A prominent Bay Area legislator says that outdated House vacancy rules are a national security threat

Although the election results were not known for over a week, it appears like Republicans have taken control of the US House of Representatives. This officially marks the first federal GOP trifecta since 2017.

Since a single vacancy might alter the balance of power in the nation’s capital, the party’s razor-thin majority makes matters much less clear for both Democrats and Republicans.

This prospect has raised a topic that isn’t commonly discussed: the ability of elderly or ill federal politicians to perform their duties and even retain their seats.

The 118th Congress’s average age in November was 64 years old in the Senate and 57.9 years old in the House. More than a dozen Californians will be among the 20 oldest members of the House next year.

Maxine Waters, who will be the third oldest member of Congress next year at the age of 86, Nancy Pelosi, and John Garamendi are among the Democrats on that list.

Numerous elected leaders have also discussed developing cancer or other severe health issues in recent years. Garamendi, a resident of California’s 8th District, began receiving chemotherapy and immunotherapy in Sacramento in July after learning that he had a rare blood malignancy.

In the Nov. 5 election, the 79-year-old incumbent received 74% of the vote and will return to Congress for a ninth term.

There is currently only one means to replace a federal politician who has not resigned freely but is physically or mentally incapable of working: a two-thirds majority vote to remove the member from either House, which would enable the governor of that state to hold a special election. This is unprecedented in the history of Congress.

The 17th Amendment guaranteed senators might be appointed temporarily until a special election could be called to fill a vacancy more than 110 years ago. When a member of Congress passes away or resigns before the end of their term, a special election is also called.

Members of the House, however, have no such short-term options.

On occasion, federal parliamentarians have discussed requests for a constitutional amendment that would allow the House to appoint temporary people to fill vacant seats. They contend that in order to prevent delays that would alter the preferences of the electorate, elected authorities ought to have the authority to choose a list of successors.

Having a backup plan is crucial for maintaining national security and government operations, according to Rep. Zoe Lofgren, one of the most prominent Democrats in the Bay Area.

“It’s pretty clear that if you really wanted to kill democratic government, the way to do it would be to wipe out the House of Representatives,” Lofgren stated in a Thursday interview from Washington, D.C. Since any astute adversary from another nation is already aware of it, I have no problem stating it. Nobody is aware of it.

According to Lofgren, 76, the only way to prevent evildoers from using violence to shift the House majority is to amend the Constitution to provide for a mechanism to reconvene Congress before calamities occur.

One issue keeps coming up: in order to amend the Constitution, three-fourths of state legislatures and two-thirds of each body of Congress must concur.

Representatives have previously cautioned that a catastrophe like as the pandemic, the Jan. 6 revolt, the 2017 GOP baseball practice massacre, or 9/11 could swiftly tip the scales of power in Congress. However, when things settled down after each of those crises, the previous seven speakers either ignored or put an end to attempts to amend the House’s vacancy rules.

In 2019, Congress was controlled by Democrats. The nonpartisan Select Committee on Modernization of Congress, which Lofgren oversaw, produced 97 recommendations over the course of four years to improve and streamline the operations of Congress.

Plans to have each member of Congress compile a list of potential successors were included in that list. The governor of that state would select a replacement from that list until the next election if that member passed away. The identical concept was discussed in 2001, 2017, and 2021.

The chairman of the disbanded committee last year, Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., described the notion that majority authority could be altered for months as “horrible.”

And we can t say, Well, that will never happen,’ Kilmer said in September, Or, Well, we ll deal with that when the time comes.’ Because when the time comes, it’s too late.

Lofgren wishes for her colleagues to recover and return to work in the event of cancer or other severe illnesses. However, she added that it is not insignificant that many members of Congress occasionally miss work due to illness.

According to Lofgren, illness and death rather than elections could determine who controls the House, particularly in cases with small majorities. You would think that people would want to stop it as well, but I believe that some of the reluctance stems from people’s dislike of contemplating death.

In the past, attempts to preserve the government’s institutions and address the House’s vacancy issue caused ire. This remained the case even after Congress narrowly escaped catastrophe in September 2001 and robust succession planning preparations were put in place.

Representatives like Republican David Dreier wouldn t budge because they thought the idea was anti-democratic, even though appointments and special elections were meant to keep one party from getting an advantage.

Lofgren said that there hasn t been a big partisan fight in the last few years, but it s not possible to get the two-thirds vote that s needed.

Getting people to pay attention has been the biggest challenge.

I could rant and rave and spend all my time on something that isn t going to happen, like changing the Constitution, Lofgren said. But I would rather work on things that have even a small chance of happening. We just can t make progress.

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