We are living in dark days, my friend. While I am unhappy with the current state of affairs, I cannot in good conscience limit my perspective to the here and now. We’re better served by looking at historical context as well as considering what any changes might mean for the future. Would term limits serve to avoid having elderly legislators who cannot perform the essential functions of their positions? I think so. But even assuming term limits solve one problem, I’m not convinced it won’t open up a whole different set of problems.
The issue in the House, IMO, has less to do with Representatives who have been in there for decades, and more to do with more recently-elected GOP Representatives who came in with very little in the way of government experience, and have little apparent interest in actually helping the government to function, but are trying to build their own personal brands, and get on the news and social media by saying outlandish childish crap.
The reason for that is simple. In a parliamentary system we generally can’t split our vote, so incumbency of a particular MP isn’t an issue. There’s also institutional reasons why incumbency is not a big issue.
Suppose the Gold Party is in power, and my MP is a Gold. But I want the Silver party to form government, because I don’t like the Gold Party’s policies and I prefer the Silver leader to be pm.
To change government, I have to vote Silver. Doesn’t matter how long the Gold MP has been in parliament, or how good à job they’re doing. If I want Silver in power, I vote against Gold.
None of that vote-splitting, where I say that I’ll vote for the Silver candidate for president, but keep voting for the gold MP for good constituent service.
Plus, individual MPs aren’t as powerful as Congressctitters: no bacon. It’s the government as a whole that decides the budget priorities. An individual MP can’t slip in a rider into a bill to build a bridge to nowhere, both because of the strict enforcement of subject-matter of bills by the neutral Spraker, and the need for the Royal recommendation for any spending measure.
Net result: we don’t need term limits on MPs, because our parliamentary system does not reward incumbency. If we want to change the government, we vote them out.
Instead of term limits, why not age limits? Would take a constitutional amendment. Why not age 70 as the cut-off date?
Cite, please.
This is, of course correct.
Even in those blue-ribbon seats where the politics of the local member changes less frequently than the politics of the national government. I don’t have the numbers to hand but expect the number of Federal politicians who have won 5 or more elections to be in single figures out of the current 151.
Two drivers in this are 1) much reduced advantage of incumbency and 2) regular boundary redistributions reflecting population movements and negating gerrymander.
But as a matter of some long term incorrigibility down here we like to have political power between Federal & States in balance (to be charitable) or in conflict (to be pragmatic) . We wouldn’t be alone in this, but have no idea as to the extent in other federations.
A fair portion of the day-to-day government services I might consume i.e. health, transport, law & order, education, land/business titles/registrations etc are state government responsibilities. And for most of Australian Federation period a minority of the six States at any one time have been the same political party as the Federal government.
How is that even a thing?
Aging is one thing we all have in common. It doesn’t discriminate at all.
All people become just as feeble in body and mind as anybody else. No matter the color of your skin, your beliefs or sexual preferences or identity.
Statistically everybody over 75 shouldn’t even be allowed to drive, let alone hold any significant office. Would you get in an airliner piloted by a geriatric? The people who make the rules say max 65, and you can only be over 60 if the other pilot is younger than 60. That sounds about right.
I find the whole idea of not wanting some geriatric in a position of power as some kind of “discrimination” a form of boomer worship that they sure as fuck didn’t deserve.
Everybody should just retire at 65, but after 70 anyone thinking they are still performing on an acceptable level in any field should play more Mario Carts with their grandchildren, play more chess with their kids or go running with them. If after that anyone still thinks they qualify as functional adults has proven themselves to be demented. (or they raised useless kids, another clear disqualification)
I’ll accept that having a substantial block of “the government” not accepting the premise that there is a place for any government is unhelpful. 
It’s never worked that way, in all of history, in any system or culture. If there’s no rules to stop them people will entrench themselves for life. And eventually, turn themselves into an outright aristocracy most likely.
If only we had some system where the people could periodically review government officials and determine if they were still fit to hold office.
We do; it just doesn’t work. Never has, never will.
Just because people you don’t agree with get elected, doesn’t mean the system is invalid.
That said, there is a serious problem in a democratic system of government when people are not allowed to vote. And the United States has that problem and it’s growing. The Republican party has spent several decades disenfranchising voters.
To me, securing voting rights is a much more critical issue than setting term limits or age caps.
This is the problem with term limits, especially when you realize it means that lobbyists for outside interests are far more informed about the details of complicated issues than the Congresspersons are, so the Congresspersons wind up leaning on them for help in writing bills, and too much stuff favoring those interests gets snuck into legislation.
This has been especially prevalent where term limits have been implemented at the state level, where being a state legislator is still unfortunately a part-time job.
And all that happens with the alternative of lifetime legislators is that they rely on those lobbyists even more, since that’s part of how they stay in office for life.
That has nothing to do with the subject matter. The relevant issue isn’t what they stand for, the issue is that they can turn themselves into a permanent institution and render elections irrelevant.
As for democracy being subverted; as various pro-term limits people have pointed out over the years, that’s the typical end result of not having term limits. Moving from making the election a foregone conclusion, to eliminating it entirely; a natural progression.
In order to have a chance, such an amendment would have to be seen as not affecting one party much more than the other.
Maybe an age limit of 85 on all three branches would get through, applying to everyone in Congress, every judge of a Federal court, and not only the President and VP but anyone whose appointment requires Congressional approval.
You’d want to write it to exempt the current term of office for the legislative and executive branches, so for instance Chuck Grassley could finish his current term, but he couldn’t run again. But the next time an 80 year old runs for Senate after the amendment passed, the Constitution would then prohibit that person from serving past their 85th birthday. With the judicial branch, one might do something like giving a 2-year exemption to judges of age 83 or older when the amendment took effect.
Why 85? Because I can think of recent examples of persons serving with distinction past 80 (Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi) but the list gets a lot thinner after 85. And at least IME, the mid-80s is when dementia starts to set in with a lot of people who were fine up to that point. Also IME, vigor seems to noticeably decrease by then. For one example, my father and I, along with several other family members, celebrated his 80th birthday by going on a hike, among other activities. At 85, not so much.
Sure, it would be challenged. Any law is likely to be challenged but people often don’t remember that age discrimination laws specifically apply to employers and the equivalent (legislators don’t have employers) and there are all sorts of exceptions , everything from maximum ages to be hired as a police officer to mandatory retirement ages for pilots amd high level executives immediately eligible for a pension. But the prospect of an age discrimination suit isn’t what will prevent term limits or age caps - we could absolutely have an unofficial, informal cap if people were willing to refuse to vote someone in for a fourth term or to elect someone over 70. The problem is that for the most part, people don’t want it. People hate congress but love their senator/representative. Because after all, my senator’s office helped me with passport problem, why wouldn’t I vote for her until she drops dead?
And in some of these parliamentary systems, there is the alternative of sending the seniors to whatever is their Lords equivalent so they can still feel they have a role.
I disagree, for the reasons given earlier. In a parliamentary system, this is not an issue.
For example, just this spring the leader of the Conservative Party, whom polls had predicted would be our next Prime Minister, was defeated in his own riding in the general election.
You made me curious so I looked that up.
Since JFK, we’ve elected two presidents in their 40s (Clinton and Obama); four in their 50s (Johnson, Nixon, Carter, and Bush II); two in their 60s (Reagan and Bush I); and three in their 70s (Trump, Biden, and Trump). The last three are outliers. Almost certainly we’ll go back to 50s in the near future.
Fun fact: Clinton, Bush II, and Trump were born in August, July, and June 1946, the first crop of boomer babies. What are the odds that a similar cohort will dominate the future?
This is mostly true, although it is a custom and not a law. In fact, “the Senate Republican Conference placed six-year term limits on its party’s committee chairmen and ranking members in 1997.” These seats have been increasingly contested in recent years, as with AOC challenging Gerry Connolly, the cancer-stricken long-term Democratic head of the Oversight Committee. After Connolly died, 47-year-old Robert Garcia became ranking member. He is in his second term, but had 20 years of elected experience. AOC is in her fourth term, and has no previous experience. Who would you rather have in the abstract? Garcia is a gay Hispanic from California, so probably considerably leftist.
Cortez is now on the House Committee on Energy & Commerce. The ranking member there is Frank Pallone, who is 75 but also in his fourth term in Congress. No seniority bulge there. AOC doesn’t get elected because of her age or lack of seniority, but because most of the party is not progressive. That may very well change in the future. The real cure for all age issues is time.
Every 5 years, draw names out of a hat to pick legislators and provide for their quick and easy replacement if they prove incompetent, immoral, or unresponsive. Hey, you said it didn’t have to be practical.