I think there is a huge problem in American politics where the older generation(s) simply refuse to let go of the reins and allow the younger generations to take the country in a direction they would like to see. In my limited experience, the older you get the more likely you will be satisfied with treading water and working hard to maintain the status quo and I am sick and tired of having to wait for the old guard to die before we can get some fresh blood into the political machine.
I would drop the minimum age requirement to 21 and I would cap the max age at 55 for ALL elected positions as well as SCOTUS.
My scenario is that we (somehow) decide that after a given age (say, 65), there’s too high a probability that they’re going to be a bad president for one reason or another.
The issue is not that we wish to screen out some specific 90 year old; the issue is that we (somehow) decide that we don’t want any geriatric in the position. The closest that any current old farts play in to the equation is that they’re belatedly showing us that the system in general isn’t doing a good job of keeping the seniles out, so steps should maybe be taken.
As for some specific old dude being popular, I’m highly confident that were the rules to change, some other young dude would step into his shoes.
I am. I think it should be up to the voters to decide, case by case.
And the problem with SCOTUS is not the lack of age limit, it’s the fact that it’s a lifetime appointment with very little chance of being removed from office before death.
I’m saying that limiting people from voting for who they want based on probabilities is a bad road to go down. A much better solution to that problem is to convince voters not to vote for old people, to convince older Presidents to select a cabinet that won’t be afraid to invoke the 25th Amendment and to select a Vice President who is younger and ready to step in.
Where do you draw the line? If old people are ineligible, what about felons? Make felons ineligible and bet that some rinky-dink state that hates XX will ram XX through a kangaroo court to make her a felon!
The U.S.A. rightly prides itself on being the Land of Freedom. Enshrine criteria into law and you’ve taken freedom from the voters and given it to a law framed by an earlier generation. (Where I live a recent constitution dictated that only college grads can serve in Parliament IIRC. Some popular activists from rural areas became ineligible, while corrupt boss-men could still buy a a college degree if necessary.)
Should the law require that Presidential candidates pass a psychiatric exam? Release their taxes? Show that their staffings satisfied some diversity criteria? NO; such criteria might be enforced by opinion-makers, not by the LAW.
I’d have no problem with the politicos and editors in a smoke-filled room agreeing to reject candidates who don’t submit to mental evaluation, or who don’t release their taxes, or who aren’t exactly 43½ years old — that’s their right, but these criteria don’t have the force of law.
Uh oh. We don’t have smoke-filled rooms anymore. Candidates are chosen by Facebook lies reposted by dimwits gulled by Russian trolls. Yeah; there are problems. Big problems that persnickety cosmetic fixes won’t solve.
While I agree with this, this also requires that voters be given all the relevant information to make the judgment. Especially since being elected to certain positions means they are automatically granted access to classified information. So the voters should see everything that would normally be used as part of a security clearance background check. Tax returns included.
This is actually not true. Nobody has to retire at 65, and many people can’t afford to. 65 is just the age limit where society decided people should get various retirement benefits so that they don’t have to work if they don’t choose to.
I’m in favor of elected officials being bound by an age limit of 70. No doubt that many people keep their faculties by the age of 70, but most people are already suffering some mental decline by that age.
The Trump and Reagan presidencies highlight the fact that not only do we have no functioning mechanism to determine whether a president has lost his marbles, we lack the political capacity to ask the question.
I’m actually OK with that. I wouldn’t want a president I like being harassed by constant mental health challenges from a hostile congress. For that same reason I’m OK that sitting presidents can’t be indicted. But if we’re going to be lax on elected officials that way, we should have more strict statutory limits on who gets to wield that kind of power.
It’s my observation that in America, the primary system and other party-related systemic issues tend to give most people no choice about how old the person they’re voting for is. I mean, yes, if your choice is a 76 year old democrat and a 75 year old republican, then a democrat COULD throw aside their principles and vote for the republican due to him being ‘young’, but in practical terms the system in place makes voting only for young people an unviable strategy.
I don’t know that capping ages is the best way to deal with this, but it’s certainly one way.
I agree with everything I quoted. Removal of the existing restrictions (35, time living in US etc) is not going to happen either because it would also require a constitutional amendment and nobody cares enough to go through that rigamarole on this issue.
But conceptually it’s going the wrong way to add restrictions. If you don’t trust the people (even via the Electoral College, which isn’t the issue wrt age of candidates) to elect the right president then why have an elected president? Invite an unemployed noble to be constitutional monarch. Seriously, the Founders had limited faith in the electorate (as reflected throughout the document, and also outside it in terms of states’ voter qualification requirements at the time), but the general evolution has been toward more. If medical advances allow people to be effective presidents in their 70’s or in the future their 90’s, then we have to have an amendment to allow that? Seems ridiculous to me. That’s exactly the sort of thing voters should decide without a lot of preconditions. As opposed to say changing individual rights where the ‘momentary passions of the people’ are rightly more constrained by the constitution’s text and courts’ interpretation of it. The existing restrictions on who can be president are the anomaly, not the fact that they aren’t more.
The standard for restricting political power or participation should be substantially higher than for being a pilot or a general or any other occupation.
I mean: I agree that people over 65 are more likely to have serious mental deficiencies in the next 4-8 years than younger people. That’s not in dispute.
What’s disputed is whether that’s sufficient reason to keep people from voting for the candidate of their choice. I don’t think it is. I’m deeply suspicious of any restrictions on who may vote or whom they may vote for. I think the only requirement to vote or hold office in the US should be citizenship (and, maybe, term limits), and any other restrictions should be removed. Because restrictions are toxic to the idea of political freedom.
Social Security has determined that you don’t get full retirement benefits until age 67, so “society” has determined (with money, which is what counts) you should work for at least a couple more years.
There’s another front-runner in the race who is 70 years old. The 2016 Democratic nominee is 71. The 2008 Republican nominee was 72 when he ran, and continued to serve in the Senate for another 8 years. Bob Dole was 73 when he ran in 1996 and remained politically active for another 20 years.
More than HALF the justices on the Supreme Court are over age 65 (Sonia Sotomayor is 65, Samuel Alito 69, Clarence Thomas 71, Stephen Breyer 81, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 86. The Pope is 83 and Queen freakin’ Elizabeth is 93.
Seriously, the Founders had limited faith in the electorate (as reflected throughout the document, and also outside it in terms of states’ voter qualification requirements at the time), but the general evolution has been toward more. If medical advances allow people to be effective presidents in their 70’s or in the future their 90’s, then we have to have an amendment to allow that? Seems ridiculous to me. That’s exactly the sort of thing voters should decide without a lot of preconditions. As opposed to say changing individual rights where the ‘momentary passions of the people’ are rightly more constrained by the constitution’s text and courts’ interpretation of it. The existing restrictions on who can be president are the anomaly, not the fact that they aren’t more.