mr. chairman , i would like to make three points . 
first , under the 60-day time frame proposed by the gentlewoman 's amendment , the time under the war powers act for congress to make a decision following an attack will have expired and , consequently , less than the full house will make the important decisions relative to under what circumstances american troops will be committed overseas . 
under the 49-day time limit , that problem will not exist because the house will be reconstituted and repopulated before the war powers act limitation expires . 
secondly , the purpose of this bill is to require special elections to be held in those states with slower special election processes , to be held as quickly as possible within the 49-day period . 
the gentlewoman from california has read parts of the letter that mr. kennedy , who is the executive director of the wisconsin elections board has written . 
i would respond to that simply by saying if virginia repopulates the house , or its delegation to the house within 12 days and it takes at least 62 days for wisconsin to do so , 50 days will elapse , or almost 2 months will elapse while wisconsin has either a reduced or no delegation in the house , but the house keeps on legislating . 
and that is not fair to the people of my state , and it is not fair to the people of the other states , including the gentlewoman from california 's own state that have relatively slow special election procedures . 
so that is why this bill is here , is to speed up the process by which states can fill up their delegations to the house so that they will be fully represented when important decisions are made . 
and should this bill go down and the slow states continue to be really slow , then their delegations will either be nonexistent or have a relatively few number of members . 
now , the final point i would like to make is that we have heard everybody who is against this bill say that this is too fast and too slow . 
well , to speed up the process of repopulating the house , quicker than when special elections can be held , will require a constitutional amendment . 
we did debate a constitutional amendment and it was defeated by a vote of 63 ayes to 350-plus noes . 
this house is firmly on record against an appointment procedure however it is done . 
so now we have to figure out how to make the special election procedure occur as quickly as possible and yet maintain fairness . 
the 49 days required under this bill is the way to do it to get people here to make important decisions under the war powers act . 
sixty days or a longer period of time simply will not cut it . 
defeat the amendment and pass the bill . 
ms. millender-mcdonald . 
mr. chairman , how much time do i have remaining ? 
