continuing to work with you. bye. i got to charge the phone. >> we go live now to the white house for today's briefing with the dent trump on coronavirus response.

>> and a live look at the white house briefing room where shortly president trump will be the ing reporters on coronavirus response. we expect vice president pence and members of the task force to join the president. until then, here's some of today's "washington journal." host: looking to vote on this latest economic aid package on are day, and they also considering a measure for remote voting. joining us on the phone is daniel friedman, former council for the amentarian house judiciary committee. served from 1979 to 2007. fellow for the center of

ongressional presidential studies. what is it they are considering with proxy voting? how would that work? the : well, i don't know answer to that because everybody's using loose terms. ne of the things i first learned in law school is define he problem and i don't know whether they're talking about proxy voting or remote voting. things. two different proxy voting would be and we used to have this when i worked on the hill when i first got is that one member would authorize another member to vote or her during their absence. it's y have proxy voting, possible, according to some of the discussion, that you could be authorized by membersour, five, seven to vote in their stead. you could have a third of the quarter of the body or however many members are there would count each member and the four, five people

they were voting proxy for for of a quorum and congress could meet. the other is remote voting, would allow members nywhere in the world or maybe anywhere in washington, d.c. or n their state offices to vote electronically. it's not quite clear. i know steny hoyer has come out proposal to allow for knows,voting, but nobody nobody has a document that i can look at that will tell me what that is meant to do. so the first question for this is, nsidering process are we talking about, are we talking about proxies or remote voting? nd if we are going to do an emergency measure to handle this situation, what would you mechanism?triggering is it a pandemic? is it a 9/11? it the super bowl and those

members don't want to come into town because the super bowl is being played? if you do invoke this remote kind of -- invoke a remote voting type of situation, how does it last? ow, there are, as some people said, there are potentially constitutional questions and i expect law professors are and spilling ink right now debating whether it's not.itutional or i think there are cases on number of cases. latest one was 1892 about what means to actually have a quorum. ut the constitution says that the house can have -- house and enate have total control over what they do. they cannot be charged to place for any other affeeffectuate their

processes. the question that i have is more beyond the legal issues is, what questions titutional that are involved. nd those, i think, are really substantial. if we can -- and the house rules ommittee in its report said there's no guarantee that a court would affirm the ality of any -- constitutionality of any they put up with. but i wouldn't think of a case to would get all the way the supreme court, especially in a timely manner. but if you're -- if you'd like, to talk about the important institutional questions that are involved. host: absolutely. go ahead. right.all first, i'd like to know, what process would you use to go the rules to invoke either remote voting or reporting? there are two separate things. in order to change the rules of senate, which i am not as familiar with, you

quorumeed to have a live in town or unanimous consent. time, one ed last member can object to unanimous consent and that kills it, so least one have at meeting to change the rules. i'd want to ing know is, under what conditions trigger be able to process? of different and -- so do we mean proxy mean remote we voting? and for how long would it be in effect? the n, if you're running show right now, how long do you think the pandemic is going to factor? 30 days, 40 days, 50 days? do you invoke this new process? and then the next series of are -- for what kinds of matters do you invoke the process? there's been a whole bunch of

different discussions. first of all, would you do it votes on bills suspending the rules, which is he house process that it uses basically noncontroversial

>> do you allow proxy voting when you are marking up a bill in committee. are members how with that? keep up to take u allow that place. are you talking about amendments in committee?

maybe that's one way to do it. do you talk about votes on final passage? that's a separate issue. how about procedural rules. and we have a lot of procedural votes in committees. how about whether or not there would be this kind of other .rocess you can't put people in the process until after you have put i it in place. and there is the issue of the slippery slope. if we decide, they, the members, decide they want to have a new onlyss, the new normal for

public health emergencies and it will last for 42.5 days, what's the next step? and the next step would be well, and the super bowl is being played today so we don't want to have any votes, how far do you extend it? a member from california, very actively involved in congressional affairs said that he is concerned that virtual hearings would be and i'm quoting him here, so effective that are people are going to want to do it rather than come to washington. and he warned that if you were able to put in this kind of electronic wizardry, that there would be no human interaction between the members. and as he said, i'm quoting, i

could see members will say maybe we'll come every other week. maybe that makes congress so effective when they are functioning that we don't have to show up at all. now there is a dramatic change in the function of congress when they decided to start having two states of thursday for voting and when they were finished, members wouldn't come in until mopped late and they jet fuels were detected and members wanted to get out of town. at the end of the congressional day of tuesday, weapons and thus, they are out raising money. members don't get to know each other. and i mean, i'm a guy who has been there a long type.