95
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After Mitch McConnell's and Dianne Feinstein's episodes, should we talk about age limits in US public officials?
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- Authors
- Juliana Kim
- Published
- Jul 31 2023
- Word count
- 722 words
I think there's a strong argument against term limits in that it further increases the power of the unelected lobbyists and congressional aides; they become the people with the most experience in Washington instead of the politicians. One of the reasons people cite that Biden has been effective as a president is that he's deeply familiar with, and has close relationships with many members of congress, including McConnell from his decades as senator.
I think there's a point where an age limit isn't ageism; nobody denies that an average 80 year old is less physically fit and much more likely to have mental degradation than an average 40 year old. But the potential solution doesn't even necessarily need to require an age limit -- my suggestion would be to start requiring annual examination by a government physician (a doctor appointed by the military for that purpose would work). That physician can flag a congressperson as unable to serve, and if they can't resolve that state (in say, 6 months or a year to allow for recovery from illness), they are removed, to be replaced by their state's process.
On an unrelated note, ageism is only illegal in the United States against people age 40 and older, which I always found somewhat ridiculous.
I think an arbitrary age limit is much better than this. Examinations will inevitably just be politicized and serve as yet another wedge to undermine people's faith in the democratic process.
And regarding @BeanBurrito's point of ageism, I disagree that age limits are ageism or discriminatory. We all understand children aren't old enough to vote so there is a voting age limit. Yes, this is an arbitrary age and some could probably vote earlier while some would better off be delayed but an age limit is there to serve a clear purpose in a much cleaner way than some sort of subjective test would.
Yea, I feel like these examinations would just be maneuvered around by finding a party loyalist doctor who would just rubber stamp anybody to be fit to serve. Who would ultimately be in charge of the process that wouldn't be biased one way or another? Look back at 2015 when Trump dictated his own health report to his doctor, doctors aren't these paragons of ethical behavior either. In theory, finding a "government physician" could help with impartiality, but given the importance that these Reps/Senators carry, I'd imagine it could be easier to pressure/prod them into overlooking questionable behavior from a Congressperson.
Just set maximum age limits, the same way we have no problem setting minimum ages for people to become President, Senator, Representative, just set a maximum age limit as well. Why is it we have no problem discriminating against younger people entering these positions, but discriminating against older Americans is taboo?
Precisely this for me. There's nothing inherently different for someone who is a doctor or just about any other profession that makes them more ethical or less corruptible, or simply just less influenced by basic human behaviors/desires. Sure there are some other factors that might play a role in the type of people that want to become doctors, and the work put into becoming a doctor could in theory make someone less susceptible to risking it to do something unethical, but that is true for probably a lot of professions where we don't associate them with paragons of virtue.
Even if you assume no malice, fundamentally people want to curry favor with others. It's only natural. The more power, status/influence, money etc. that someone has, the more we might be encouraged to curry favor with these individuals, and even when there's no overt offer to change our behavior or such, we understand at a basic level that telling these people what they don't want to hear is generally not going to curry favor. It's the reason why the concept and stereotype of "yes men" is a thing. It's not inherently or fundamentally intended to be a corruption of ones own beliefs or thoughts or that they're intending to do unethical things, though it can become that too.
I highly doubt they're going to be pulling off any double blind health examinations and presumably the names of the doctors performing them would be public to keep everything on the up and up, and at some point some might assume retribution or reward would be down the line depending on how they rule on their examinations. Look at how judge appointments are these days, judges are as political as ever, and perhaps more so than doctors at some point some might have presumed a greater paragon of virtue from judges and I think we have enough history to know that just isn't the case. Look at the FTC vs Microsoft scenario recently among all the myriad of other things you could possibly look at in courts and you'd see how totally biased courts are because of the decades of political influence over them. It's not just the Supreme Court, though that one is also quite obvious.
Re cognitive exams for politicians, I would require a unanimous panel of randomly selected practicing certified neurologists to agree, maybe five or even ten, chosen from a pool of doctors who agreed that they would serve if needed. It would be hard to game.
I agree that a larger panel would make it harder to have significant influence over all of them, though I don't necessarily think unanimous would be good as then influence over a single individual is still very effective. If you're going to a panel of 5 or more (rather than something small like 3), even 4 out of 5 is pretty solid.
Of course there's pros and cons to any solution. The more I think about it, the cons to age limits could be fairly prohibitive, that it doesn't get rid of the problem of having someone who has significant cognitive impairments in office if they happen to be under the age limit for example. The attack on age limits could be that it's ignoring the problem or kicking the can down the road rather than trying to address it head-on. Probably even more of a detriment to age limits, seniors vote, personal medical evaluations allows individual people to believe they would be considered qualified and it's the others that aren't, because the vast majority of the population won't be evaluated (since they aren't running for office). This is important because people don't want to feel like they're the ones being targeted or excluded, and it's a very easy flip to say "they want to put age limits on running for office, what next, age limits for voting? you deserve a vote, don't let them take your vote away" and now you've got all of those senior voters that will be against it, even though the age limit wouldn't be for voting, the perception can easily be turned that way.
Thanks for your criticism. I hadn't thought about how easy it would be to game a requrement to be unanimous. I also have known a variety of elderly people, some of whom were sharp intellectually and compassionate at 95. But yes, I am in favor of cognitive testing at intervals, with methods that make it more difficult to influence the result, starting as low as 60.
I think this in particular is the lowest of my concerns with age limits, because age limits don't really have some kind of pretense that they're the most accurate way of determining each individuals competence, in the same way that there's some 16 and 17 year olds that are more capable of making better decisions than there are some people who are over 18. We aren't short on people who have intellectual sharpness or compassion, so there's no real loss to society as a whole to limit 95 year olds who might be sharp intellectually and compassionate from running for office. We are short on realistic and effective methods of limiting those who are lacking the intellectual sharpness to run for office. Much in the same way that we don't need to lower the age of majority to 15 or something, because we have plenty of people above the current age of majority who are capable already, we don't need to widen the pool further and wade through the waters of teenagers in the off chance some of them are capable.
That's where an appropriately set age limit succeeds, it cuts through a lot of the situational cases and "maybes" and just says we don't need to wade through those murky waters and it does so with very realistic and achievable cost controls.
As with everything humans do, there's a balance of what is ideal, and what is realistic. Ideally we could assess everyone individually and tailor parts of our systems and institutions to each individuals needs or capabilities, but in actuality we can't, because we lack the resources to do this. Instead of every person getting one-on-one instruction by experts in every part of our educational journeys, we're in classes of 30 or more all being taught the same way even if it's not fair to some because they learn differently than others. Ideally everyone could get a fair trial based on their individual circumstances, except in actuality that's not what happens.
All of the negatives I said about age limits in running for office before are still true, and the more I thought about them the less realistic they seemed compared to individual evaluations, but even that's a bad compromise in that it's only realistic because our representation is completely fucked. 100 senators for over 300 million people. 435 house reps for over 300 million people. If we had a more ideal number of representatives, the notion of individual medical evaluations might look significantly less realistic.
In our society it's going to be a mix of status quo and what changes can muster sufficient support. Unless we scrap the constitution, we have to meet the amendment process requirements which requires sufficient popularity. Seniors vote as you mentioned. Just like drivers don't want to give up their licenses without a medical verification that they must.
As I look at the older politicians it's a mixed bag. Pelosi was masterful in responding to the riot at the capitol January 6. Bernie Sanders has done great good in his most recent term. On the other hand, Feinstein is a case that is cruel to her and unfair to her constituents.
As I said, personally I would not cut off the group with a mandatory age limit but I understand why it's popular to propose it.
A cognitive exam isn't that controversial or uncommon. No need to overcomplicate the matter. As I said elsewhere, my aging mother had to pass a few over several days after a fall. It seems like a pretty low-effort way to ensure our elected officials are competent and not vulnerable to manipulation.
I'm not a fan of age limits exactly, but age limits are far better than this. Having a doctor examine an elected official and having the power to declare them "unfit" to legislate is ripe with corruption. The only way this works is if every doctor is completely immune to being bribed or coerced into giving an unfit diagnosis.
Hello there straw-man argument. Establishing standards and using science and rules isn't "too hard". I mean why have laws at all? Cognitive testing is standard fair after sports injuries, head injuries, and in screening for alzheimers. It's not radical or unreasonable to ask our public servants to verify they are capable of performing their elected duties.
We already have lower age limits for political offices, is that not already ageism?
Why should someone have to be at least 35 years old to become president or 30 to become a senator, but not under 75?
You're right, we could probably remove that lower bound of 35, there might not be a good reason for that.
A lower bound of 35 might be too high, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be a lower bound.
We need age limits, on both sides of the distribution.
Just tie it to retirement age. That isn't ageism as they set the age themselves.
Please no, they will just raise retirement age. The majority of them have plenty of money and connections. What do they care what retirement age is?
Upper age limits are ageism in as much as limiting driving and voting and military service age is. That's just silly.
If you've ever seen the show Yes, Minister then Sir Humphrey is a perfect example of the people who get too much power when the politicians are too temporary.
Term limits are a double edged sword. If you tell a politician that their career has an expiration date, their entire tenure just becomes an audition for whatever cushy lobbyist job they can get post-term limit.
It also drastically empowers the political staff behind the scenes. Chiefs of Staff and Advisors won't be term limited, and since they're the ones making lifelong careers, they're where all the institutional knowledge resides. So now power is removed from the elected official and put in the hands of their unelected staff.
I don't think age limits are a perfect solution but I think they're better than term limits. Age limits need to be approached not from the mindset of "old people are unable to govern" but instead from the perspective of "at a certain point, the demographics of elected officials needs to mirror the demographics of the electorate". Politicians from previous generations need to be encouraged to step aside, and other than age limits or term limits, I don't see another way to make that happen.
Arguably, this is already the case. Every politician is aware they can be voted out next election. Every office's staff is longer standing or with more collective experience than every politician. Every politician is shaking hands and making deals to have a cushy lobbyist job once they're voted out.
Age limits are the best and most democratic solution. We have constitutionally allowed ageism with age minimums (I'm not saying younger, even more inexperienced should be allowed, just pointing out hypocrisy of say not allowing someone that actually understands tech to legislate it, but allowing someone that can't open a PDF to do so), the Legislature was quick to act when the possibility of someone else (FDR) having their unlimited term limits showed up, and while term limits would provide a definite end to a career (although there's only term limits per role, so one could be a Congressperson for X years, Senator for Y years, and President for Z years), it's obvious the framers of the Constitution didn't expect the doubling of life expectancy and leading to gerontocracy.
But they're not. They're not voted upon, so they're not democratic. They're the definition of an arbitrary limiting factor.
For any system of government to function well, those operating within it need feel (and act upon) a fundamentally honest sense of duty towards exercising their responsibilities in that government in a manner beneficial to the governed society. Clearly, people are greedy asshats and almost always seek to turn any possible situation to their own self-centered advantage, but sometimes and in some places (in history) you saw governments that had far less of a "fuck you, too bad, we've got ours" as you're seeing in so many of today's governments.
The primary problem in today's governments is people within them who fail to appreciate that they have a responsibility, and who instead act to enrich and strengthen themselves at any costs. Without regard to fair play or decency or civility. Lawyering for the most part. They parse "rules" and "laws" within an inch of breaking, and even break or ignore them where they have the power to do so successfully, just as long as it brings them to their desired goal. That's what's breaking government, and destroying citizens' faith in it; when "little people" see the powerful getting away with things that citizens are crushed for attempting.
I mention that because it's become very chic to clamor for age limits. Most of the people who want them will tell you they feel it would make the elected more representative of the electors (i.e., fewer old people in government). Except ... democracies already have a mechanism for this. It's called voting.
Now, obviously a whole lot of people in power pull a whole lot of strings to rig the scales. In America, for example, the Democratic and Republican parties both have their own rules about who's "allowed" on their tickets. In the most recent election, we saw some very obvious and overt pulling of levers to swing the supposedly democratic nomination process for the DC to Biden. First-past-the-post (rather than ranked choice or similar systems) is another easily manipulated aspect of why things are so fucked.
But nothing stops the electorate from banding together and voting for who they like. People could have not voted for Biden, or Trump, if they didn't want them to top those tickets. Further, the electorate could have banded together to vote for someone else in the general election, regardless of what happened in the nominations. What stops them? They stop themselves, with a lot of fingers on that scale from the power players who reap the rewards of keeping the electorate and the election system under their control.
Is government in America, and a whole lot of other countries around the world, in a fucked state that sorely needs restructuring? Absolutely yes. But it happens either via the ballot box, or the powder box. Those are the only two ways a consensus results in governmental change throughout history; a large enough group of people gets together, finds a groundswell behind their common desire, and forces that swell through via the power they can find the harness. That power might be less or more violent, but either way it's still an exercise of power.
Young people who want more young people in government need to vote for young people. Which starts with actually voting. Most young people don't vote. They don't care to vote, they forget to vote, they don't make time to vote. They think it's stupid, or a waste of time, or hard, or boring. Or a lot of other things. But the fact is in many democracies around the world, youth don't show up to exercise their franchise.
Bitching about government on social media is easy. The phone's already in your pocket. You're already fiddling with it four to ten hours a day as it is. You pull up the feeds and tap out meme posts, likes, complaints, and hit send. The same as you'd toss out jokes about the latest hit movies or whatever. Except posts aren't counted.
Votes are counted.
I hate most of the crop of politicians in America. From what I know of most democracies around the world, most of their politicians are equally suspect. Ballot box or powder box.
A whole lot of people are being squeezed. A lot of citizens all around the world are being smushed down by corporations and the wealthy and those connected to them (aka, politicians on the inside nudging and winking in the right back rooms so they get handed money). We're at a breaking point in a lot of places. When that happens, you see more people complaining.
It's easy to shrug things off, to go along to get along, when whatever's happening to you isn't that bad. But things are that bad for more and more people. They're rumbling, rabble rabble rabble. The rumbling is getting louder of late, and there's reasons why that is. Those reasons can lead to history happening if the rumbling gets loud enough.
The ageism cry about politicians is a meme thing to complain about. "If only we could just dump all these old people, the younger ones would be better." Why? Politicians aren't chosen to lead us into battle, charging across a field waving a sword. They're supposed to be exercising judgement and experience, wisdom. Except we're back to what we all know, which is greedy asshats out for number one and fuck everyone else are who dominate most democracies.
There are two ways to address the actual problem. The age of leaders isn't the problem. The specific "leaders" who maneuver themselves into position to be elected is the problem. That's what citizens should be focusing on. That's what'll bring the change they want. The problem is, real change is really hard. It takes actual investment in the effort, and isn't as simple as dashing off a meme and clicking send.
Social media can be harnessed to bring real change. But it has to be tied to actual action, not just memes. We've seen how the wealthy and powerful are harnessing social media to whip up sectors of the citizenry as those wealthy and powerful people want. Directing them at specific targets, designed to distract from real problems.
Every citizen who's drawn into thread wars over social divisions is one less citizen who's trying to raise the cry and gather a groundswell toward something like the broken economics of modern societies. Of the lack of healthcare. Or any of at least half a dozen major issues that deal with real money and real power issues, rather than social things.
Addressing wages and how little of the pie is left for the citizens after the wealthy and their anointed power brokers have taken all their chosen pieces is real change that would really affect those grabbing for those nice big slices. Quick, make sure the rabble are rumbling about social things that won't really hurt us. Keep the unwashed masses bitching about all this other stuff, as long as it distracts them from bitching about how little money and power we're leaving for them to benefit from. More for us, less for them.
An age limit is a meme. And it's undemocratic. It's a frustration represented by how little of the pie is left to the people who make a country, a body politic, live and breathe. Ballot box or powder box. The power brokers know this, and they're busy twisting all the "laws" to make it increasingly unlikely the ballot box can hurt them. At some point, you either fall in line and settle for the scraps, or you focus on the real problems.
Most of us don't want the powder box to be necessary. But sitting home not voting, while bitching about "old out of touch politicians; we should ban them" is missing the forest for the mountain. Who controls whether or not you can ban any politician? In a democracy, that's voters. In a revolution, it's the winning side.
Young people need to vote more. Old people have had decades to learn how not voting hurts them. Young people need to use the Information Age to educate themselves quicker, to harness the power of that information to skip ahead rather than needing to coast blithely through their twenties and thirties before they wake up and see "oh, shit, maybe it does matter if I get off my ass and go vote." Having wasted twenty plus years memeing about elections rather than participating in them.
I want change in America. I'd like change in a lot of countries around the world, but I'm a greedy asshat like the rest of you. So I'd definitely settle for just my country getting its shit sorted out so there's more pie left for me and the other little people like me in America. We're in a bad place, but we're not in a dictatorship yet.
Yet.
There's still time for the citizens to alter the country's course to one that's more inclusive and holistic for We The People.
Go vote. Or start gathering supplies for your powder box.
I'd argue age limits AND a ban on any and all work or volunteer work on former congresspeople. They must live off of their pension once they're termed out or voted out for any reason. That means no lobbying and no working for the big boys in other shady ways. No consulting, nothing.
This doesn't work either, because then you make working in government significantly more attractive/accessible to people who are independently wealthy. We want people from low-income backgrounds running for office, and being able to secure additional employment for themselves after they leave.
One could say "okay then, non-government-related work is allowed" but how does one define that? At this point their experience is all governmental, the places they can find employment are going to be various activist groups, and to deny them that is to deny them their experience when they seek out employment after serving.
In terms of institutional knowledge drain, there's a big difference between turning over just the chief executive every 8 years versus turning over the entirety of Congress every 8 years.
Congress was designed to churn. That’s why we call them “the Nth Congress of the United States”. It’s also why we only vote for half of congress at a time; to ensure a degree of continuity.
I don't understand what you mean, all of Congress is up for reelection every two years. Where's the half coming from?
Apparently my brain had a malfunction. It's only the Senate, where 1/3rd of the members are up for election every six years. The house of representatives are all elected every 2 years.
All of the house is, but only 1/3 of the senate is at a given time. Definitely not one half like the poster you’re responding to claimed, but we are always guaranteed to have some continuity each election.
You did.
With two year terms means every eight years would be an entirely different Congress. Granted not all at once, but it's still a pretty fast turnaround.
Congressperson was never meant to be a career.
With the complexity of government now, how can politician not be a career? The government must be at least as large and powerful as the biggest corporations, otherwise the power imbalance would wreck society.
I want experts debating and writing laws, not some random suit monied interests found in the sidewalk to prop up for office.
I disagree there. Some of our worst recent presidents who screwed up this country big time came after term limited predecessors.
Term limits are god awful and have been shown to make worse all the problems people think term limits will fix.
Brookings the most cited think tank by both conservatives and liberals says term limits should be opposed.
The Heritage foundation which strives for federal gridlock says term limits are something we should stive for.
Draw your own conclusions.
Unfortunately with how politics works, I find those terms limits to be far too short. It can take time to build skill and experience, as well as connections and networking, so shorter term limits for regular offices seem more detrimental to me than good.
It works for the office of president because that position is (usually) limited to "experienced" politicians, who have already built experience dealing with the political quagmire. In regular congress, I just see that causing a regular state of upheaval and even more fighting as you have groups trying to subtly manipulate new members.
That said, instead of term limits, what I would prefer is a limit on consecutive terms. Require a break period every few terms. One issue I notice with career politicians is that they ONLY work as politicians and live in a bubble. They could still influence people and fellow party members while off-term, but it also helps raise the odds of getting in new blood by proving you can do a better job than Senator Oldbag by literally doing his job for a term.
But during the required break term, another person would take the office. Some offices are currently basically "locked in until death". Having a chance for someone else to get into that position creates an opportunity for them to become familiar to voters, and thus break that chain when the next election rolls around.
This is by the definition populism.
If you want to see these old people voted out, VOTE and encourage your friends to vote. I have been voting since 18, and the largest block of voters is OLD people.
But wait I get it, you (the royal you. The reader) don't want to do this. That's fine, what we should advocate for is mandatory voting and a national holiday for voting so everyone can vote. I'd argue we should have a national mailing ballot system as well. A good functioning democracy works best when we all participate in our institutions.
"That case was argued in front of the Supreme Court in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton. The court ruled that the Framers could have created term limits for lawmakers in Congress but chose not to, suggesting that they did not intend for term limits to be part of the Constitution. "
This is very silly. There originally was no term limit for the office of president either, but they found it constitutional to add one. Why would this be any different?
Because the Presidential term limit is actually in the constitution as an amendment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Want congressional term limits, it'll probably take an amendment.
Probably? Definitely. The problem is that the most likely way to get an amendment passed is through Congress, and that's almost certainly not going to happen.
Having said that, the last amendment that was ratified limited Congress's ability to vote themselves a pay raise–hypothetically. These days Congressional salary is almost completely inconsequential, which is probably how that one squeaked by. I don't hold much hope for another amendment in my lifetime unless it's something asinine like banning flag burning or something.
The 27th Amendment also took over 202 years to ratify! It was one of the original 12 amendments proposed along with the Constitution itself, alongside the Bill of Rights and the still-pending Congressional Apportionment Amendment. The Framers didn't put a time limit on ratification for those amendments, the way Congress has for more recent ones, so it was allowed to languish for a couple of centuries until it picked up enough ratifications to become law.
We can actually pass amendments without Congressional approval if 2/3rds of states agree to call a constitutional convention. Not saying that makes it much easier, but certainly not impossible.
I've always wondered how they expected that to work. So two-thirds of the state legislatures send requests to Congress, and then what, Congress can just say, "nah, fam. We got this," and decline? Then if by the Divine Intervention of Marduk we do get a convention called, we can't even abolish the Senate because the FFs played the "no takes-backsies" card or some shit. No wonder we've only ever had one.
I don't think there's ever been a case to actually decide this, but the wording in the Constitution is that Congress "shall" convene a convention upon the request of 2/3s of the legislatures. Not a ton of wiggle room there imo.
I don't see why it would. If the Constitution doesn't explicitly say anything about congressional term limits then it wouldn't be in violation of the Constitution to add them. Unlike with the presidency, there isn't a potential separation of powers issue if Congress wants to impose term limits on itself. As long as it doesn't run afoul of some other constitutional protection (eg age discrimination), then it should be well within it's power.
The way the courts interpret the Constitution this wouldn't be possible.
There are requirements in the Constitution to run for Congress, and that means those are the requirements. No more. No less.
It takes a constitutional amendment to change requirements to run for federal office if the requirements are enumerated in the Constitution without a provision that allows other requirements to be laid on top of the ones already extant.
I, personally, find it amazing that society doesn't want to see elderly working in a store, restaurant, etc, let alone running one, but actively puts them in positions to run our country.
An age limit is something that can be evenly applied regardless of political party, gender, race, etc. It would be the only fair way to do it. Medical exams can be wrong and could be abused (Here's an extra $10k to say this person is "fit for office", etc)
I'm on the fence about term limits. As others have pointed out if you put term limits in then the lobbyists become the most knowlegable people in or around the system.. However, I also don't think "Congressman" should be a career.
I just couldn't take this article seriously when it asked why we keep electing older politicians but didn't answer 'money'.
I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to it being a career if it were actually possible to have a system that actually worked and was able to keep them accountable. By system I mean voting system and the actual voters themselves. Which of course is to some extent an impossible task to assume that you could ever view voters as educated enough to do so, if only because disagreements are often seen as someone else being uneducated or such and our own inadequacies prevent us from seeing the world around us accurately.
So even setting the bar slightly lower than perfection in terms of accountability, I wouldn't be opposed to it being a career, but part of what people need to be held accountable for in such a position IMO is not just being relatable to the people they represent but actually living the life to some extent and being able to realistically attain the perspective of the people they're representing. I feel like that's what people expect they're getting if they're not expecting people to make a career out of being in Congress, they'd expect they're electing real people who have been operating in the real world, not in politics world. Well if someone can live in politics world and still achieve all the same things I'd be fine with it, but we just don't have the way of actually holding them accountable these days, so the people getting voted in for life aren't there because they're actually achieving that goal of being a lifer while being in tune with their constituents, they're a lifer for many other reasons than that.
I’m pretty into age limits. Term limits, on the other hand are very problematic. Perverse incentives as others have already mentioned, but also it degrades the institutional memory of the system. It’s good to have expertise among the elected representatives, and you can’t build deep expertise in just a few terms.
Seriously, term limits would be horrific. If you think lobbyists have too much power now, you don’t want to see what term limited congress will turn into with every short term politician a pawn in a lobbyist pipeline far worse than anything that exists today.
Not to mention the downstream effects on creating candidates with national recognition for president. No more working your way up through Congress with a successful Senate tenure to prove you can effectively govern or even understand how our government works (“who knew healthcare would be so hard” -our former president with no government experience). You’d effectively turn the presidential campaigns into even more of a club of the ultra wealthy.
Term limits are seriously one of the worst ideas that people think will somehow magically fix everything. There is no magic, easy fix to government, but there are plenty of easy ways to make it even worse.
Personally, having witnessed a variety of mental outcomes in people in extreme old age, I prefer a different solution. I would hate to see Bernie Sanders forced out at some of the ages that have been proposed for this. On the other hand we suffered under Reagan with Alzheimers. Something similar happened with Woodrow Wilson's stroke.
Mental decline is extremely variable among individuals but is a known risk of old age. So, similar to requiring seniors to retest vision for their drivers licences, I would propose cognitive testing at regular intervals, but with safeguards to prevent gaming or abuse. People more familiar with the intricasies of politics can propose better options, but possibly a panel of five or even ten neurologists who must unanimously agree that there is a problem in order to disqualify somebody, and also with some mechanism to appeal a ruling.
Did Reagan really suffer from Alzheimer's? His early claims for that potentially were done so he could disavow knowledge into the Iran-contra scandal and, as such, he would have to follow through or potentially be directly implicated into the biggest scandal at that time (potentially of all time so far). Were there any truly big problems that occurred while he was in government due to his Alzheimer's? I mean, other than what I previously stated.
I my opinion, his worst legacy was the introduction and implementation of 'trickle-down economics' that have since been disavowed by all proponents - and those were put into place while his state of mind were not in question.
He was diagnosed with it in 1994, but I think what you're really asking is if he suffered from the disease while he was President. There's a variety of sources online discussing it, but the one I found most comprehensive is Snopes:
They consider it unproven and indeed the evidence is murky going in both directions. My personal feeling is that he had some level of age-related cognitive decline, but not significant enough to prevent him from doing his job as president.
Thanks! That was a well presented and concise answer.
People like Bernie would need to choose their successors, mentor them, and then remain as advisors.
Part of the problem here is the penalty for changing the name on the ballot. If that were required at a certain age, then the party would have to develop a pipeline.
Yes, we should. There's lots of sound reasons both for political health and just because humans decline naturally over time. It's not ageism to say you can't fly a commercial airliner after a certain age, it's just simply acknowledging facts as they are and not putting the lives of 200+ people at risk because of things you can't plan for.
The same should be true of politicians. While they're not about to have a sudden stroke and kill 200 people, they are in major positions of power and as Feindstein is showing, a major problem when they hit cognitive decline or other serious health issues.
The fact that there would be a non negotiable hard cap on someone's ability to affect politics would also force some level of churn, which is healthy for political systems rather than people who campaigned on "being new and getting the old guard out" 50 years ago, holding on with a death grip now that it's their turn.
I also really don't think "well what about Bernie or X politician I like" is a good argument. There's plenty of great pilots who retire early, and they do tend to find ways to continue flying in smaller aircraft/situations where their skills are highly valued. We just don't let them fly commercial airlines because of the inherent risk. People can find ways to still be relevant without holding onto position for dear life. Frankly Bernie is also a huge problem because I'd say right now there's no clear passing of the torch. I agree with his intent, less with his methods, but either way I'm seriously worried that once he passes there's going to be no one to carry on that legacy/voice in our politics at the highest level, and that's because there's no incentive to ever do that because they all think they can just keep handling it.
No. It's not a sincere talk to have when the issues are right there in front of us. Focus your energies and arguments on problems that we can solve. If you don't like the politics of McConnell or Feinstein (nice both sides title there btw), which seems to be issue at the core of it, make their presence unimportant. Dare I suggest: vote them out.
The day these people pass, I hope you're not surprised that the issues that plague our nation will persist.
Mitch McConnell just had another similar episode today at some event in Kentucky. There's an article and video clip here.
That man does not look well.
Absolutely. Age limits AND cognitive testing to go alongside their health screening. These are our elected officials. Ostensibly - our leaders. Being in public office means you should meet whatever requirements the population thinks is required. Cognitive decline is real.
I don't buy the "the tests would just be politicized and worked around" argument either. That's just an existential throwing up of the hands that says "we can't make rules!" We can do whatever we can summon the votes for.
Abuse of psychiatry in order to suppress dissent has a long history. Obviously the USSR is an extreme example, but it was a very handy tool to control dissenters in a legalistic and pseudoscientific manner.
You cannot guarantee that a cognitive test would remain administered in the same manner 30 years from now, unless you codified it into the constitution. But that risks the test being passed by through advances in science and medicine. But if you don’t codify it, who defines what is considered “adequate cognitive functioning?” Would you really want Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene being able to say “yes, supporting trans people means your cognitive functioning is deficient” and disqualify basically every Democrat from holding office? I suspect not.
As far as I know, no country has cognitive tests. But many do have mandatory retirement ages, particularly for judges (usually around 70-75). They are simpler to administer, are fairer, with less potential for political shenanigans.
I think your argument is getting thin here - I'm not a physician or a psycologist, but my mom in her mid-70's had to complete some basic cognition tests after she fell and hit her head. There are ways of measuring cognition that are scientifically sound and don't involve phycology. I'm talking like saying the alphabet backwards, being able to complete basic math, simple memory testing. Cognition, not sanity. Making sure they don't have alzheimers and are medically able to do their job and are not impaired and vulnerable to manipulation. That seems like a pretty reasonable expectation of our elected officials.
If you want to get into who decides what the test consists of, what the criteria is, etc etc... I'm sure the surgeon general's office, or the AMA, or our armed forces have some guidelines or rubrics which could be imitated, adapted, debated over, and used as the basis for some legislation. I would think desiring competency might even be something that could reach across party lines.
Edit: spelling