”
When it involves cancer or other serious illnesses, Lofgren hopes that every one of her colleagues could make a full recovery and return to work. But she also acknowledged that it was “no small thing” that many members of Congress were temporarily absent for health reasons.
“Especially with narrow majorities, death and disease could determine the majority in Congress, not the election,” Lofgren said. “You'd think people would want to prevent that too, but I think some (of the resistance) might be because people don't like to think about their own demise.”
Previous attempts to resolve the House emptiness problem and preserve government institutions have been met with outrage, even with substantive proposals for succession planning after Congress narrowly avoided disaster in September 2001. Lawmakers like Republican Rep. David Dreier were steadfast, viewing the thought as anti-democratic, despite safeguards designed to forestall one party from gaining a bonus through appointments and special elections.
There hasn't been a significant partisan fight lately, Lofgren said, but without consensus it's not plausible to achieve the required two-thirds majority.
The biggest challenge was getting anyone to concentrate.
“I could rant and rave and spend all my time on something (like a constitutional amendment) that isn't going to happen, but I'd rather spend my time working on things that have even a small chance of happening Lofgren said. “We’re just not getting any traction.”
Originally published:
image credit : www.mercurynews.com