Over three-fourths of Americans think there should be a maximum age limit for elected officials, according to a CBS News/YouGov survey.
I don’t understand why there aren’t term limits across the board either. Some Congress wo/men have been there for decades ffs!
Definitely. Age limits are difficult. Some people lose it early. Some never do.
Two terms and you’re out seems to me to mostly resolve this.
You can even make it just two consecutive terms. I think I’m largely fine with that. At least it’s better than the alternative.
Also, lifetime appointment. That was designed at a different time. Scotus should be a (reasonably long) single term. Then you’re done with the federal judicial system.
Yes, can’t endorse this enough. Judicial appointments need a term limit, no matter the position. Maybe 10 years maximum.
10 years is nice to because it wouldn’t line up exactly with new presidents, so it would guarantee different parties would most likely get to pick.
In 1789, the average lifespan for a Supreme Court justice was 67 years. By 1975, that expectancy had risen to 82 years.
Sure, but how long were they on the court?
Just let agelimits apply to judges as well and make judges appoint judges while you’re at it to minimize the politicizing of the bench.
Looking at the way the current SCOTUS is, the last thing I’d want is Justices appointing their replacements.
They should be elected.
Age limits are difficult.
They’re not that hard, and they’re simple and direct, and we already use them. Don’t overcomplicate it.
Yes! Term limits are the answer, not age limits. It’s effectively the same thing but protects us in two ways (instead of just one: ie age) and does so without the slippery slope that an age limit would entail.
If a pilot is forced to retire at 65 due to fear of killing a couple hundred, there is absolutely zero reason someone in charge near 400 million shouldn’t have a maximum age cap
the slippery slope that an age limit would entail.
Can you elaborate?
He means that people have different rates of cognitive decline than others, so if you like this 70 year old politician and he’s great, why not?
I think that’s ridiculous. Term AND age limits would make much brighter futures. We should be electing officials that will have to live under the shade of the trees they planted, which is not the case for most US politicians today.
Yeah the slippery slope makes no sense. I get that there isn’t a precise date to determine the start of cognitive decline, but why not just put an avery one as a limit in the law then? We do it for expiration dates as well.
If there were age limits it should be well below the point of any cognitive decline, because it’s also about having younger people in power who can think and plan on a scale of several decades, because that’s how long they have left to live.
I’m thinking like 50.
The problem with setting the age limit too low is that people of that age range might not feel represented.
To give an example, I’m 48. One of my upcoming concerns is retirement. Will it be able to afford to retire? Will I need to work part time after “retiring” just to survive?
If every politician in a position of power was too young, retirement might not seem to them to be an important issue. After all, when you’re 30, retirement seems forever away. They could enact policies that are great for people under 40 but devastating to people approaching retirement.
That’s why, while I definitely think politicians like McConnell and Feinstein should have retired long ago, I’m leery about setting too low of a forced retirement age.
Also, you do want people with experience there. Having a rotating door of only young people doesn’t really help anything.
The door wouldn’t be rotating anymore than it is now.
And what’s your source on young people not helping anything? All the times in US history that we made the most progress were under young Democrat presidents.
I’m 31 and I’m pretty fuckin concerned with retirement. Because if I’m not now, I’ll probably never be able to.
If we made this change, it would serve as a lever to help increase the age at which we can vote. Which is what these fuckers really want.
Considering a lower age limit would have to be put in place by existing politicians, that particular slope is not slippery at all. And slippery-slope arguments are categorically invalid except when you can point to a specific reason why doing something will make it likely to be done in excess.
deleted by creator
I think testing for cognitive function is going to prove impossibly difficult - or at least for now. How do we set and quantify an acceptable value for cognitive function? How will we execute testing? When do we test? How often? Who will do the testing? How do we counter for potential performance drugs for test candidates? Do we notify the public on the test findings? There’s just a lot involved with making this the barrier to entry vs age or term limits.
Yeah I was wrestling with this in the same way. It’s too hard. That’s not even mentioning that cognitive function or mental acuity isn’t really a straight or constant line. You could test someone who’s off in outer space most days but you test them on the right day they’d ace any cognitive test you put in front of them.
Oh absolutely. I’m a walking, talking banana if you catch me at the wrong time or on the wrong day.
Also, if we went this route and tested for cognitive function- I’d 100% guarantee that our politicians would be on Adderall or some other amphetamine…if they weren’t already.
deleted by creator
I just worry this would end up disenfranchising minorities somehow. Tests for voting don’t have the best history
So you advocate your style of politics with lifetime appointments? Certainly nothing authoritarian to see here
They’re saying that politicians like AOC, Katie Porter, Sanders, etc. are high quality public servants, and that high quality public servants should be able to be elected as long as they have cognitive function.
On one hand, in a hypothetical and ideal scenario, that would be nice to have for us voters.
On the other hand, even if an elected official does great work and has a great track record, should they be able to just serve indefinitely until their brain gives out? There’d be a lot of potential problems such as having entrenched and corruptible political operators, even if they started out good, who prevent “fresh blood” from entering politics. It’d be neat to see a study comparing different countries and political systems where there are age barriers and term limits vs those that don’t have them.
High quality public servants in who’s eyes? I’m sure Republicans could argue someone like Rand Paul or Marco Rubio are a high quality public servant.
There would need to be a consistency across the board.
I think that’s their point: That maybe, as long as a candidate is mentally fit, then voters ought to be able to continue voting for them if they feel like the candidate is still worth voting for.
Honestly, if there was some kind of magical bullet to simply ban candidates who are mentally unfit (i.e. losing their marbles) from holding office that couldn’t be exploited, I think a lot of people would find that preferable to an age limit.
That doesn’t address issues like politicians who are too technologically illiterate to do things like open PDF files, though.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/watch?v=Mn1dVbBlUvQ
https://piped.video/watch?v=HpWAZpgEodQ
https://piped.video/watch?v=9YiuE866H_s
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Removed by mod
There didn’t used to be but after FDR hit 4 terms in a row, they passed the 22nd Amendment in 1947, it was ratified in 1951.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
A rare example where a Gentleman’s Agreement that is important to how our government runs was actually codified.
I think the idea in the Senate is that those people would have been seasoned bureaucrats who were intimately familiar with law - lawyers in particular. The House was more the everyday man representing the people of his district.
Now that we vote for senators, too, I’m not sure what role they really play. I’d also add that we need to remove the cap on headcount in the house. I did the napkin math once and we should have something like 2.5x the representatives we have now, IIRC.
deleted by creator
I used to feel this way about Career Politicians but they actually have the opposite problem in some other countries. Politicians having personal businesses makes it very, very easy to bribe them.
Lobbying straight up makes bribery legal for career politicians. How could it possibly be easier than that?
You don’t understand why the people who vote on various things won’t vote against themselves?? I’m guessing it’s the same reason why voting on pay raises for themselves always pass.
That’s easy to fix: exempt anyone in office at the time the bill passes.
That’s easy to fix: exempt anyone in office at the time the bill passes.
Don’t think that’ll work on its own, as they will want to protect the party that gives them their power from, for after they leave office.
voting on pay raises for themselves always pass.
The only votes congress has taken regarding their own pay is voting to deny a raise. Every year Congress is set to get an automatic COLA raise, u less they refuse it via vote it automatically kicks in. Those are the votes congress has been conducting. They have voted in pay raises for congressional staff members.
I think term limits would be 90% effective. That and fixing gerrymandered districts. How many of those old folks in the House have been cruising to easy reelection due to rigged voting districts? Limit the House to 5 terms and the Senate to 2 terms. That’s a maximum of 22 years someone could be a federal elected politician excluding the presidency. That’s more than enough time to leave their mark on the country.
Term limits, no gerrymandering, ranked choice voting, and more than two political parties.
I think no gerrymandering would absolutely nuke the red presence. Honestly looking at how bad the district maps are it’s insane it’s even gotten that far.
The only way to eliminate gerrymandering is to eliminate geographically-defined congressional districts.
I think we should empanel our congressional delegation in statewide elections. I also think we shouldn’t have 435 votes in the house. I think we should have one vote for each person in the country. I think each representative should cast one vote for each actual person they represent.
Term limits, no gerrymandering, ranked choice voting, and more than two political parties.
We already have more than two parties, its just almost nobody votes for them. With rank choice voting they’ll be more visible than they are today.
Certainly, but they’re not given the same slice as D and R. Laws should help balance the scales.
The problem with no gerrymandering is that it’s actively hard to enforce without false positives
Everything is hard if you’re trying to do it right, especially large scale. Babies with crayons draw better maps than what happened/is happening in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, etc.
Oh yeah no there does absolutely need to be a criminal threshold and Ohio and Florida are past it. At the bare minimum it needs to cost you your seat if you pull the shit ohio keeps pulling.
As an Ohioan at no point has my vote for representatives ever mattered even when it should. It’s not like nyc or something, fucking Cincinnati shouldn’t be 3 red seats.
I think term limits on the presidency meant that Trump ran against Clinton instead of Obama.
Obama was more popular than Clinton.
Hillary, Why pick her over anyone else when her stigma was so intensely negitive? Isnt their goal to get their person in that chair via the election.
That’s okay and that’s the democracy we chose.
I would have rather had a third term of Obama than what we got with Trump, and I think term limits for the presidency were a shortsighted mistake.
I… appreciate that sentiment, but I also fear how history has taught us long terms can lead to leader who… don’t wanna leave. Of course that didn’t stop trump from trying.
Of course that didn’t stop trump from trying.
And he had the same term limits as anyone else since 1951. Who fought the peaceful transition of power prior to 1951?
The issue with enacting a mandatory age limit in a democratically elected government is essentially conceding to the idea that the voters are unable to determine for themselves whether an elected official is competent, or not. This has substantial, and serious implications.
deleted by creator
You mean like how most places don’t let you vote before you turn 18 because it is accepted that children have not developed the cognitive ability to make sound decisions in regards to electing officials?
This is a strawman argument. OP was talking about an age limit for elected officials, whereas you are now talking about age restrictions on the voters. Yes, we are both talking about cognitive decline in decision making; however there is a substantial difference between putting an age limit on those who can be in power vs. putting an age limit on those who can decide who is in power.
I think once you get over 80 it is time to step aside and let the world move forward.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but how do we prevent this logic from being used to disenfranchise voters above the max age? If they’re not sharp enough to make decisions in the government, how are they sharp enough to vote?
I see two options, if we’re going to have limits on serving in Congress. One, they maintain the right to vote for the same reason 18 year olds do – they’re legally considered adults, and they deserve a say in matters that affect them, like wars. Two, people above the age can’t vote, but no law which passes can affect their day to day. They wouldn’t need to pay taxes, social security and Medicare payments would be guaranteed to not go down for them, and they generally aren’t held as autonomous adults in legal matters.
This is a can of worms, and needs to be carefully handled.
There are plenty of perfectly capable and intelligent people until the day they die. People are individuals not the average of their demography.
deleted by creator
I agree, I oppose a minimum age on holding office as well.
You can’t have laws that are based on individuals, they have to be broad by definition or else they are unenforceable or they are oppressive towards certain groups.
Yes you can and do, thats why courts exist
Demographics, like most things are a bell curve and most of us are no more than one standard deviation from the mean.
Any bell curve across hundreds of millions of people has hundreds of thousands to millions of outliers.
Also the average of a demographic is exactly that. The average. To suggest that no-one is the average is either nieve or disingenuous.
Basically no one is average across a sufficiently large number of discriminators.
For me, the main issue isn’t the increased risk of cognitive decline, it’s the fact that I share very few life experiences with people born before the invention of color tv, and someone who has another 5-15 years left will be less impacted by policy decisions than someone who’s going to be around for another 50-60 years. Octogenarians are not representative of the majority of the population and, in a representative democracy, I think that is important consideration.
Then that’s an issue to be decided by ballot not discrimination
We already have restrictions on other government jobs about how old you can be. And we also have term limits on the office of the President.
It’s not breaking new ground or saying anything new that Congress and other elected officials should not be able to serve in excess of 10 years.
We already have restrictions on other government jobs about how old you can be.
For the sake of clarity, are you referring to the minimum age limits of U.S. government officials?
It’s not breaking new ground or saying anything new that Congress and other elected officials should not be able to serve in excess of 10 years.
My argument isn’t that it should be avoided because of it’s novelty, I’m saying that, in order to justify such rules, one must be of the belief that the voters are unable to determine the competency of who they elect. Given that a democracy is founded upon the idea of a government ruled by, of, and for the people, it is of paramount importance that the people be able to make such decisions for themselves.
The same logic that a person can’t serve in an office until they are a specific age is just a valid reason they can’t serve over a certain age. If constituents are supposed to be trusted in determining the competency of who they want to elect there should be no age limits at all.
President has a 2 term limit, so there is no reason Congress or Justices should not also be subject to predefined limits to how often they can hold an office, to say nothing of other elected officials down the line.
If constituents are supposed to be trusted in determining the competency of who they want to elect there should be no age limits at all.
This is the opinion that currently I hold.
President has a 2 term limit, so there is no reason Congress or Justices should not also be subject to predefined limits to how often they can hold an office, to say nothing of other elected officials down the line.
My argument isn’t that of whether it’s possible to make such rules, it is instead, from a point of principle, whether we should make such rules.
There’s already a lower age limit though, so they can determine that anyone under the age of 35 is definitely not competent, but when it gets to people of older age is when it turns into an issue?
My argument is based on principle; therefore, it would be in opposition to any such restriction whose purpose is to “ensure” the competency of the candidate; however, it should be noted that there is a difference between such a restriction based on competency, and another based on, for lack of a better term, trustworthiness, e.g. a natural born citizen clause (this is not an argument for, or against the natural born citizen clause, I’m simply outlining the scope of my previous statement).
Both limits are stupid.
And yet we have minimum age requirements. Why does your bullshit argument about voter autonomy not apply there?
My argument is based on principle; therefore, it would be in opposition to any such restriction whose purpose is to “ensure” the competency of the candidate.
Why do you assume people like minimum age requirements either?
The Constitution is difficult to change. I’d get rid of the “natural born citizen” bit too.
Somebody said my name?
You’re right, America would totally be better if we let preteens and foreign assets hold major legislative seats, totally wise outlook you’ve got on the topic here 🤡
“Foreign assets”
So if somebody came at 5 years old, grew up their whole life in the US, was a citizen, and millions of Americans wanted to pick them as their president…
They shouldn’t be accepted because they’re a foreign agent?
In my opinion you’re either a citizen or you’re not. There should be no difference.
It’s kind of what they built the country on, didn’t they?
That, and slavery of course. But that’s a different discussion.
I don’t think many people would vote for preteens or foreign assets.
Running a campaign does not mean you win, and if you’re unlikely to win, you’re unlikely to get enough support to run.
Also foreign-born Americans can be elected to the legislative branch. Ted Cruz is a notable example.
Might wanna know what you’re talking about before calling someone a clown.
Out of curiosity, what is your justification for removing a natural born citizen clause?
I don’t believe that being a natural-born citizen adds any value to potential elected leaders in the modern era.
I understand that you don’t think it is necessary, but I’m curious what your reasoning is, as to why?
Because it’s not the 18th century any more, and people have access to various cultures across the planet.
The idea that only someone born in your country knows it well enough to lead it is, frankly, stupid.
In my opinion, you’re too naive to participate in this conversation constructively.
Well, your opinion doesn’t matter that much, so that’s fine.
I can’t hear your opinion over the upvotes I’m getting for my main comment
Might wanna recheck those upvotes big chief.
Yeah. What if one of the Dunedain came out from the shadows with the sword that was reforged and ran for President? What then?
He wouldn’t be a natural born American citizen and thus couldn’t run.
deleted by creator
He was in love with an elf (Arawen) that was thousands of years old. Eowyn is not Aragon’s love interest. She had a crush on him and he rejected her.
deleted by creator
Obviously people are picking incompetent election officials since we have quite a few, when you are given choices the selection of choices is important too. People are being given limited bad choices and choosing the lesser of evils. We have too many of these old timers who spend their days sleeping through important decisions or/and just being led by others.
First past the post at work
People are being given limited bad choices and choosing the lesser of evils.
What’s interesting about this statement is that I interperet it as saying that the candidates that the voters are considering are pre-chosen by some independent third party that the voters have no control over. I would argue that, as it currently stands, in the U.S.A, for example, there is no such gatekeeper – the DNC or, GOP are not gatekeepers as the voters could choose to simply ignore them, and vote for an independent; however, from what I can tell, the issue certainly seems to be that the general public thinks that they only have two choices so they vote accordingly. This is quite possibly a symptom of the FPTP voting system, but I am not knowledgeable enough on the matter to say conclusively.
Given we have elected officials that are literally freezing while talking to reporters and yet would probably still win election after election? I don’t think the public cares if they are competent. They just care that their party symbol is next to their name so they vote for them.
Will that really change if we added age limits? They’ll just pick a successor and people will mindlessly vote for the new candidate instead.
We all know the Bidens, McConnells, Pelosi’s, etc aren’t really a single person. They have a whole team of people behind them who are making the decisions, doing the research, etc. You’re not really voting for the person as much as the administration that comes with that person.
For example a lot of people that were part of the Obama administration are part of the Biden. The person changed but the power structure more or less remains the same.
It would be a step in the right direction.
Something doesn’t need to be perfect to be better than we have today.
If we have a minimum age, we can have a maximum.
Or it’s a step in no direction and doesn’t actually do anything. Realistically a step in no direction is a step in the wrong direction because of opportunity cost - time spent that could have been spent doing something useful.
The idea behind a minimum age is that there is a certain experience that you get as you age. 25 year olds simply don’t have it. A max limit doesn’t make sense using that reasoning - you don’t lose experience as you age.
However, I agree that it’s inconsistent to have one and not the other. I say remove both - let the people decide who they want to vote for.
Just because you don’t like to doesn’t make it a step in the wrong direction stranger.
You very much lose perspective with age. You nearest you to ask any of the people you listed what concerns a 25 year old they represent. I promise you they haven’t a clue.
Reasonable limits are reasonable for elected officials. I fly and we age out pilots for this very reason.
You very much lose perspective with age
I’d argue the opposite. Experience gives perspective. When I was 25 the world was tiny. I could only see what was in front of my nose. I thought I knew what I was doing - I didn’t.
Sure, at a certain point you lose touch with the new generations. But the leaders of this country aren’t trying to make the best country for 25 year olds. They’re trying to make the best country for everyone. Also, average age is about 40 iirc
But the leaders of this country aren’t trying to make the best country for 25 year olds. They’re trying to make the best country for everyone.
And they’re failing, because they’re old, and too many of them don’t believe in climate change. It’s not hard. Get all the old people out immediately.
It would have prevented the Trump disaster and that’s really all I care about.
The question does still remain whether the public not caring about the competency level of a specific elected official is grounds to restrict their voter autonomy. An argument could certainly be made that voting in a less competent candidate could be a strategic move.
Reasonable restrictions can and should be made. You cannot elect a baby, you cannot elect a rock, you shouldn’t be electing someone who clearly isn’t medically capable of doing their job anymore.
I’m not overly convinced that such restrictions are truly necessary at scale. When we are dealing with “large” populations, these sorts of edge-cases begin to become extremely improbable. While they would indeed remain possible, I would argue that if they were to actually end up occurring, that would be as a symptom of a much more serious societal breakdown which would most likely indicate an imminent collapse. That being said, if there was to be some explicit restriction, I believe that it is sufficient to state that individual must be, at least, a naturalized citizen. There could also be some other clause added for the sake of ensuring that the individuals interests are in that of the nation’s – like the natural-born citizen clause in the U.S.A; however, I personally haven’t come to a decision on whether I agree with that, or not.
Plenty of things are edge cases and yet we still have laws for them.
These people are there from institutional failure, not merit or meaningful support if their citizens.
These people are there from institutional failure, not merit or meaningful support if their citizens.
They are there because they were voted in.
deleted by creator
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/De4_ZqMwuOg?si=nDGmxBwiIWjbdB2i
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
This mindset is not conducive to a properly functioning democracy.
Agreed. This is my fundamental issue with the constant call for term limits.
You’re overthinking it. Babies can’t run for office and that’s a good thing.
I would argue, with a rather high degree of confidence, that this would never occur. If it did, it would certainly indicate a complete degredation in the core functions of the government, as well as the trust that the public has in its operation – I suspect that a revolution would be imminent. Furthermore, due its unstable nature, I would wager that it would be rather fleeting.
solid troll
I’m willing to concede to that accurate idea
That makes sense until you remember Biden won the presidential election
To be fair, the election was between a 74 and 78 year old.
Not like there was much of a choice
From what I can gather, Biden’s victory was due to a more of a strategic vote, than a vote truly for Biden.
they shouldn’t even be driving a car. statistics show that for every year over 70 is similar as a year under 20 for drivers. so a 75 year old drives like a 15 year old. and a 90 year old is a newborn?
Disco sales are up, if this trend continues…
Enforce more common driving tests as you get older.
Everybody ages differently. It’s like saying that men shouldn’t drive until 25 because of their statistical probability to drive recklessly. Or that black teens should be pulled over more often because they get arrested for drug possession more often.
I’m surprised at the broad support for ageist policies on Lemmy. I figured a leftist space would be more principled.
I understand a lot of people are tired of old politicians but it doesn’t mean we need to start discriminating. I’ve met people who are quick and with it well into their 80s.
I’ve also met people who are near-zombies by 68
It varies by the individual - so why don’t we judge people on their individual characteristics instead of groups they happen to fall into? Race, gender, sexuality, age, nationality, disability, etc.
because seniors currently have all the political power in the US, they shoot down that smart idea.
Florida, the state with one of the highest rates of old people, does have some laws.
Normally you get your license renewed and it lasts 8 years. After 80 it lasts 6 years. Normally you can renew your license online by just clicking a button and paying a fee. But after 80 you need to come into the DMV and do a vision test.
I think the tests could be a little more broad, and perhaps start a little earlier like at 75. So for example after 75 you need to renew your license every 3 years or something and must always do a vision test (and maybe even a driving test)
I’m sure other states have similar rules, I doubt Florida is leading the country on anything
Just make the retirement age enforced for elected officials too. If the average American is expected to retire at 67, shouldn’t our representatives be younger than that?
I get where you’re going with this, but I’m worried it would just incentivize Congress to raise the retirement even higher.
Last thing I need is our octogenarian overlords dictating that I need to work until I’m in my mid 80s just because they refuse to step down.
Instead they’re doing that by gutting social programs to appease the top .01 percent.
I mean they can try but I think most politicians / parties would consider such a move political suicide regardless if they manage to ram it through or not. In some countries retirement is a pretty vague thing altogether though so the quick and easy fix is to just quit voting the people you consider too old into congress.
Can only vote on the people on the ballot… the important choices was already made for you.
Edit: do not know how it is is us, but around here there are very few young people in national goverment, since they usualy have to work their way up the ranks in local politics. So vote in a young person in the local council, and try to speed run them to the senate (equivalent)
You’ve quoted the age for full Social Security benefits, not something that’s enforced or even expected. Retirement’s just an option for anyone who can afford to do so.
And a basic mental aptitude test please, we don’t need psychos or idiots either
person, woman, man, camera
Oh shit, wheel you to the old folks home. You forgot about the TV!
Jim Crow for senior citizens?
That would be pretty easy to get someone to say you passed
TBH I think these calls for age limits or term limits are indirectly targeting real problems (like since when do we want people born before the automotive age regulating the internet? and why are both parties led by people still stuck in the 70s?) but the indirect-targeting has a way of creating unintended consequence:
-
a shorter term limit will term out qualified, great representatives with real expertise
-
a shorter term limit may intensify corruption if a rep or senator only has so much time to cash in and line up that fat consulting gig
Fundamentally, the voters should be voting out the Feinsteins and McConnells when their age or health conflicts with their ability to represent their interests, and this “let’s have age limits and term limits” resolve kinda speaks to me of a desire for self-governance to happen, but without voters having any responsibility in the matter. It’s time for our relationship to self-rule be a lot less passive, a lot more assertive.
The meta-problems at play (corruption, the presence of money in politics, the role of first-past-the-post voting to force voters to vote based on how they bet other people will vote, etc) aren’t going to be resolved by term limits or age limits- if we want our elected officials to reflect the public interest, all of those conflicts-of-interest have to go.
I’d like to see ranked-choice voting replace FPTP, and for money to be strictly limited in politics, and an end to the permanent campaign our politics have become, and for revolving-door gigs for ex-legislators and regulators to be strictly scrutinized, and for voters to be able to confidently vote out their dinosaurs. If we fix those things, the problem of being ruled by people too old to do the job probably goes away by itself.
a shorter term limit will term out qualified, great representatives with real expertise
This assumes that representing people requires skills, experience, and expertise that can not be obtained elsewhere and can not be provided by advisers. If representing constituents interests did require specific skills, there would be pre-requisite courses. We don’t elect people to design and build nuclear reactors - we select them based on their skills. There are certainly skills involved in being a career politician, but these aren’t necessarily serving the public interest. I often feel like a politician’s main job is convincing constituents that their preferred course of action is best, rather than simply representing constituents interests.
a shorter term limit may intensify corruption if a rep or senator only has so much time to cash in and line up that fat consulting gig
This doesn’t make much sense to me. As in, we need to keep shitty politicians around for longer to kind of water down and spread out the shittiness over a greater period of time lest it be intensified.
This assumes that representing people requires skills, experience, and expertise that can not be obtained elsewhere and can not be provided by advisers
That’s correct. It can’t be. New Representatives basically get nothing done. It takes them the two years they have to learn the ropes before they have to start fund raising for their next election. Federal Office is like Professional Sports. How often does someone just walk into it with no prior experience and succeed? It’s not just about representing. It’s about knowing how to negotiate and convince other representatives to care about what your constituents want. If Advisers are doing all the work, why don’t they just run? You know who has all the time and money to “advise” candidates? Lobbyists.
water down and spread out the shittiness
I’m not arguing to keep bad politicians around for no reason, just observing that the reasons they’re shitty in the first place are separate from how long they have to do it. If we solve the problem of politicians staying in office too long but we don’t do anything about their incentives and ability to be on the take, all we’ve done is make their time in office maybe more urgent and valuable.
When in doubt, expect your designs to create unintended consequences- especially if they are simple and optimistic and don’t deal directly with the actual source of the problem.
This is not to say that we should have septuagenarians in office- I really think we shouldn’t- but fundamentally the problem is we don’t vote these people out.
I often feel like a politician’s main job is convincing constituents that their preferred course of action is best, rather than simply representing constituents interests.
I know what you mean, but conceptually isn’t that the point?
For example constituents work jobs and make money. Why should I give money to the government? It’s the politicians job to convince the constituents.
No, no that is not the point.
Representatives are supposed to represent the interests of their constituents in the course of making laws. That’s the foundational principle of representative democracy.
An individual may not want to pay tax personally, but few individuals would agree that no individuals should pay tax.
There are certainly skills involved in being a career politician, but these aren’t necessarily serving the public interest. I often feel like a politician’s main job is convincing constituents that their preferred course of action is best, rather than simply representing constituents interests.
Man, I wish that were the case. Convincing other REPRESENTATIVES is the main job of a legislator. The reason why lawyers are so good at the role of legislating (the nuclear engineer equivalent in your analogy) is that they are both trained in 1. Convincing others of their argument 2. Understanding legal standings and the workings of government. These skills should be the basis for someones eligibility to be elected. The reason we select one candidate over another is the ideas and values they represent for us in the day in, day out melodrama of governing. The only reason you think the important part is convincing constituents is because that is the part you see. The real work is making the damn sausage.
Ranked-choice would go a long way in cleaning up our two-party system. And getting young people to vote in greater numbers.
But let’s face it. People want age limits because they recognize that this is a potential solution because the other solutions seem far away and difficult to attain. Dems won’t support ranked-choice because being less-terrible than repubs is basically their only sure way to get elected.
For clarity, I’m not arguing against age limits- I just think that these things:
-
old politicians are out of touch and mental decline is a problem
-
corrupt politicians aren’t held accountable
…are separate problems. If we solve the first one, that’ll be a good thing, but if we do it without also addressing the second one, we’ll still have the same accountability/corruption problems but with faster turnover.
Worse than that, setting up rules that go a bit like: [after n terms/x age, we can’t elect you even if we love you and you’re great] will go a long way towards addressing that first problem, but could create problems down the line.
For example, when we created the notion of a debt ceiling (we can’t do the thing without a supermajority, even if it’s the right thing) seemed reasonable on its face, it would bind the hands of future profligate spenders and that would solve the debt problem, right? But, we really just tied the hands of majorities and gave bad-faith minorities the power to ransom their political demands against turning the world economy into a dumpster fire.
Fundamentally, it’s the voters’ job to vote out the people that aren’t fit to serve, and the reasons we don’t reliably do that seem to be that machine politics and corrupt democracy seem to make it risky to vote out your McConnells and Grassleys and Pelosis and Feinsteins and such, because so much of the institutional gravity of the parties revolves around them.
I say, yes! Forcibly retire the dinosaurs with a pension and make them develop their successors before they’re dead. But, don’t expect that to solve the democracy problem, work on that too
-
If it’s meaningful to elect the absolute best people the system isn’t good enough.
The Fiensteins and McConnells only exist in super safe, non-competetive elections.
I am fine banning politicians from being lobbyists.
You’re overthinking things. People over 65 are experiencing physical and mental deterioration and should not hold office. That’s the end of the conversation, stop muddling the issue.
-
The other 25% are old.
Retirement age is 67. If that’s good enough for the normal workers than any politically connected office should be the same.
You don’t have to retire at 67 though. It’s not a requirement.
Some people maintain their mental lucidity well into their 80s. I think this type of limit would be ageist. People should not be discriminated on things they can’t control.
If enough citizens democratically decide that a candidate is mentally lucid enough to be president or senator or what have you, why should we remove that democratic choice from the population?
I agree that I’m tired of really old politicians like Biden or Trump or McConnell or Pelosi, etc. But I’ll express that with my vote, not try to cancel out other people’s votes.
Frankly I think this is something that needs to be indirectly addressed. We need to reduce the importance of seniority in Congress such that people won’t worry about new blood losing them influence. And, we need to make it easier for people to run for office. It’s all about encouraging turnover.
The problem with a mental acuity test is that it can very easily be corrupted for disenfranchisement. After 2016 the idea of a basic civics test to vote might’ve seemed appealing for instance, but in practice it would almost certainly be used to suppress minority votes.
Why not make turnover the requirement with term limits? Give them a reasonable amount of time to get projects done, but after a set period of time, they can’t run anymore. Just like what’s done for presidents.
That’s not a bad idea. You can serve unlimited terms, but not three consecutive terms in the Senate or seven in the house. Every 12 years you have to transition to a different part of the government or leave entirely for one term.
Maybe we could make this even more beneficial by having that skipped term be one where you stay in your district/state and spend dedicated time with your constituents. So after two terms in the Senate, you’d spend 6 years effectively as a community organizer and take notes.
Airplane traffic controllers were set to a max retirement age of 56 due to mental degredation. I don’t believe presidents should be capped at that but it is a good example of a federal institution (FAA) limiting based on age for cognitive reasons. 65 sounds good to me. Maybe that will keep parties from sinking all their resources into few baskets and focus on passing down knowledge and promoting younger members.
Should be lower than that
deleted by creator
Moscow mitch is the perfect example for this. ~4 years ago he was spearheading overturning wade vs roe, and now he can barely make a sentence on TV. There HAS to be room for retirement between those 2 stages of brain damage.
I’d think, because the Constitution only defines minimum ages, we would need an amendment identifying maximum ages.
65? 70?
Let’s set it up with term limits as well.
President is already capped at 2 terms of 4 each, what seems fair for everyone else?
2 six-year terms for Senator? 12 years?
6 two year terms for Congress? Also 12 years?
18 years for Supreme Court?
I’m not sure age is the problem. It’s greed and corruption.
I would also require anyone RUNNING for an elected office to divest themselves completely of all investments and business ties. Everyone running would get the same campaign funding and that is all they are allowed to use. For anyone elected, base pay would be significantly increased. This would naturally allow more younger candidates to both run and be elected, since you don’t have to be a corrupt, wealthy, ancient subhuman to fund a campaign.
I’m with you on the term limits, too.
As far as divesting, would you be okay with not necessarily liquidating but moving investments into a 3rd party holder?
Basically like "okay this is what you had in an investment fund, now a third party (for sake of argument fidelity) takes over the fund and now fidelity advisers manage it in its entirety until the person is no longer a representative.
The question really being, what kind of divesting do you want? Because straight liquidation could still negatively impact younger candidates, given that the liquidation would remove potential legitimate interest from their portfolio. Meaning that them running could negatively impact their future.
Yeah straight liquidation would be really bad. It should absolutely be a blind trust.
I like that idea… but I’d split the difference. Put your assets into escrow when you run, and it’s liquidated only if you win.
The idea is that public service should be sustainable… maybe even modestly beneficial in it’s own right, and strict term limits prevent it from being milked.
If a multimillionaire puts their assets into holdings and gets it back after their tenure, then the incentive to corruption still exists because they can still make decisions that affect those assets even indirectly. We should not tolerate that as even a possibility.
If a multimillionaire puts their assets into holdings and gets it back after their tenure, then the incentive to corruption still exists because they can still make decisions that affect those assets even indirectly.
Not really if they don’t know what the portfolio is composed of, the only way they could definitely positively affect it is if they make decisions good for the whole of the economy.
That’s what I was actually proposing, the politician would transfer complete holding to someone like vanguard and they would diversify the assets in a reasonable way. The politician would not have control over it or even see what stocks are in the account, but still be able to benefit from the country’s economy.
All the politician could see is the valuation of the holdings in the event they do want to liquidate, but again, they wouldn’t directly choose what is being liquidated (because they don’t know what they have)
Term limits and an inability to invest would just make it a completely unwanted job for anyone without some significant fallback plan.
Blind trusts exist
“Base pay would be significantly increased.”
Throwing a number out there: $400K/year should be good enough for anyone to both live on and save toward the future, especially over the course of, say, 4 years. I’d even support a $50K/year pension over the course of 8 years after leaving office, just to keep it fair.
The point is: making the job attractive to people who want to actually do the job, and not selfish, rich, corrupt asshats looking to enrich themselves and their fellow “upper crust” cronies.
Retaining any manner of private interest while serving in such a role is, by it’s very nature, inherently corrupt. Always.
Age is absolutely the problem. Bickering partisan politics over 40 years led to a division in our country. The millennial conservatives I know are reasonable, the boomers aren’t. Their minds went funny with too much fox news and that’s just the plain facts.
Younger. We want people who have decades left to live with the decisions they make.
- 45 even.
I’d argue (as a 54 year old, naturally), that you need experienced people in these positions.
Capping it at 45 would mean you have a 10 year window on public service, 35 to 45. That won’t work.
At the same time, too old, and they don’t comprehend what they’re legislating. I’m not sure I would be competent to write laws on AI, and I’ve been working in tech for 30 years.
I would argue you don’t. You need to make mistakes. We aren’t making mistakes everything thrown out these days is gridlocked.
We should be piloting things and changing things with lessons learned. Except people are so set in their ways they want to keep things the same even though a vast majority of things have been and will continue to get worse in every state of the country.
We need to stop putting static laws in place they need to be dynamic because shit changes and then loopholes are created.
If the generation most representative is the oldest and the limit doesn’t bar to, It should.
They shouldn’t have the population to swing votes and to lead the country. There should be checks and balances on the voters as well.
Baby boomers are setting the terms and vote the most and have the highest population. It’s no wonder the US is out of touch, and in debt all the way inside of its own asshole.
If I fell upstairs stroke out reading a prompt of course I don’t give a fuck about young people lol I’m just trying to survive walking and talking. It’s just not right.
The President needs to be capped at 1 6 year term. So we dont get this fake progressive rhetoric the first term, and selling out to their corporate donors the next.
I think term limits for Congress, Senate and supreme court would be a better solution. You can be Bernie and be old and lucid and not totally stuck the past but if you’ve been in office for 50 years GTFO and let someone else try.
It would need to be a fairly large limit. Places that have have short term limits have ended up seeing worse legislators with more corruption. It’s easier for the rich and retired to run often, after all.
When Ralph Nader was asked about this, he said “12 years”, since, after that amount of time, most of them have either “worn out or sold out”. It isn’t a terribly long term, but it is 3x longer than a presidential term.
I don’t typically agree with Nader, but 12 does sound fairly reasonable. It’s two consecutive Senate terms or six consecutive House terms, which are plenty.
I’d make an exception with the supreme court, where a term is 18 years instead. With 9 justices, that comes out to a new justice every 2 years if you spread it out equally. They’d also have a strict term limit of 1 term, you can’t serve as a justice more than once.
We can do both but the existence of one old lucid person doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be avoiding 65 year olds holding onto power. They’re demonstrably worse at politics: you can tell because a reality tv boomer bumble is dividing our country and we’re in a frequently hot civil war with an actual insurgency targeting power plants.
All of these equivocators about the issue seem to fail to understand what has actually happened with mass boomer dementia. That needs to change. Learn the party line: 65 or over, no more governing.
It doesn’t matter what we want. This has been proven many times over. They American government is beyond checks and balances. They do what they want- not what we want.
This age discrimination is a clever right wing ploy to remove Bernie from office and to hurt Biden’s re-election. And I can tell from the responses here and in real life that it’s working.
There are plenty of people on the right who are willing to stooge exactly like McConnell does, but highly principled lifelong public servants with almost no skeletons in their closet like Bernie are pretty much impossible to replace.
In any matchup against Biden, besides Trump, age favours the GOP. In a matchup between Trump and Biden, they are both the same age, but since the media has been using Biden’s stutter and unflattering video cuts to make him look senile, it still favours Trump.
Ultimately people need to stop voting for bad people, especially ones have already proven that they do a bad job, regardless of their age.
Generational generalizations are an effective way of dividing the populous.
deleted by creator
No one does…
Bernie himself says he’s too old, and his entire purpose is to build up the next generation.
It’s just Bernie is the one example people have to try and get people to be against this.
There’s a shit ton of elderly conservatives and moderates in office, but there’s only one elderly progressive. So that’s why people immediately throw him out there.
deleted by creator
This is overthinking things. Old people do a bad job, this is obvious if you look at the last seven years of politics. Don’t muddle the issue so we can fix one goddamn thing.
And gen z is lazy. Does that help anything?
gen z didn’t elect a russian asset to public office and then try to burn down the country with a fascist insurgency. wake up.
Neither did I. I’ve been aware of and concerned about the greenhouse effect since the early 70s. I was part of the first Earth Day. I was around and active for a number of anti-monopolistic decisions.
It’s not ones age, race or economics that determine our ideals. It’s our ideals. You want to alienate our allies. You are pushing a hidden agenda or you are a tool of those doing so. I am awake. You are a member of a cult.
Neither did I. I’ve been aware of and concerned about the greenhouse effect since the early 70s. I was part of the first Earth Day. I was around and active for a number of anti-monopolistic decisions.
And none of that will save you from your generation’s failure. You failed and you’re leaving a broken country to your offspring. Don’t make that my problem. 65 year olds shouldn’t be in office and that’s the end of it.
If that hurts your feelings? good. It should. You should have to face your failure, and vote for age restrictions on people in office.
Your leadership didn’t work. You led us here.
You want to alienate our allies. You are pushing a hidden agenda or you are a tool of those doing so. I am awake. You are a member of a cult.
This is incoherent old person rambling.
Keep believing that it is your age that makes you good. That’s all you have.
That’s nonsense. But if it’s all I have, maybe it’s all you left us. The burning need to make sure the old people get out of office immediately.
You can demean it if that’s all your old person flailing can do, but you can’t shake that burning need.
