The overblown flap over whether President Bush notified congressional leaders that he had created a “shadow” government assembled in a secret location outside the capital distracted attention away from the real issue: how seriously the White House takes a terrorist threat on Washington. The news reports suggest that U.S. intelligence especially fears the possibility that the remaining al Qaeda network might obtain a “suitcase” nuclear weapon that could destroy a wide swath of official Washington.

The shadow-government initiative is a prudent one. But if the Bush plan to send 100 or so senior civil servants outside the capital would provide some assurance of continuity in government in the event of a disaster, it is no panacea. The prospect of the country governed during its worst moment by a group of unelected bureaucrats, none officers of government under our Constitution, is an unsettling one.

The Bush move should be only the first step in a wholesale rethinking of issues of succession and the continuity of governance in an era of terrorism. Now that the president has acted, Congress needs to step up to the plate in two additional important areas: ensuring the continuity of Congress in the event of a catastrophic attack on Washington, and revamping the Presidential Succession Act to ensure the continuity of presidential leadership.

In both areas, we have critical lapses in our Constitution and laws. Start with Congress. If United flight 93 had left on time on Sept. 11 instead of 41 minutes late, its brave passengers might not have known they were headed for a suicide mission. The plane was headed for Washington, and might well have crashed into the Capitol at around the same time as another plane hit the Pentagon--just before 10 a.m., with a House chamber and the Capitol building itself filled with members and staff. A plane crash followed by jet fuel explosion might well have killed 200 or more members of Congress and sent hundreds more to burn units in hospitals. That would have meant no Congress for weeks or months--during a time when Congress authorized the use of force to respond to the attacks, appropriated vast sums of money for disaster relief and military buildup, beefed up aviation security, and took numerous other key steps during the crisis.

Why no Congress? The Constitution requires a quorum of half the members of each house of Congress to do official business. This requirement has been interpreted since the Civil War to mean half the living membership. Theoretically, if 430 members of the House were killed in an attack, three of the five remaining members could constitute a quorum and act--representing a tiny slice of the country, and making decisions up to and including a declaration of war. But if hundreds of members were alive but incapacitated, there would be no quorum, and no Congress.

The problem is a limited one in the Senate, where the Constitution allows states to make appointments when vacancies occur. All House vacancies have to be filled by election--and special elections to the House typically take anywhere between three and six months. But the current process, whether via appointment to the Senate or election to the House, does not contemplate widespread disability. In the age of terror, with anthrax or smallpox in the arsenal of attack, disability may be a greater danger than death.

What is needed is a narrowly targeted constitutional amendment allowing--when large numbers of members are killed, missing or disabled--for temporary appointments by governors or state legislatures to Congress to replenish the body until members are able to return to service, or until special elections can be held to fill seats vacated by deceased lawmakers. During the Cold War, amendments with this intent passed the Senate several times, but were never taken up by the House. Rep. Brian Baird (D., Wash.) has introduced an amendment in this Congress. It needs debate and refinement, which should be well under way. But with the exception of one hearing, Congress has so far shown no great interest in pursuing the issue, preferring denial of the problem instead.

At the same time, Congress should reconsider presidential succession. The Constitution, supplemented by the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, sets a line of succession in place if the president is killed, from the vice president to the speaker of the House, the president pro tempore of the Senate, on through the cabinet in order of the creation of the posts (starting with the secretary of state).

We should go back to square one on the act itself. One question is whether it is appropriate for members of Congress to be in the line of succession for the head of the executive branch--including those from the opposite party of the president. A second is whether it is a good idea to include in the line the president pro tempore of the Senate, traditionally the most senior (and often oldest) member of the majority party. A third is whether the line should extend through the entire cabinet, potentially leaving the secretary of education or of veterans affairs to take over the reins of power during a monumental crisis.

The most urgent question now is how to expand the line of succession to include some figures from outside Washington. When the president delivers his State of the Union message, one member of his cabinet is always designated to be away from the House chamber at an undisclosed location--so that if the Capitol takes a direct hit, with the president, vice president, speaker, president pro tem and the cabinet all in the House chamber, one figure in the line of succession will be alive.

But we must now contemplate the possibility of a surprise attack taking out all of Washington, leaving nobody in line for the presidency and a situation of chaos, with dozens perhaps jumping up to say “I’m in charge here.” The best option is to include governors in the line. The Constitution requires those in line of succession to the presidency to be officers of the United States. Attorney Miller Baker has suggested allowing the president to deputize several governors as heads of their state militias, making them officers, and allowing him some say in the succession to his own office.

There may be other, and better ideas. But Congress needs to take the president’s lead and act quickly to consider them, protecting our institutions, our democracy and all of us from the worst consequences of a worst case scenario that is now all too real.