Nearly four years ago to the day, a letter containing anthrax was opened in then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s office. Since then, we have made no progress in identifying the perpetrator. Worse still, Congress has not faced up to its responsibilities and dealt with the possibility of a debilitating attack on itself.

Recall the chaos of the evacuation of the campus: people lined up at the Capitol physician’s office waiting for their doses of antibiotics, teams of workers in hazmat suits and the relocation of offices to alternate buildings that could only accommodate a skeleton staff. And all of that just a few weeks removed from the attacks of Sept. 11.

In certain areas, there has been progress. Mail is now irradiated, and the House has begun implementing a digital mail system. Congress has new plans for alternative meeting places. Staffs are issued gas masks, and offices have evacuation plans.

But despite those logistical improvements, Congress has failed in its duty to plan for the aftermath of an attack that would kill or incapacitate many of its members. The Continuity of Government Commission, with which I am associated, identified the problem that Congress would not be able to operate for months after an attack or, alternatively, it might try to function with just a few members in an illegitimate fashion. The commission’s recommendation was that temporary appointments should be made to fill the seats of the dead or incapacitated members until elections could be held to fill the vacancies or the incapacitated members recovered. This change would require a constitutional amendment.

Unfortunately, the Congress has tried to take the easy way out. The House, led by Reps. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and David Dreier (R-Calif.), opposed even temporary appointments to fill in for dead or severely injured members. Their “solution” came in two parts. First, the House changed its rules to allow it to operate with a very small number of members, even though the Constitution requires that a majority of the House constitute a quorum to do business. Second, the House passed a law that requires states to have snap elections after a terrorist attack, attached it to an appropriations bill and forced the Senate to pass it without debate

Those measures are unlikely to be effective, and in the worst-case scenario they could be very dangerous. The reduced-quorum rule could allow five members of Congress to convene if their fellow members were not available. Those five members could vote on legislation, and they could elect a new Speaker, who could become president of the United States if the president and vice president had been killed in the attack.

The law that requires speedy elections is just as unworkable. Almost all states would not be able to meet the 49-day requirement for elections. And they certainly would not be able to hold primaries. Campaigns in such an abbreviated time frame would not give sufficient information to voters. Finally, even if the time frame for these elections could be met, Congress would be without most of its members for nearly two months, just in the time after an attack when we most need our elected leaders.

The measures that Congress has taken to deal with a catastrophic attack are inadequate. If Congress were truly serious about its enacted solution, it would provide money to the states for emergency election procedures and oversee their progress. Don’t hold your breath for such action. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, when everyone is aware that we did not plan well to recover from such a disaster, Congress is equally unprepared in planning for its own recovery.

Fortier is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.