A recent opinion piece in Governing notes that over 40% of America's members of Congress are over 60 years old. And for good reason. Most congressional districts are reliably blue or red. What this means is that if you can win a primary in these reliably safe districts, you pretty much are there for life. Age provides experience and institutional voters, but the dominance of senior politicians also alienates younger people. They feel left out and are less likely to donate to a campaign or vote. Only half of eligible voters under 30 exercise their franchise.
How do we change this? Some believe we should abolish "winner take all" elections in favor of proportional voting, which is the norm in most other countries with younger leaders. But I'd argue that members of the US House and US Senate should be both term-limited and restricted from serving once they reach a certain age.
38 comments:
The best version of term limits I can think of would be that you can run until you’re 65 if you get elected at that age you can serve out that term, at that point the oldest senator would be 71. Ironically 65 is nearly the average age of a us senator. But the age issue is more tied to the money issue. Older people have more money, and so do their friends. I can’t go to my friends just getting married and having kids and ask for checks from them or go to my network that I’ve built up over 40 years to get the money needed to run a campaign. Highly doubt any of it changes beyond whichever politician dies in office and is replaced by a slightly younger 74 year old.
The article doesn't say how many of them poop their diapers like America's president.
Old and the most corrupt.
Big time mistake no term limits leads to the poor leadership we have.
The solution is all pretty simple to me. No one elected gets to serve more than 2 terms.
Quick turnover in office keeps everything fresh and energetic. In office too long invites spoilage. The 'rot' in our current Congress is quite obvious. WE are not being served, while THEY seem to get lazy and rich.
We have two problems in the U.S. One is really old people serving in the elected positions. The other is women drivers. There ought to be a law that states "the only women drivers should be women over eighty and they must be accompanied by both parents". As for the voting, well, I let that up to you constitutional scholars.
Term limits. All these politicians care about is getting reelected. 6 house terms 2 senate terms. The country would be much better off.
If you work with or associate with people under 30, you become grateful that many who serve in congress are over 60. Yes; there are a lot of trainwrecks in that over 60 group, but at least they know how to run the engine.
Exactly. Check out 85-year old Nancy Lugosi at yesterday's Capitol news conference. She appears vacant until asked to speak by Adam "Shift" (her words). Then, she slurs her words like she's completely shit-faced hammered. Age, stroke, or lunchtime martinis? You decide. Rs are no better. They had some old bag who stopped showing up. She was eventually tracked down in a memory care unit in Texas.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO1nAOTEQ0M/
I’m from the part of Northampton County where our State Senator, Lisa Boscola, was elected to her office in 2002 & our State Representative, Bob Freeman, was elected to his office in 1982. Representative government wasn’t designed to be made up of lifetime politicians. How can politicians whose lives and fortunes depend on maintaining the status quo represent “We the people”?
Scott Janney
A good example of an old fossil in Government is Easton mayor Sal Panto.
BO,
Term limits is definitely something I think both sides can agree on. What are your thoughts on the limits. I think two for a senator ( I mean that's twelve years) and to make it equal six for a representative. I don't have an issue with an age limit. Just not sure what the right number is to set the mark.
Americans have enough trouble voting without adding a complication that many might not understand.
I never liked term limits because they tell me I can’t vote for somebody and they raise the issue of unintended consequences.
On the other hand, what we have now isn’t great but I blame that on uniformed and unmotivated voters.
Wow. I never really thought much about having the oldest politicians but you're right, however, what about inexperienced youngsters in those offices.
I would agree with your limit for a Senator. For a Rep, I would change the term from 2 to 4 years and limit it to two terms.
I do happen to know quite a few younger people and believe they are far better people than what I see in my contemporaries as well. Most of them have a little more maturity as well. Certainly, more than I did at their age. You sound like a cranky old man.
We already have term limits, they’re called elections. People are too stupid to utilize their power.
Those offices are run by staffers just out of college.
Wake up.
I’d love to see more woke leadership.
that "fossil" is Mayor of the best run city in the Valley. some old farts rock
Poster children along with Steve Samuelson for term limits, and Lisa was first elected to the State House in 1994. All 3 are in Democratic gerrymandered districts that they personally had tweaked during the last redistricting cycle to make themselves even safer. They can only be taken out via a primary challenge, but we needed a better option than Sultana.
Ban inside trading it doesn't matter if they are a D or an R, a few examples: Rep. Lisa McClain's $50K buy of BigBear AI up 52%
Rep James Comer $30K buy SOFI up 104%
Rep. Fleischmann (R)'s $15K buy of the Global Uranium ETF $URA back on 2/14 up 78%
Rep. Ilhan Omar reported that her "net worth" is now up to $30,000,000 That's a 66,676% since she was first elected to congress back in 2019
Before it was, Vote them out. Now its term limits. Make up your mind.
I know comments are directed primarily at the federal level, but I recall a conversation I once had with late Mike Schweder when he did not run for a 4th term on Bethlehem City Council. It was self imposed after 3 four-year terms and modeled after Dolores Caskey, the first female President of City Council, who had served 3 four-year terms. Mike told me he agreed with her idea that if you couldn't make a difference in 12 years, you didn't belong there in the first place. Then there are those who hang on forever, and Bethlehem has had its share of those. Multiple the situation and its effectiveness at the county, state and federal level and you have many who are in it for themselves as time passes. I don't believe the 'Founding Fathers' ever intended that those elected should be making it a career, as opposed to a time of service with return to the civilian ranks.
What is needed is citizen engagement, We need to realize that today, a new elected official relies much on his staff, many who have been around for years. It may take almost the whole first term of a representative to understand the complexities of the office. We now have much of the government run by the bureaucracy, with shortened terms I fear we would be run by the staff and bureaucracy more.
A better alternative than term limits would be 2, 30 day sessions in Washington. No permanent office or living in Washington. They need to live and have their office in their district. Legislation can be debated and amended from home and only spend 2 30day sessions for voting. We actually do not need a lot of new legislation, just better more representative legislation and actually eliminating much of the existing legislation.
Another possibility would be no contributions from outside the district.
Get them out of the corrupt environment of Washington, make them more accountable to the people they represent.
They are in effect representatives of Washington to their district, the opposite is what we need.
Another good reason to vote for Tara Zrisnki for Northampton County Executive! Watching last night's Channel 69 airing of the interviews of Executive Candidates, 72 yr. old Tom Giovanni's babbling performance made it abundantly clear why he was unwilling to debate Controller Zrinski. The only clear point he made was his declaration that Ms. Zrisnski had done a good job on the audit of Gracedale funding.
The younger generation abhors politics as they are today and I can’t blame them. Too old, too stubborn, too caught up in their titles, and self importance. Trust has been broken on all sides and I don’t see people or younger generations embracing a return to normalcy soon. We have successfully shot our Democracy in the foot.
Eliminate all gerrymandering, age limits of 55 in the House, 60 in the Senate and 65 for President. I've also come around on open primaries, eliminates the radicalized morons. Best ideas and candidates who can win over the general public, not some puppet who can please leadership.
Gerrymandering is the biggest problem in our electoral system. The voters should pick the candidates, not the other way around. When any district is so safe for a politician that the only thing he or she fears is a primary challenge from the "ideological purity" wing of their own party, what you've got right there is a recipe for extremism and gridlock.
The only reason Easton is balancing its budget is because of the large amount of covid money they received. Now that money has run out. Mayor Panto wont run for reelection in the next election because he is seeing money trouble ahead. And dont forget, any new mayor has the option of replacing the members of his cabinet. I remember in the past when a new Easton mayor replaced everybody in the past mayors cabinet.
Sal lived off Goldsmith's tax increases for years. He disingenuously bragged he didn't raise taxes when Easton was topped out on millage, per state law. He simply jacked up fees and turned brown shirt parking enforcement into a golden goose. It's good he's leaving. Bob Freeman, who may not even be alive, should follow Mayor Sock Puppets to Country Meadows.
Who is rian podsby?
People vote for their choice of leaders. If they choose someone old so be it.
Well said
Primaries should be opened up to all.
Tara is a facade with a following.Ask her how the federal funding works to get money for Gracedale. Ask her who she will work with on country issues to reduce chances of tax increases, The county taxes will go up and you can refer back to this blog to confirm it when it occurs, she has no suggested programs to bring new funding to the county to offset funding losses.
No, they shouldn't. Take a stand and sign up with a party if you want to vote in a primary.
Panto has done well and is retiring after this term. His buddy Ken Brown is over 70 and served on council longer than Panto, over 20 yrs and has never done much.
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