About the Commission

The Continuity of Government Commission was launched in the fall of 2002 in order to study and recommend reforms to ensure the continuity of our governmental institutions in the event of a catastrophic attack.

The commission is an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Brookings Institution project headquartered at AEI. It is funded by the Carnegie, Hewlett, Packard, and MacArthur foundations. President Jimmy Carter is the honorary co-chairman of the commission and Alan Simpson is the chairmen. The commission includes members who have served in government at the highest levels.

The commission first focused its attention on preserving Congress, and has now turned to the executive and the Supreme Court. The central issue that the commission addressed is how Congress could function if a large number of members were killed or incapacitated. The problem is most acute in the House of Representatives because the Constitution requires that all vacancies be filled by special election, and it takes four months on average to fill these seats. If there were mass vacancies, the House might not even be able to meet its quorum requirement, or it might operate with a small and unrepresentative number. A second problem is that of incapacity. There is no precedent for filling temporary vacancies so both houses of Congress would be severely diminished, or unable to operate at all, if a large number of members were incapacitated. The events of September 11th led to several ongoing efforts to preserve the continuity of Congress. There was a similar effort in the 1950s and 1960s to deal with these same issues.

In addition, the commission will deal both with the continuity of the Supreme Court, which has a quorum requirement, and with potential reforms to the Presidential Succession Act.

The commission met twice in the fall of 2002 to hear testimony and formulate recommendations. It issued a report in May of 2003 on the continuity of Congress. The second phase of the commission addresses presidential succession and will include discussion of continuity in the Supreme Court.