Congress Quorum [Archive]

Mohoender

03-31-2009, 01:34 AM

I have read about the US quorum and I know about the peacetime rule. However, what would this quorum be in case of twilight? How does this work?

Will the quorum remain the same or will it be adaptated to the situation?

Are there some some special rule?

Can you explain a bit more about that, I'm totally ignorant on that matter?

pmulcahy11b

03-31-2009, 01:52 AM

I honestly don't know how a quorum in the Constitutional sense could be maintained in the T2K timeline. (IIRC, without pulling up my copy of the Constitution), a proper quorum requires that two-thirds of the Congress and Senate be in office; in Congress, there must also be at least one representative for each state. Though almost the entire Constitution can be suspended in times of declared war (which brings up a new question: would any country have actually declared war in the T2K timeline?) the Congress and the Senate cannot be be done away with. (The founding fathers never contemplated nuclear war...)

Also vital for a functioning representative government is for the representatives and senators to be able to communicate with their states' governments, their constituents, and be able to be on the ground to see the situation of the their districts and states on a fairly consistent basis. That would be impossible in the Twilight 2000 timeline. We're lucky to get Congress and the Senate to listen to us Joe Schmoes now.

The real solution, in a T2K timeline, is to end the CivGov/MilGov schism, as MilGov still has a reasonable communications network and most of the vehicle transport in the US, as well as the combat power to protect the government. With the MilGov/CivGov schism, the US essentially has a Cold Civil War going on. That's not good for anyone. Until that schism heals, I can't see the US reconstituting itself as a nation.

As for out troops overseas? Most of them would be lucky to ever set foot on US shores again. They would be effectively soldiers without a country, or new citizens of the country they find themselves in. At best, they would be in intermittent contact with MilGov in the US.