Watch CBS News

Good Question: Can Rep. Gifford Still Vote?

In the wake of the Tucson, AZ shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords' shooting, a dramatic vote on the repeal of President Obama's healthcare reform law will likely move forward without her.  She can't vote from the hospital and she can't vote by proxy, meaning she can't send someone to vote for her. 

So if she's incapacitated and unable to vote, what happens to her seat in the House of Representatives?

Nothing.

According to Don Ritchie, a historian for the Senate Historical Office, both houses of Congress have upheld the tradition that only a Congressman or their family can remove them from their seat.

"The tradition has been that once a person takes the oath of office they hold that seat until the end of that term," Ritchie told us from his office in Washington DC, "until they let the House know or the Senate knows or their families let them know that they can't continue."

In the 1940's, one Senate seat sat empty for the entire four-year term.  The idea is that the position is elected by voters in that district and members of Congress traditionally take that as sacrosanct.

Still, that doesn't mean that everything stops.

"Their office[s] continues to function because their staff will still be working," says Ritchie.  "One thing she [Giffords] can't do is to vote in the Senate chamber."  Senators can vote by proxy in their committees, but neither the House nor the Senate allows proxy votes in the chambers themselves.

Those votes have been critical at times.  Senator Pete Wilson from California came to the chamber in a wheelchair with an IV attached to him in order to vote.  The most dramatic was in 1964 when Senator Clair Engle, suffering from a brain tumor and paralyzed on one side, came to vote on cloture for the civil rights act. 

"Every vote was necessary," says Ritchie.  "Senator Mansfield called Senator Engle's family and asked if he could come."  Engle was unable to speak.  When it came time for a vote, Engle moved his arm up, pointing to his eye.

"That counted as an "aye" vote and obtained cloture for the civil rights act," Ritchie points out.

With Representative Giffords just now waking from a coma, the likelihood of her attending the vote seems slim.  Regardless, it appears, without her or her family's resignation, she will remain an Arizona Congresswoman.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.