The question of course before us in this debate is, a majority of what? What is the denominator in that equation?

The precedent holds that the total number of the membership of the House is those Members who are chosen, sworn and living and whose membership has not been terminated by action of the House. Removal by action of the House is also a defined term, expulsion by a vote of two-thirds in article 1, section 5.

The Constitution also gives the House the authority to compel attendance when Members do not answer the call of the Chair in such manner and under such penalties as each House may provide. And, in fact, the Sergeant at Arms has been sent to gather Members by force on prior occasions.

This amendment before us to the rules gives the Speaker nearly unfettered authority to change the number of the Members of the whole House to exclude Members who are chosen, sworn, and living but who do not answer the call of the Chair. This would seem to amount to a constructive expulsion without a two-thirds vote of the whole House.

For example, suppose the House is at its full complement of 435 Members. A quorum would then be 218. Now, suppose only 400 Members answer the Speaker's call for whatever reason. They are still living. They are still chosen. They are still sworn. They have not been expelled. Now a quorum by order of the Speaker would be 200. The House may conduct its business with only 200 Members present. If this is triggered in a time of national emergency, the consequences could be dire.

Mr. Speaker, we heard the distinguished chair, or maybe he is only the presumptive chair, of the Committee on Rules, at this point; but in any event, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) said a moment ago that this proposed rules change is constitutional because the Constitution could not have contemplated that the House could not function. But the Constitution did not contemplate that the majority of the Members of the House might in fact be the victims of an act of mass terrorism. Those things were not contemplated at the time.

The fact is we do need to amend the Constitution to take care of this very serious question; but this provision for the reasons stated by the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird), for the reasons that I stated a moment ago, is clearly unconstitutional. Certainly, before we take such a measure, it deserves much more extensive debate and hearings and discussion than it can have by three or four speakers in this context now.

So I urge that Members take careful consideration to the question of constitutionality here. This may provoke court action, and we should not adopt this now in the context of an overall rules change with this very serious amendment to the Constitution, which is what it amounts to; it cannot receive adequate consideration in terms of its constitutionality either in terms of its merit.