why is there no age limit for president

Why or why not? "I think Chuck Grassley does a pretty darn good job," he said. There's overwhelming support for an age limit on the president and Congress. For the Senate, it's 30. All lines of this kind are. Level of grammatical correctness of native German speakers. And the median age of the Senate is about 64, while the median age in the House is about 58. People have been. It takes time to accumulate, especially in today's world. One interesting comment came from a Continental Congress member who was in Philadelphia in 1787 but not a delegate at the Constitutional Convention: Tench Coxe. This is a position help by both the left and right, although opinions differ on how to best enact on this (e.g. Earlier this year, a former staffer of Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 89, remarked in an interview with The Cut that having the "diminished" senator representing California was "better than a junior" senator. It's a question that's been asked many times including by members of Congress themselves. In the end, Mason won the argument and the drafting committee approved age limits by a 7-3 vote. The oversights werent apparently noticed or challenged. Opinion WALSH: Biden Is Showing Us Why There Needs To Be An Age Limit On The Presidency By Matt Walsh DailyWire.com We have only just begun to experience the consequences of having a mentally and physically unfit person as Commander-in-Chief. "It seems like the de facto threshold for running for president is not 35, but 80," said Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York, who at age 34 can serve in Congress but can't yet serve in the nation's highest office. 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution, U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 5, Clause 2, very powerful economic incentive to retire at a reasonable retirement age by virtue of how the defined benefit pension plan works, Our Design Vision for Stack Overflow and the Stack Exchange network, Moderation strike: Results of negotiations. The average age of U.S. Senators Polls Aging Joe Biden A YouGov poll released. Americans over 60 hold many of the highest offices in the U.S. government. "Those sorts of anticompetitive dynamics can make it more difficult for younger candidates to get a shot.". Perhaps when life expectancy was shorter, the Constitutions framers thought there was no need to put a cap on how old a person might be to be president. service, according to the survey results presented on Sunday. Bush. But others are looking for an older and more tenured leader who knows the ins and outs of the political landscape. Why does a presidential candidate need to be 35 years old anyway? Those include term limits, overhauling the seniority system, and fixing the campaign finance system. "Nobody's going to give it to you," she says. 1998 - 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. Ironically, 12 of the delegates at the Constitution Convention were under the age of 35, including Alexander Hamilton. Our analysis found that if senators over 60 were barred from holding office, 71% of current senators would be ineligible to serve. hide caption, When former President Ronald Reagan struggled in a debate, the question of his age loomed. In 1984, when Reagan deflected the age question on the debate stage with humor, everyone in the room laughed. Further, that older people tend to look at younger people (not without some justification) as less "wise", experienced, and competent, and that older people too frequently do not imagine or perceive their own decline in ability, and even if they do they have no interest in giving up what power and privilege they may have acquired. see affirmative action). Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? But she declined the role, and Senate Democrats elected the 72-year-old Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington to the job instead. If he was garroted, why do depictions show Atahualpa being burned at stake? Of course, this is true of younger Presidents as well. What voters should watch out for is the physical and cognitive fitness of a candidate, she added. Why do the more recent landers across Mars and Moon not use the cushion approach? And if Bernie Sanders were to somehow resurrect his campaign and go on to win in November, he would be 79. (He was carried to and from the sessions in a sedan chair. As frustration mounts with the aging of America's top political leadership, a simple, seemingly straightforward solution to the problem has slowly gained currency: age limits. 'I hope there's an age limit': Jimmy Carter says he couldn't have Washington's power class is also aging across the board; the current Congress is the oldest in the nation's history. Mandatory retirement based on age is standard practice in other industries most notably for air-traffic controllers, airplane pilots, and within the military. Those present in the auditorium, including this writer, felt a rising sense of discomfort as Reagan continued on, aimlessly. August 9, 20235:23 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition Audio will be available later today. 3 No-Brainer Reasons to Claim Social Security at Age 67 So in other words, if the VP and enough members of government agree that the president is unable to discharge the duties of office for any reason (such as dementia) they can remove the president from office immediately. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience." (E.g. t. e. In the United States, term limits, also referred to as rotation in office, restrict the number of terms of office an officeholder may serve. Ron Sokol. "I've chaired four committees. ", Noting the "more advanced age" required of senators versus representatives, James Madison, it is believed, argued in the unsigned Federalist No. For example, it does not make clear whether those 14 years need to be consecutive or the precise definition of . "I'm turning 64," Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota noted in a tweet earlier this year. Can the Supreme Court overturn an impeachment? As explained in the linked material: Financial concerns were paramount for judges who retired after senior taxes for Social Security or Medicare. How would these limits impact the makeup of our current Congress? But remember: America's most popular politician is 75 years old. Should the U.S. Let People Younger Than 35 Run for President? "That often takes decades. While Republicans, generally antagonistic toward the federal government, have generally been quick to affirm their support for the idea, Democrats have not. Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. Dole did not seem overly ruffled by references to his age, although he did generate anxiety midway through the campaign when he leaned on a flimsy railing and fell a short distance from the stage at a campaign rally. Andrew Harnik/AP That's something each voter has to answer themselves.. Arguably the best reason to wait until age 67 to receive Social . Congress Needs a Mandatory Retirement Age '80s'90s science fiction children's book about a gold monkey robot stuck on a planet like a junkyard, Possible error in Stanley's combinatorics volume 1. Sen. McConnell followed this unprecedented snub by eliminating the filibuster for a Republican nominee and confirming two controversial justices nominated by President Donald Trump.9 Regular. How can grand jury secrecy rules block release of Trump financial records? Is There An Age Limit For President? Not Yet - Market Realist "I said, I want to walk out of here while I know who I am.". Age-related declines in vision and hearing, the ability to endure stress, and the increased risk of medical emergencies rank among the reasons. @jamesqf At the rate world is changing, experience is increasingly overrated. Getting Realistic, Trump, Clinton, and Defining Deviancy Down, Episode 161: The Gary Schmitt Impeachment Primer. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. With Leahy's retirement, Feinstein would've been next in line to be president pro tempore, according to long-standing tradition. This doesn . To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Image source: Getty Images. A minimum requirement of 35 for President for example has no real basis in any accepted scientific measure or anything like that. "More important than those constitutional limits," said Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, the youngest member of the Senate at age 35, "are the various structural impediments in our political system as it functions today that deter, and make it so difficult, and discourage young people from seeking office.". Joe Biden will appeal to many younger independent and moderate voters, but he is too old, white, and moderate to appeal to many younger activists in the Democratic Party, who are far to the left of him in terms of their policy positions. Years after Reagan left office, the nation would learn he had Alzheimer's disease, a degenerative condition that eventually claimed his life. Seniority is used to determine who gets first choice at offices and, more important, who gets to chair committees. Residence. Vicky. Is there no age limit for a president? Ask the lawyer Term, age limits are needed for presidents, Supreme Court, Congress One quarter (24%) say it should be 60 years old, 39% say it should be 70, 23% say it should be 80, and 5% say it should be 90. Biden, whos 80, has said in multiple interviews that hes capable of reelection and has even turned his age into a punchline. This can occur for various reasons including: President's death President's resignation President's temporary incapacitation If the vice president and a majority of the cabinet deem the. Arguing for why 74 is the "sensible" age cutoff, he stated, "Given that risks illness, injury, cognitive decline grow with age, and that the presidency requires a full-time, fully capable. But its also true that the vast majority of us slow down, both mentally and physically, as we head into our eighth decade. rev2023.8.21.43587. Indeed, some people would argue that dementia is not an insuperable obstacle to being elected to office in the first place :-(. Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. Yet, as we know, most Americans dont actually pay as much attention as perhaps they should until the nominees have been chosen and Novembers election closes in. At the start of the latest Congress, in January 2021, baby boomers controlled roughly 56% of the seats in both chambers despite representing approximately just 21% of the US population. the President's Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. Time magazine drew the candidates on cartoon horses running down a track with the headline: "A Real Race? If Joe Biden were elected, he would be 78 upon becoming President. Why We Need a Constitutional Age Limit for President "Some of the same dynamics that drive partisan polarization also make the political system less competitive," he added. Geometry nodes, how to select the boundaries of mesh islands? Pelosi is the oldest House speaker, at 82. 2023 National Constitution Center. NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to S. Jay Olshansky, professor of public health, who has studied the longevity of. Generally speaking, these requirements were based on a belief that one had to reach a certain age to have the maturity to fulfill the duties of the office. The field of presidential candidates in the 2024 race has grown bigger and more diverse in recent months, with people from a variety of backgrounds competing for a chance to run the country. There's no ceiling on the total number of years a legislator can serve, so politicians often switch back and forth between the legislative bodies after their term limits kick in. 24 Age 70 39 Age 80 23 Age 90 5 Other age limit 9 January 14 - 18, 2022 | @YouGovAmerica How would these limits impact the makeup of our current Congress? In actuality, life begins at 80!. Excluding people based on a personal attribute that is not under their control due to some statistical correlation is pretty much the textbook definition of discrimination. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is 81 and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is 71. "We're considerably younger than the Democrats, by the way," Republican Rep. Don Bacon, 59, of Nebraska told Insider. Drawing that exact line (at say, 70) will admittedly be judged as being arbitrary. Reagan's avuncular style lent itself to concealing uncertainty in a cloak of affability. Age was an implicit contrast in the 1992 election, when Bill Clinton challenged incumbent President George H.W. Only three others before him were in their 70s while in the White House. Thomas Jefferson was also 33 years of age when he drafted the Declaration of Independence in 1776. You also have to be no less than 35 years old. The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill, by Gary Schmitt, Opinion Contributor - 12/11/21 8:00 AM ET, by Glenn C. Altschuler, opinion contributor, Banking lobbyists, lawmakers gear up for a fight over new exec pay bill spurred by crisis, More than 1,000 flights canceled due to Tropical Storm Hilary, Nevada governor declares state of emergency over Tropical Storm Hilary, Trump says he wont attend first GOP presidential debate, Netherlands, Denmark agree to send Ukraine F-16s, Earthquake hits Southern California amid Tropical Storm Hilary, Biden should rethink the Saudi Arabia-Israelnormalization deal. Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of And McConnell, the longest-serving Republican leader in Senate history, also voted in favor of term limits both times. "I've had a lot of life and I've seen a lot of people die very young, and so I think age is just something that you contend with," Feinstein told Insider.