continuity issues in both the congress and in the presidency and finally, my dear colleague, norman ornsteinwho was present at the creation of the contemporary efforts to deal responsibly with the continuity issue. martin, why don't you kick us off. >> well, thank you. and i had the interesting task of being cochair of a special task force that the congressional leadership set up on this subject after 9/11. and y'all, of course, both participated in that. and i have some observations from having been through that experience. first of all, the first thing that this commission or anyone has to do is to convince the congressional leadership, bipartisan, bicameral that this is something worth spending their time on and the frustration we had is that the leadership of neither party of neither house felt that this was an important issue and so we could not convince the democratic leadership or the republican leadership to really invest any capital in trying to address this problem. now y'all got to figure out how you go to the -- you have different leaders now than you did right after 9/11 and how

i am norman ornstein of the american enterprise institute. i want to welcome you all to this event on presidential succession which is key to run the release of this report, "the presidency, preserving our institutions," which is the second report of the continuity of government commission. that was created in the aftermath of 9/11, out of the recognition that washington will remain a key target for terrorists and that a key objective is to do as much as possible to disrupt american's institutions of governance. and what flows, unfortunately, from that is that we have an adequate plans in place, and the constitution and in the law to make sure that we have adequate insurance to get those institutions, especially the three key branches of government that represent the first three articles of the constitution, up and running affectively with the confidence of the public, without disruption, as quickly as possible. with presidential succession, this is something basically regulated by law of the constitution after the vice president allow congre

continuity issues in both the congress and in the presidency and finally, my dear colleague, norman ornsteinwho was present at the creation of the contemporary efforts to deal responsibly with the continuity issue. martin, why don't you kick us off. >> well, thank you. and i had the interesting task of being cochair of a special task force that the congressional leadership set up on this subject after 9/11. and y'all, of course, both participated in that. and i have some observations from having been through that experience. first of all, the first thing that this commission or anyone has to do is to convince the congressional leadership, bipartisan, bicameral that this is something worth spending their time on and the frustration we had is that the leadership of neither party of neither house felt that this was an important issue and so we could not convince the democratic leadership or the republican leadership to really invest any capital in trying to address this problem. now y'all got to figure out how you go to the -- you have different leaders now than you did right after 9/11 and how