I think our problems are a lot more systemic than just “there are some really old people” and not only do I not think age limits are feasible, I don’t think they would help significantly.
Anyway, my question wasn’t “do any nations impose hard age limits?”, which probably is easy to google, if I cared. My question was rather whether other countries find their political system dominated by elderly people. And also, do they tend to be dominated by those traditionally in power.
Diane Feinstein is a problem because not only is she elderly, but her health has failed. But in general, a single senator who can’t perform their duties isn’t a big deal. We have 100 of them. However, if the senate tends to be all people of the same demographic, for instance, elderly white men, then even if all those men are under some arbitrary age limit, it’s going to be out of touch and have limited perspective.
On the other hand, there really is a correlation between age and wisdom. I think a senate that was all 35-45 year old white men would be worse than what we have today. In an ideal world, I think we’d have a scattering of elderly senators, but also have some young men, and some young women, and some people who are Black, Hispanic, Native American, East Asian, South Asian… some Muslims, some professed atheists… some people with disabilities… every major population segment should have some voice in our legislative bodies.
Feinstein has been a senator since 1992; in effect, being a senator is her image of herself at this point. Being a politician is more or less the only job she’s ever had, aside from some early stints in politician-adjacent government appointments.
There is a fairly good case to be made that 31 years is way, way too long for someone to hold a seat in a legislature no matter their age or health. I don’t hear anything about Chuck Grassley, Mitch McConnell, or Patty Murray being unable to serve due to health, but are their constituents really better off for having them in Washington for decades? What happens, of course, is that those people have amassed power within their party, so no one in the party can challenge them, and the voters must vote for them or for a party they oppose.
Well, you’re conflating two things there. A Senate of all white men lacks perspective no matter their age - and in fact that’s largely true of the current Senate, which if I’m correct is 77 percent white guys anyway, so frankly it’s a bad mix no matter how you slice it. Would a Senate that was all 35-45 years old but composed of a broad mix of women and men, gay and straight, people of various ethnic backgrounds really be worse than the current batch? I do not believe so.
And now stretch it out to 35-65, otherwise mixed demographics. That’s still WAY younger than the current batch, which has an AVERAGE age of 64, but you’re getting some more wisdom and prudence in there.
Well, i think the lack of diversity is the larger problem than the average age. But yes, i do think a senate of diverse people age 35-45 would be worse than what we have. People’s interests and priorities change a great deal over a life span, and they gain experience with age.
35-65 might be better than what we have, but in my ideal world, we’d have a couple of people who remember more wars (and other pivotal events) personally. I think perspective adds a lot of value.
I’m not disagreeing that our current crop are too old, but i don’t think an age limit, even if we could implement it, would be an improvement.
And that’s why i asked about other countries. Because other countries elect their representative in a wide variety of ways, and i suspect some of those work better than what the US uses.
And, being older (40+) is a protected class in the U.S., and federal laws prohibit discrimination in employment (hiring, firing, promotion, etc.) based on their age. Given that, I’m not certain that a mandatory retirement age for Congress would even be legal.
I’m not 100% certain of that. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967) forbids discrimination based on age, but only pertains to people ages 40 and above. As the minimum ages for serving in the House and Senate (as well as the presidency) are lower than 40, I don’t think they run afoul of the ADEA anyway.
That said, the Wikipedia entry on the ADEA also states:
So, that would seem to allow for a mandatory retirement age for Congress, as they would seem to be the very definition of “high policy-making positions.”
Congress exempts itself from most of the employment laws it passes. In this case, it exempted the entire federal government.
(b) The term “employer” means a person engaged in an industry affecting commerce who has twenty or more employees for each working day in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year: Provided , That prior to June 30, 1968, employers having fewer than fifty employees shall not be considered employers. The term also means (1) any agent of such a person, and (2) a State or political subdivision of a State and any agency or instrumentality of a State or a political subdivision of a State, and any interstate agency, but such term does not include the United States, or a corporation wholly owned by the Government of the United States.
Nonetheless, an age limit for Senators would require a constitutional amendment, and that would Trump any statute.
If you agree it’s a problem that some people are too old to serve, then why would this situation not be improved by barring those who are too old to serve?
If you don’t care enough about the problem to solve it, or you think it would be too hard to put into effect, that’s one thing. But suggesting that age limits won’t address excessive age in office just doesn’t make sense. It’s just about the only thing that would fix it.
We have always had age discrimination for US Senators (30 years) and US Presidents (35 years). If a lower limit is acceptable, then upper limits are acceptable too. If we can have 90-year-old senators, then we can have 18-year-old senators. Just as some 90-year-olds aren’t senile, some 18-year-olds are quite mature and sophisticated.
No matter what the statute says for workers at large in the public or private sectors, a mandatory age-out for Congress or the Presidency would require a constitutional amendment as it would create a disqualification to serve.
They could, but they are much less likely to elect someone at that age than to re-elect them.
So?
My problem is that an incumbent rarely sees a real challenge to their seat. They can coast on inertia with no real challenge from their own party, and often little from the other.
That they can end up being too old to perform the duties of their office is but one of many reasons to avoid people spending their entire political careers in office.
And the people under 30 hope to be 80 one day, and most of them don’t want to be discriminated against when they reach that age.
You would still have to get Manchin or Sinema to go along with it, along with the rest of the Democrats, which isn’t a given in itself.
I did say most, not all. I’m sure that there are some who would enjoy having their rights taken away because they have reached some arbitrary age.
Especially since I expect that by the time I’ve reached that age, medicine will have advanced to make 80 the new 70. By the time a 30 year old reaches 80, they may be the equivalent of a 55 year old today.
Or term limits. A term limit does not technically prevent a person from serving their allowed terms when they are very old - after all, there’s term limits for President, and Joe Biden is very old. But it would absolutely reduce the number of old Senators (probably more so than old Presidents.) If you had, say, a three-term limit, you’d still have a few fogeys like Richard Blumenthal and Ed Markey, but Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Grassley, Mitch McConnell, and Dick Durbin would all have been replaced long ago. Ben Cardin would be in the end of his run, as would Bernie Sanders.
I oppose term limits because it reduces electoral choices for the wrong reasons. Of the problems it purports to solve, I find that it either doesn’t solve them, or they’re not problems that I find important. As a solution for age-limiting I find it a timid and roundabout way of addressing the problem. If the problem is that Senators are too old, then the legislative solution is age limits, not some roundabout solution that ejects reps who get re-elected because (gasp) their constituents feel that they’re doing a good job. But I feel like that’s a topic for a different thread, so I won’t continue down that rabbit hole.
If someone is OK with a 90-year-old Senator being eligible for office, then they should be fine with an 18-year-old Senator being eligible for office. If they’re not, that’s a pretty revealing insight into the biases at work here.
Jon Ossoff was elected at 41. He’s doing a good job, the job I elected him to do. He’s not hanging onto power via some autocratic means, he’ll face voters every 6 years. It would be absolutely ridiculous for him to be termed out at age 53 if he’s in the prime of life and the people keep choosing him.
Now if you don’t like the fact that Senators only face the voters every 6 years… I agree. And that leads us to the broader topic of whether it makes sense to have a parliamentary chamber that’s designed to be less responsive to the people, to which I say: no, it doesn’t make sense, it was a bad idea designed to protect slavery. We should get rid of the Senate entirely. But term limits? Silly idea.
There are pros and cons. I like my Congressman, but he’s in perpetual campaign mode. I mean from day one. And he doesn’t get a lot of opposition, but he’s always raising money. I actually wrote to his fundraising arm and said “just stop bugging me until 6 months before the election and I promise to give you the max at that time.” I wish they could focus on their job instead of re-election.
In theory, a six year term reduces this pressure. In practice, probably not.
And the same could be said for the voters who elected Feinstein. She won the primary hands down and wasn’t even contested in the general. Her voters would say that it’s ridiculous that she is forced to retire after all the good she has done.
That has nothing to do with anything that I said, and I don’t see term lengths as the problem.
I see that it is an idea that you disagree with and choose to act dismissive of, but that doesn’t make it “silly”.
I consider the power of incumbency to be one of the bigger problems in our political system, and embracing incumbency because you like your current senator is, what’s the word?, oh, silly.
Because people age at different rates. Diane Feinstein is too old to serve. When my uncle was her age, he would not have been too old to serve. My mother would have been too old to serve. (And my mother at 60 or even 70 would have been terrific. But she had aged too much by 80. Whereas my uncle at 90 would have been an excellent senator) I don’t believe there is a number that defines “too old to serve”,
I do agree that having the average age as high as it is is a problem, not because too many of them are too old to serve, but because it’s an important dimension in which the senate lacks diversity.
I don’t think it would be tragic if the senate had an age limit of 80, fwiw, but I don’t think it would help significantly with the “they are all old” problem, either. I do think an age limit of 65 would be a mistake.