How Long is "Too Long" in Congress?

You are possibly aware that Louise Slaughter died on Friday at 88; more likely so if you lived in the Rochester, New York area.

That is because Louise Slaughter was a member -- still -- of the U.S. House of Representatives, having been elected over 30 years and being the sitting representative from a Rochester area district upon her death.  Yes, friends, that means that an 88-year-old woman was actually sitting in Congress doing the duties of an elected official.

I don't think this will be a political piece, in the sense that I'm writing it because she was a Democrat and wouldn't have written it had she been a Republican.  There are eight sitting senators over 80 as I write this, and seven are Republicans; the oldest House member now is also a Republican, and he is 87.  Strom Thurmond, a senator until after he turned 100, was also (eventually) a Republican.

My father, about whom I've written a few times here, was an accurate marksman at age 95, and while in his last few years, he had a little difficulty sometimes hitting on just the right word when speaking, his mind was still quite sharp, and he was even driving -- OK, that was not a good thing, but he did it.

I occasionally play golf with a fellow who is 83 now; he is an excellent golfer for 83, possibly as a logical physical outcome of his career as a minor-league baseball player in the 1950s.  I hold him as a standard of what someone of that age can be.

I had another friend who was 83 once; he was a fellow barbershop singer when we both lived in Virginia, and a very active guy; his brother had played in the NFL and it too was a pretty athletic family.  My favorite story of his was when he told me he "had to go" to western North Dakota on an elk hunt (he was 82 then) with his son and other family.

"I really have a lot of other things to do", he told me, "but I'm afraid that if I don't go, they won't ask me next year." 

Those, however, are the exceptions, not the rule.  And considering that at Mrs. Slaughter's death she was the ranking Democrat on the House Rules Committee, the irony is not lost.

But even allowing for either the weak-mindedness of the electorate in Rochester, New York, or their lack of ability to determine whom they actually get to vote for in the elections (sitting members are almost impossible to primary out even at 100), you have to wonder.  I cannot imagine how it is not a good thing to impose an age limit, if we cannot ever pass term limits.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) are 83; Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is 82.  Their terms are six years, and I know that at this point Feinstein is running for yet another term (Hatch is retiring).  We see them on TV all the time, but whether they are physically up to the demands or not is not necessary clear.

We must be 25 years old to run for a House seat and 30 years old to run for the Senate.  The Framers felt that there was a connection between competence and age, that was so important as to have been put into the founding document of our nation.  They clearly felt that, in order to represent one's state or district, one had to have matured and have to have lived enough to make clear and rational decisions based on experiencing cause-and-effect relationships -- even though there are some 20-year-olds out there who could do a decent job in the House.

So if the maturation of the human brain is an element in the Constitution's determination of who can serve, then is it not at least reasonable -- is it not at least worthy of a serious discussion -- to talk about age limits for senators and congressmen, based on the presumption that the selfsame brain deteriorates at a certain age for all of us?

By August, three of the eight Supreme Court justice will be over 80.  Theirs is an extraordinary mental burden, to have to decide first which cases are of significant import as to have them decided in their Court, and then to hear the cases to determine the application of the law based on the Constitution and legal precedent.  Do we think it's a good idea to be having that done by someone who is, say, 85, and not subject to a mandatory retirement?

In the USA, we no longer have the capacity for a "national debate" on most anything, because everything is partisan anymore.  But one way or the other, we need to have some form of discussion on the logic and implementation of a mandatory retirement age for the Legislative and Judicial branches.

I don't think there is a magic age, but we need to protect our nation from having our laws made and ruled upon except by people of sufficient maturity but who are not yet senile.  May we at least toss that idea around?

I'm sorry, but an 88-year-old capable of serving a House term, let alone making rulings on the Supreme Court, is the extreme exception.  We really don't need to take the risk.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
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