As Congress ages, experts debate the risks of America’s political ‘gerontocracy’
As the 119th Congress returns from recess this week, the nation’s aging political class is once again under renewed scrutiny.
As the 119th Congress returns from recess this week, the nation’s aging political class is once again under renewed scrutiny.
Questions about the age of U.S. leaders arrive on the heels of the news of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sudden death on Saturday. His passing — the sixth such instance of a member of Congress over age of 65 to have died during this term alone, according to the legislative news service Congressional Quarterly.
It also followed weeks of speculation over the health of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who is 84, after he had been absent from Congress for over a month.
McConnell broke his silence this week, noting he suffered a health scare in which he was “briefly unconscious” and citing the “vulnerability that comes with growing older” as the reason he wasn’t forthcoming, he said in a social media post this week.
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While those events have generated debate among political scientists, reform advocates and voters about whether new limits should be imposed on America’s aging political class, often referred to as the “gerontocracy,” the topic has been voiced many times over the years. Former President Ronald Reagan famously quipped that he wasn’t going to make age an issue during a 1984 debate with younger candidate Walter Mondale: “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience,” Reagan said.
During former President Joe Biden’s presidency, many observers questioned the aging leader’s fitness to serve amid signs of cognitive and physical decline that ultimately forced him to step back from seeking a second term at the age of 81. Presidential Donald Trump, 80, is now facing many of those same questions.
Those concerns are not without merit, however. The last three Congresses have all ranked among the oldest in U.S. history by average age, hovering around 58 in the House and 64 in the Senate. More than half of Congress’s 24 octogenarian members are running for reelection this November, according to the Brennan Center, a New York City and Washington, D.C.-based law and public policy group, including Chuck Grassley — if he wins reelection, he’ll be 101 by the end of his term in January 2035.
On one hand, the concentration of political power among an older cohort generates a problem known as “short-termism,” or a “focus on immediate solutions to issues facing those who vote,” said Martha Johnson, an associate professor of political science at Northeastern University.
Johnson frames it as an issue of representation.
“When both voters and political leaders come primarily from older demographics, the voices of the younger populations who will bear the brunt of today’s decisions risk being lost,” Johnson said.
But having an older group of leaders running the country isn’t a bad thing by itself, said Oscar Pocasangre, a senior data analyst for the Political Reform program at New America, a think tank focusing on issues of public policy, with offices in Washington, D.C., and Oakland, California, by email.
“It’s really expensive to run for office, so incumbency helps because it gives you a platform, airtime and a record to appeal to voters,” said Pocasangre, who has written about the issue recently. “Also, if you’re older, you are more likely to have more contacts with more wealth since you’re farther down your professional career.”
Legislating on Capitol Hill often takes many years of building relationships, gaining institutional knowledge and understanding the inner workings of government, experts say.
But, Pocasangre added, incumbency leads to a problem that is self-reinforcing. Voters often back leaders closer to their age, and voter turnout tends to be higher among older generations than younger. In turn, he said candidates “appeal more to older voters through their policies because they know the electorate skews older,” which has the effect of discouraging younger voters who are already underrepresented.
Johnson casts the issue in similar terms, emphasizing the need for more generational parity in the halls of Congress to help shift the focus toward solving problems facing future generations.
Even so, challenges persist: “There is no guarantee young people will be future-oriented,” Johnson added, “but public opinion surveys do suggest they are more concerned with challenges like climate change and building sustainable economies.”
What are some of the solutions?
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Other systems have built-in mechanisms for ensuring more generational representation, Johnson noted, citing the fact that some African countries have reserved seats or quotas for young parliamentarians, such as Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. Many European countries, meanwhile, rely on proportional representation, a system political scientists say tends to produce younger and more diverse legislatures by making it easier for parties to recruit and elect candidates of different backgrounds.
Here in the U.S., one proposal often floated is imposing term limits on lawmakers, which supporters argue would force regular turnover and prevent lawmakers from remaining in office for decades. Politicians elected to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives currently face no limits on the number of terms they can serve, allowing them to seek reelection indefinitely.
Legal scholars have said the idea faces both constitutional and practical hurdles, however. In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton that individual states aren’t allowed to impose such limits on federal lawmakers.
The only other option, experts note, is a constitutional amendment, which requires approval by two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states.
What’s more, Pocasangre argues that term limits wouldn’t move the needle much because the problem is one of supply.
“Young people are not running for office,” he said. “So, with term limits, you’d have politicians who are term-limited being replaced by other politicians in older age groups.”
Pocasangre suggested that reforms to campaign finance laws, voter registration and the electoral system could help lower barriers for younger candidates and encourage greater generational representation.
But, he said, “there is a need for system-wide changes.”
“For example, a reform towards a proportional electoral system where parties win seats proportionally to their vote share will help young politicians — and other underrepresented groups — get elected,” Pocasangre said.
