Jim Sensenbrenner: “At 9:50 in the morning on September 11, 2001, I was standing in this Chamber waiting to bring up three bills that had…”

“At 9:50 in the morning on September 11, 2001, I was standing in this Chamber waiting to bring up three bills that had come out of the Committee on the Judiciary. At that time the Sergeant at Arms told Speaker Hastert that another plane had been unaccounted for; that it was heading in the direction of Washington, D.C., and the Speaker promptly ordered the evacuation of the Capitol and told me to run for my life. Had that plane not left the gate at the Newark, New Jersey, airport, I would not be standing here today, nor would this building be standing here today. I think that gave me pause to think of what would happen to preserve this unique representative government should there be a disaster that wiped out the entire Congress. And the debate today goes basically to the issue of whether the reconstituted House should preserve the tradition that the House of Representatives has always consisted of Members that were first elected by the people, or whether we should have appointed Representatives, appointed by the Governor, appointed by the legislature, or appointed by ourselves before we passed away.”