John Larson: “Let me say, Mr. Chairman, how much I have appreciated the debate this afternoon on this important issue. I want to go…”

“Let me say, Mr. Chairman, how much I have appreciated the debate this afternoon on this important issue. I want to go back, because of the focus of this debate, to comments made by Estes Kefauver. This is not an issue that is new to this Chamber. It has been raised in the past, and I think Kefauver cuts to the core of this issue. He said, ``I do not say that it would be necessarily impossible for the House of Representatives to function with but a fraction of its Members. I am informed that present parliamentary precedents indicate that the House can operate with a quorum of its living Members. But any disaster which killed one-half or one-third of the Representatives might well disable or isolate so many others that a quorum of survivors could not be mustered. ``Also, if this occurred before a new Congress had organized and adopted its rules, a point of order might well be sustained that a quorum consists of a majority of all Members chosen. In any event, it would be important at such time that the representative character of the House be preserved.”