Reports that some elements of the Federal Government are examining the steps necessary for the postponement of the Presidential election in the event of a terrorist attack have sent the radical left (and some elements of the far right as well) into a predictable frenzy. Gripped as they are by an extreme form of delusional paranoia the far left sees in any delay of the election, however sensible and necessary, a neocon plot to impose a dictatorship upon the country. In fact, the possibility that it may be necessary to delay or modify the structure of elections under some circumstances is something that should have been looked into and worked out a long time ago.

Some will inevitably, as Senator Dianne Feinstein has, invoke the false example of the Presidential elections which occurred at the height of the Civil War and the Second World War. We aren’t talking about delaying elections indefinitely; we’re simply talking about ensuring that they may be safely and fairly conducted. If the Germans had been bombing New York City or the Confederate Army storming Philadelphia on Election Day in 1944 or 1864, then it seems certain to me that the elections would not have gone on that day as planned. In recent memory, the New York Mayoral Primary was postponed on September 11th, 2001 and the dark night of fascism did not descend upon us. It would be pure insanity to go ahead with an election as planned in the midst of a biological attack.

I ask the Democrats screaming about a “Bushitler conspiracy” to calm down for a minute and imagine the following scenario. On November 2nd, a suicide bomber walks into a polling station in the most Democratic section of Miami and kills seventeen people. Voter turnout drops nationwide (and in a largely uniform fashion), but in Florida it falls to 30%. In Miami, it falls even lower than that. Bush wins the election by 100,000 votes and holds an electoral majority which is sealed by Florida’s twenty-seven votes. What would you say then? Should the election have been allowed to go forward?

Of course, if the election does go forward from that point, there’s no do-over. You can’t look at what happened afterwards and cry, “It wasn’t fair, out voters were more frightened than yours!” The election will be done. John Kerry will have lost and George W. Bush will be President for four more years. To Republicans who would welcome the scenario, I’d point out it could happen as easily in reverse. Suppose a pair of marauding snipers hold an entire Republican neighbourhood in Ohio hostage on the afternoon of the election, causing John Kerry to win the state by a few hundred votes. Would that result be considered fair and free?

It’s time to go into this in some more detail. Not just elections, but the entire continuity of government process. Terrorists, if they’re smart, will launch attacks in a deliberate attempt to disrupt and paralyze the American government. Certain elements of the present arrangements made to ensure the continuity of government are laughable and, in other ways, extremely dangerous. For example, the present order of Presidential succession leaves us with the very real possibility that, in the worst crisis in American history, we might end up with either a ninety year-old Senator or a bumbling Secretary of Agriculture as the President. Moreover, the concentration of government leaves the very real possibility that, in a nuclear attack, virtually all of the legislative and executive branches of the government could be wiped out.

What I propose is this: the creation of an American “Privy Council”, a group of elder statesmen who will have no formal role in government under ordinary conditions, but which will be entrusted with certain extraordinary powers in the event of a national emergency. This council would consist of all living former Presidents, Vice Presidents, House Speakers, and Senate Majority Leaders. In the event of the destruction of the Congress, the Privy Council would be temporarily invested with all legislative powers including, in the event all Presidential successors were to be killed, the power of selecting a new President. Additionally this group would, in the event of a national emergency, have the right to postpone a Presidential election by a week at a time, up to a maximum of four weeks, at which point the power for the selection of Presidential electors would revert to the states.

However, the possibility of the elimination of all Presidential successors would be greatly reduced by another innovation. The Presidential Succession act of 1947 would be superseded by a Constitutional Amendment which would grant the President the power to choose a number of designated successors who would take office if both the President and Vice President were to be killed. Subject to confirmation by the Senate, the list would presumably include a number of eminently qualified men of the sort who are left out of the present list. (A list today might include Senator John McCain, Colin Powell, Rudy Giuliani, former President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, former Senator Bob Dole, former Senator Sam Nunn, and other individuals with obvious qualifications to assume national command in the event of an emergency). Presidential successors would, once confirmed by the Senate, also become life members of the Privy Council (though, I suppose, in deference to those with less Anglophilic tendencies than I, we’ll have to come up with a new name).

Additionally, as part of any amendment, provisions for the survival of Congress should be made. The most obvious solution would be to allow every single member of Congress to select a few prominent citizens from his or her own district as their temporary successor (until new elections could be scheduled and held).

The survival of the Federal Government while under attack by a foreign enemy is essential to the survival of the United States. This is an issue on which all sides should be able to work together, instead of playing in an effort to score partisan points.