Emergency plan for Congress is no joke.

WHEN asked, "What would happen if some calamity rendered the U.S. Congress unable to function?" Washington wise guys are quick with an answer. Such as:

The collective IQ of the federal government would triple overnight.

Or, Hey--we can finally balance the budget!

Or, You call that a calamity?

Now that we have those out of the way, we really should admit that the question is a serious one. The issue of "continuity of government" in the event of an incapacitating attack is so serious that Congress itself has expended huge amounts of energy trying to avoid it.

Many believe that the hijackers who commandeered United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, intended to crash the plane into the Capitol--and would have done so if not for the heroic action of its passengers.

To paraphrase the great essayist Samuel Johnson: Such a prospect tends to concentrate the mind. And it did for some. In the fall of 2002, a group of worthies put together the Continuity of Government Commission "to study and recommend reforms to ensure the continuity of our governmental institutions in the event of a catastrophic attack."

What could be less controversial? A joint project of the right-of-center American Enterprise Institute and the left-of-center Brookings Institution, the commission was intended to be an exercise in bipartisan high-mindedness. Its two honorary chairmen are the U.S. establishment's totems of bipartisanship, former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.

But in Washington nowadays, everything can be made the subject of ideological dispute.

When the commission released its first report, calling for a constitutional amendment to ensure the continued functioning of the U.S. House, the issue of "continuity in government" quickly became an unlovely stew of arcane constitutional arguments, institutional vanity and populist resentment.

When, that is, members of Congress addressed the issue at all.

"No one wanted to talk about it, which is the natural human reaction," said Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at Brookings and a consultant to the commission. "The whole issue is creepy. Who wants to contemplate a suitcase bomb wiping out Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day?" Mann said. "So what you do is, you pretend like you're doing something about it without really doing anything."

After much bickering, the House passed the Continuity in Representation Act of 2004, whose chief sponsor, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, meant to address the commission's issues while rejecting wholesale its recommended constitutional amendment.

Unlike senators, who can be temporarily appointed by their state's governors when vacancies occur, House members must always be elected directly by the people, according to Article One of the U.S. Constitution.

The commission's proposed amendment would enable governors, in the event of a massive attack, to appoint temporary House members until special elections could be called. Within days, the "People's House" could be a fully functioning arm of democratic government, ready to declare war, raise conscripts, or undertake whatever emergency measures are necessary.

"Without temporary appointments," Mann said, "the House couldn't form a quorum and couldn't act for months. The executive branch would then be operating outside the constitutional system, and anything it did would be open to question."

Sensenbrenner says he, too, wants to preserve the constitutional system, which is why he opposes granting appointment powers to governors. The nation's Founders, he says, intended for the House uniquely to derive its authority from elections.

Under his bill, a catastrophic loss of 100 or more House members wozuld trigger special elections that would have to be held by the states within 45 days.

There are practical problems with Sensenbrenner's bill--six weeks may not be enough time for many states to get up elections--and delicious ironies, too. While Sensenbrenner's defense of the House's populist pedigree is admirable, it runs counter to today's reality, when fewer than 10 percent of incumbent House members ever face viable opposition, thanks to fundraising advantages and gerrymandering.

A list of Sensenbrenner's winning percentages in his last seven general elections gives a sketch of the problem: 87, 74, 91,74, 100, 70, 100.

Whatever its practical problems, the passage of Sensenbrenner's bill, by a decisive vote of 306-97, likely ends the discussion. The bill will go to the Senate, which is unlikely to second-guess the House's judgment by insisting on a constitutional amendment like the one the commission proposed.

Mann, not surprisingly, thinks the House has abdicated its responsibility.

"In the event of a catastrophe, this special elections bill will be an irrelevancy," he said. "Maybe someday, we'll get people who have some respect for the institution to do what needs to be done. But for now, they've chosen to leave the country and our children without a will."

Andrew Ferguson is a columnist with Bloomberg News.