Post 2 of the Fixing the Constitution series, focusing on much-needed amendments to our founding document and how to enact them.
The idea of age limits for federal officeholders has gotten a lot of buzz lately, for a lot of reasons. We’ve had Ruth Bader Ginsburg insisting on staying on the Supreme Court until her death at age 87, basically assuring the appointment of a successor who would help overturn Roe vs. Wade. We’ve had the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, in her late 80’s, chairing important committees while obviously impaired by dementia. Last year Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, 82, froze up and became unable to speak during multiple public appearances.
But the most obvious impetus for all of this age talk is that we have a Presidential election coming up where the two major party candidates are the oldest we’ve ever seen. Joe Biden will be 81 on inauguration day, while Donald Trump will be 78. Ronald Reagan, our previous oldest President, was a mere child of 77 when he finished his two terms (the second of which was marked by his early signs of dementia).
But it’s not just the major party candidates who are beyond retirement age. All three “major” third party contenders will be over 70 on inauguration day (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., 71, Jill Stein, 74, Cornell West, 71).
Apparently, most Americans see this as a problem. An AP-NORC poll from August found that 77% of Americans (including 69% of Democrats) thought that Biden was too old to be an effective President. 51% thought the same of Trump, although that broke down sharply along partisan lines, with 89% of Democrats agreeing versus only 28% of Republicans.
And it’s clear that this is not just about these two men: A Pew Research Center poll from October found that 79% of Americans favored age limits for elected officials and 74% favored limits for Supreme Court justices.
Of course, the Constitution does include lower limits for office holders. House members must be 25, Senators must be 30 and Presidents must be 35 (Fun fact: Joe Biden was at the minimum age of 30 when he was elected to the Senate in 1972). The Framers, whose average age was 42, were obviously concerned about the dangers of inexperienced youngsters having the levers of power but lived in a world where few lived to be old enough to experience the downsides of advanced age.
But are people right to want to disqualify people from office merely because they reach a certain age? Isn’t this ageism, as many of Biden’s advocates claim? (Side note: To my knowledge, none of the people making this claim has advocate removing the obvious ageism of minimum age requirements)
To my mind, there are three good reasons to consider an age limit amendment:
- Mental Acuity: While some people can maintain high mental functioning into their 90s, the sad fact is that one’s chance of having dementia rapidly increases in one’s 70s. In 2019, the rate of adults with dementia for adults ages 70-74, is a mere 3%, then jumps to 7% at ages 75-79 and rises to 22% of adults ages 85 to 89. And that’s not counting diminished mental functioning that doesn’t rise to the level of diagnosed dementia. One of the most difficult parts of dementia is that people suffering from it are almost never aware of how severely their memory, awareness and judgement are impacted and so are unlikely to voluntarily retire.
- Technological Knowledge: I don’t know about you, but, to me, watching our Senators question tech CEOs is a discouraging sight. Partly, this is because so many of them seem mostly focused on why they and their political positions don’t rank more highly in Google search results. But it is also clear that it is very difficult for many older members to fully understand how the internet, social media and algorithms function and what the stakes really are. As a person in my early 50s, I certainly don’t think it would be a good idea for me to be making policy about, say, artificial intelligence 25 years from now.
- Diminished Opportunities for New Leadership: There are only so many positions in our leadership hierarchies and mandatory retirement is one way to open spots for new leaders. Nancy Pelosi and her deputy Steny Hoyer led the Congressional Democrats for twenty years before they yielded to pressure to step down in 2023 at the ages of 83 and 84. Only one previous Speaker, Sam Rayburn, held onto his party leadership position for that long, from 1940 until he died in office in 1961 at age 79. Historically, almost all Congressional leaders were in place for eight years or less.
Despite the popularity of the idea of age limits, no major political figures have taken up the cause. A recent bill proposing an amendment barring anyone over the age of 75 from serving in Congress or as President, put forth by Michigan Republican Rep. John James, has attracted no co-sponsors and is still awaiting a hearing after seven months.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that members of Congress are not falling over themselves to pass an age limit. After all, most House seats are non-competitive, offering a position of power for life. And most Senators are senior citizens: 59 of 100 sitting senators will be 65 or older in 2024, 42 will be 70 or older and 19 will be 75 or older.
So how do we get our representatives to vote against their own self-interest? Do we have to wait for some kind of age- or dementia-related scandal or disaster to galvanize voters? And will anyone take up Nikki Haley’s related proposal for a mandatory mental competency test for federal officeholders over the age of 75? One thing is for sure: with both Biden and Trump set to be in their 80s by the end of the next term, the issue will not be going away anytime soon.