Should We Have an Age Limit for Our Elected Officials?
After extended health struggles, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) of California passed away on September 29, 2023 at 90 years old. U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky, 81 years old, suddenly froze in two different press conferences in recent months. The 118th Congress, the current congressional term, is one of the oldest ever, with the median age being 57.9 years old for the U.S. House and 65.3 years for the U.S. Senate. And former president Donald Trump (R) and current President Joe Biden (D) are potentially headed for a rematch in the 2024 presidential election, with Trump being 77 years old (despite his seemingly boundless energy) and Biden being 80 years old.
The question of how old is too old for government officials applies to Republicans and Democrats alike. The old ages of our elected officials, and candidates running to be elected officials, has perhaps made the call for age limits on our elected officials, at least at the federal level, louder than ever.
A Pew Research Center survey resulted in sizable majorities of both Republicans and Democrats supporting a maximum age restriction for elected federal officials and U.S. Supreme Court justices. It’s likely that this is somewhat influenced by party identification. Slightly more Republicans supported age limits for elected federal officials with Democrat Joe Biden as president while more Democrats supported age limits for SCOTUS justices while it is a definitively conservative-leaning court. Nevertheless, it’s telling that both major parties, at least among regular citizens, can largely agree that a maximum age threshold is needed.
But does that ultimately mean an age limit is better than no limit? With large agreement that that is the case, this may seem like a straightforward answer to many citizens. It might even seem imminent. But — Surprise! — like most things in politics, it isn’t that easy. Even if an age limit was objectively needed, we still need to consider what that limit looks like and what it would take to make it happen.
Where Do We Already See Age Limits?
We already have minimum age limits for federal officials. U.S. House Representatives must be at least 25 years old, U.S. Senators must be at least 30 years old, and presidents must be at least 35 years old. SCOTUS justices don’t have any sort of age restriction. State legislatures and state executives (e.g., governor, attorney general, secretary of state) have varying minimum age requirements. To the best of my knowledge, however, none of them have a maximum age that such officials can serve up to.
There is one notable exception to this general lack of age limits: Mandatory retirement ages for state and local judges. Ballotpedia shows that, as of March 2022, 31 states have compulsory retirement for their judges. Some states might have exceptions to their rules — for example, states such as Kansas let judges finish the term in which they hit the mandatory retirement age. Potential exceptions aside, almost every state with these limits sets them between 70 and 75 years old. The outlier here is Vermont, which has it set at 90 years old.
But since there is a range of maximum age limits for these state judges, and nuances within those limits, that leads us to our next question…
How Old is Too Old?
In my article about term limits, which could be seen as a sort of “harder” version of maximum age limits, I note that there isn’t agreement on what term limit is the “best” term limit. It’s a similar case with age thresholds. Even if we said that mandatory retirement ages are objectively necessary, what does that age look like? 70? 75? 80? Or is even 70 too high?
And even if we agree on what that age should be, do we have any sort of exceptions to the restriction? Some states already do that for their judges, so do we also do that for members of Congress or the president, or state legislators and state executives? Do they get to finish their term even when they hit mandatory retirement? Or do they even get to run again for a term in office where they hit the maximum age?
Or let’s say we try a method for older elected officials to “prove their worth” and show that they are mentally and/or physically capable even when they hit that age. But what does that look like? An ability to play pickleball for an hour straight? A test on current events? Memorization of the basics of their job? And who administers these fitness tests?
All these questions and more make it a complicated situation to implement an age limit. But let’s say there is general agreement on what an age limit would look like. Now you have to get some of the skeptics on board.
The Cases For and Against Age Limits
Many people who support age limits may be convinced of their necessity, but so are many people who oppose age limits. What might each side posit for their cause?
Here are some reasons people might argue for supporting a maximum age limit:
- Younger people tend to have more energy, and you need a lot of energy for the physical and mental taxation of being an elected official.
- Older people are naturally more likely to die, which means there is a greater chance of needing special elections to fill seats. Having special elections costs money, as local governments have to bear the brunt of the cost of elections, meaning more taxpayer dollars having to be funneled to these efforts.
- Age limits are better for democracy because it helps to mitigate the entrenchment of longer-tenured elected officials, who tend to have more means at their disposal to stay in power.
Here are some reasons people might argue for opposing a maximum age limit:
- Older people tend to have more experience, and experience is critical in dealing with the most pressing problems facing governments.
- People age differently, and some officials who would otherwise be “too old” are still plenty capable of performing their tasks. Just because somebody is younger doesn’t mean that they are more mentally and physically capable of performing the job.
- Age limits are actually anti-democratic because they are inherently ageist and they stop officials who have public support from being voted for, meaning age limits could be against the will of the people.
In any case, just because a significant majority may support age limits for federal officials doesn’t mean that such changes are imminent. If public opinion was enough to change public policy…well, there would probably be a lot fewer people dissatisfied with our federal government.
It also doesn’t necessarily mean such changes have the same support for state-level or local officials. After all, that Pew survey from earlier showed a difference between support for age limits on federal elected officials vs. SCOTUS. The age limit focuses mostly on the federal level, and citizens might either not think about it for state and local officials or not think it is as important for their state executives and state legislators.
What it Would Take to Make Age Limits Happen
For simplicity’s sake, we’ll just consider federal-level officials here — the state level is a whole other can of worms and there would be 50 different situations to consider. What major obstacles stand in the way of enacting maximum age limits on the president, Congress, and the federal courts?
- Consideration of political incentives: As with anything that politicians do, motivations are important. Even if the president and/or certain members of Congress supported age limits, the incentive may not be there. They may have allies who are against age limits, allies they need for support on other legislation. Such allies may rescind that support if those members of Congress pushed for age limits. Or they may throw their support behind age limits — if they are exempt from them, and it’s only future members of Congress that are subject to the rules.
- What about the incentives for those elected officials who don’t support age limits but represent a lot of constituents who do? That still isn’t a guarantee for those officials to act on the voters’ behalf. Those voters may care about the issue of age limits, but it’s highly unlikely that enough of them care so much about it that they would vote for someone else if their representative didn’t vote for age limits. (That’s assuming the voters were supportive of that representative in the first place, of course.) There are plenty of other pressing issues and their elected officials’ subsequent actions for voters to consider. It’s a similar case with term limits on Congress and SCOTUS.
- Age limits on the president/Congress vs. SCOTUS: Age limits are not necessarily a one-size-fits-all policy. What the age limit would be on one branch of the federal government won’t inherently be the same for another branch. But more than that, the political reality of an age limit is not the same for each branch. If the president and Congress did try to pass an age limit on all branches of government, the courts may see it as an attempt by the federal and legislative branches to overstep the bounds of their regulations of the judicial branch, particularly of the constitutional provision that federal judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.” The separation of powers and system of checks and balances could make things tricky.
- An Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: This is another way that age limits could be implemented. Codifying it as part of the central governing document of the country would truly cement it. But as I wrote about previously, adding an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is a monumental task.
- How such an Amendment would be written is, of course, also critical. That’s not just because of the need to get 2/3rds of the chambers of Congress and 3/4ths of the states (or conventions called by the states) on board, so enough of them need to agree on how the Amendment is written. And if it does get ratified, what if the Amendment doesn’t quite work out as hoped for? If it’s too specific — say, a maximum age of 75 for Congress when people decide later that it needs to be 70 — then you are basically having to amend the Amendment, which then requires the whole Amendment process to be started over. (It’d be similar to how the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition, which was enacted through the 18th Amendment.) If it’s too general, then there could be arguments over how exactly to interpret it.
All of this goes to show that implementing an age limit on our government officials is no simple task. Even if they were objectively necessary, there are a lot of hoops to jump through.
Could we see a maximum age threshold in the future? It’s possible. But don’t count on it happening anytime soon.
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