Would you support a mandatory retirement age of 75 for US House, US Senate & US Supreme Court Justices and if not why?
Would you support a mandatory retirement age of 75 for US House, US Senate & US Supreme Court Justices and if not why?
Yes, aside from their senility, our politicians are simply way too out of touch to comprehend the average American's issues. Spent most of their life in politics with the easiest 6 figure salary (plus bribes) you can have.
Granted politicians will probably remain out of touch but I'd like to imagine it'd be better
Let's do it slightly differently, let's make the mandatory retirement age for political office the median life expectancy age for the entire country. If the politicians, etc can manage to make everyone live longer, they can hold office longer.
Similarly, take away their separate and different medical coverage and put them on the same Medicare system everyone else in the country has to use.
First I would support campaign finance reform and watch 90% of the problems be solved.
Then I would tackle the other 10% by making voting more accessible - especially in primaries. Make it so accessible that even young voters bother to do it. That way people will choose younger reps more often.
So no, I wouldn’t support putting a bandaid on one issue and ignoring the root causes.
Not just no, hell no.
People like to think that the seventies is when you automatically lose your ability to think and do anything useful. That's bullshit; it's individual, genetics combined with access to good nutrition, healthcare, etc.
I used to work as a nurse's assistant, specifically in home health where the patients were often at home with spouses, and other age peers. I had patients as old as their 90s that could still function mentally just fine, but had physical issues. I had patients older than that too, several just past 100, but they really wouldn't have been able to be a walmart greeter.
But even with the patients that did suffer cognitive difficulties, there were plenty of family members and friends that didn't. Most people suffer only minor cognitive decline in their seventies. Given otherwise good health, there's no necessity for someone without a diagnosis that would prevent them from doing their job to be forced to retire.
What we need are term limits, not ageist bullshit. The problem isn't age, or even a given political bent, it's the accumulation of power and influence that then becomes a commodity open for purchase, leading to corruption.
Now, I wouldn't object to mandatory fitness evaluations, but that's going to be as corruptible as anything else political. I certainly think some specific diagnoses should exclude someone from making decisions for the entire nation, that affect the entire world, but that's a tough thing to make happen, much less make work.
But age? Age is absolutely not a factor in fitness for any public office. Hell, I'm of the mind that none of the elected offices should have minimum ages, beyond a national age of adulthood so that the people in the position aren't immediately beholden to someone like a parent. Pick whatever arbitrary age you want for that, and we're good to go as long as it passes muster legally.
Yeah, but probably I’d make it lower (like 67) and allow exceptions with large majority (like a four year exception with a two thirds or three quarters vote of the senate).
I also think Supreme Court justices should have terms and term limits, and shouldn’t be allowed to receive gifts over a certain value (like $2,000).
I really do think term limits are a better solution than a hard age cap. Term limits would help address the age issue, and it would also make "career politician" a less viable career. That's a bigger problem imo - politicians doing politics for profit, as a career, rather than as a civic duty. That's a big part of why we have younger Republicans like MTG, Lauren Boebert, JD Vance, etc. whom a hard age cap would not effect for another couple decades at least.
No I'm for term limits. Each presidential election the popular vote should go to decide the party that gets to nominate the next justice. The first one in has to retire at that same time.
I also think we should increase the size of the court and cycle in/out two every four years - somewhere around where we'd have 20 year term limits. Side bonus, I think it'd be a benefit for all of us that the court has a larger variety of voices and be more difficult to hack the way the GOP has this court.
I'd support a four-term limit for the Senate, six-term limit for the House, and one term in the Supreme Court for a period of time not to exceed 20 years.
No.
- I think that 75 is already too old, especially because they won’t let go of their positions until their terms end even after the “mandated” age of retirement (unless the law specifically forbids taking a position you won’t be able to complete)
- Politicians will argue that this age is either too young or too old and will either never update this law, or update it so often it becomes meaningless.
An alternative could be to set the limit to a percentage of average life expectancy, or some other variable, so the law isn’t as easy to ignore or mess with, the law can remain unchanged for decades and remain relevant without adverse effects (hopefully), and politicians are encouraged to improve the quality of life.
Not a retirement age but to run for public office, I think the candidate should have at least 20 years of median actuarial life expectancy remaining. They need to make long-term decisions so they better be around to see how it goes. Right now this is age 60 for men and age 64 for women. In the future it may go as high as 70. If you really wanted to push it I think 18 years would be symmetrical with childhood. First 18 and “last 18” you can’t be in office.
People who bought a house and went to college for the same price of college nowadays do not know what the world is like today
Absolutely. Maybe younger. Politicians shouldn't be able to vote on issues that will have major effects that they won't have to live through. I also think we should disenfranchise people <average life expectancy> minus 18 years. Give politicians a reason to support policies that increase public health to increase the voting age.
I support this Pipe Dream.
Unfortunately, this isn't a Congress that will vote to limit its own power.
Yes, because of the risk of elder abuse. And just being absolutely out of touch with the general population.
Cap it at 65, the current median retirement age. Set the standard that all adults 65 and older should be finished with their careers.
If the average citizen expects to be retired at that age, then nobody older than that ought to be working to govern the country.
No. Some of the worst politicians are young. Some of the best politicians are old. Age isn't a problem. Undemocratic systems and bad politics are problems.
I'd love to see a diversity in age requirement
What, no president?
We do not need people like Mitch McConnell who genuinely think 600 dollars is this crazy large amount of money you can live comfortably on for years. This is a real argument he has made.
Not an American but if you should have and every country should have a minimum age, like 21 because of mental and physical maturity, and a maximum age like 75, because of the risk of possible stamina and mental decline.
Benjamin Franklin was 70 when he signed the Declaration of Independence, the oldest person to do so.
If that’s a fact Americans might see as meaningful, the US could cap taking office as President if over 70 on election day (effectively 74 is oldest at end of term), same for the House (oldest 72), Senate (oldest 76), and the Supreme Court… just force retirement at 70 instead of death.
mandatory retirement is never the answer; that's just ageism plus there are a ton of shitty 30 year old politicians.
term limits especially for unelected positions is a must though
also national elections for supreme court justices instead of presidential picks.
Say, greedy old guy, would you mind giving up the power you so prominently covet? Why, no? Well geeze.
President
Yes
Younger than that. 65
Note: I am not an expert in anything. Go ahead and ignore me. I'm just a random person thinking about and answering the prompt. These are just my ill formed opinions, feel free to CMV (even though I don't take a hard stance) but please be respectful.
Maybe. I lean towards yes that at a certain point you're way too old to be effective but I feel like the age caps and term limits arguments have some good points in multiple different positions. Which is my roundabout way of saying there are good points on either side but I hate saying that because of the connotations associated with it but here we are.
Anyway.
One argument I think actually holds water and relates to your question is: what age is the cutoff, and why did you pick it?
What criteria merits an age cap? If someone who met or exceeded the cap was able to "pass" the criteria you used for determining that number, what justification then do you have to deny them eligibility? "Because we said so" isn't a good justification and amounts to age discrimination.
Also, now I fully admit this is a slippery slope fallacy but: once a limit is adopted, the barriers to changing that limit are lessened. Meaning if you cap it at 75 and society undergoes a significant cultural shift it is much easier to reduce it to 45 since there is a framework in place. Yes, this is a fallacy, but one I believe has some bureaucratic believability albeit in a very pessimistic Logan's-Run-esque sense.
Counterpoint though: there are age minimums for certain positions like the presidency (probably others but I'm not sure) and the same fears of manipulation of the cutoff shenanigans have never born fruit. That said other age barriers are undergoing challenges so... it's a bit muddy but something worth discussing. Yes, I just countered my counter point.
The current system is supposed to be that candidates run on merit and the people choose whom they believe is the best fit to represent their interests. This is supposed to counteract the election of unfit candidates. Which we clearly see has broken down in places (for a non-inflammatory example: that place that elected a dead person).
I don't have a solution and all of this is to say it seems like common sense that at some point you have to be too old to do a demanding job like those listed, but when you sit down and try to define where the boundaries are the conversation gets complicated.
This was an engagement bait question on Reddit that was frequently posted. It seems so far Lemmy is overwhelmingly in favor just like reddit probably as the population is not old (I'm not either).
I don't know how I feel about it as the constant repost and bait question were something I disliked on Reddit.
Holy shit, yes. Please. I'm begging.
Get these old decrepit fuckers out of office. I want them gone.
That brings back some memories of a former US president. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7FKO5DlV0
And to answer OP question :
spoiler
Yes, more younger politicians. Make retirement age 50. And more diversity as well, less white males.
Simple, if you can't get elected before a age X then you shouldn't be able to get elected after (life expectancy - X)
Example: Can't become president before 35? Life expectancy is 75 for men and 80 for women, men can't become president after 40, women after 45.
Just watch how fast life improves in the USA if you put a measure like that in place, not just from having younger politicians but also from wanting to be able to get elected later in life.
Same for voting right, can't vote before 18, can't vote after 57 and 62.
Yes. Our country is run by geriatrics who, among other things related to modern society, legislate on technology they don't understand. We need younger members with more flexible minds who have at least spent some part of their younger lives dealing with problems we have a modern variation of today.
But especially SCOTUS members. Any kind of term limit on them would be better than what we have.
why 73? which 74 year old are you wanting to oust? lol
No, because 75 is too old. I’d support an age limit of 65. I’d also support a minimum age of 25 for the House/Senate and 35 for the Supreme Court.
I’d also like to see term limits imposed on the house, senate, and Supreme Court. As well as a limit on the total amount of time a judge can serve as a judge in the federal court system.
Needs to be a little lower
No, because democracy. But we shouldn't vote for these old guys
Not for House or Senate. Age just isn't a close enough metric for what you're trying to fix.
If you're concerned with age-related decline, vote them out if you see signs of it, or if they would reach whatever age your limit is during the term.
If you're concerned about longevity in office, use term limits or reform campaign finance such that longevity in office doesn't grant too high of an incumbent advantage.
SCOTUS, sure. I think Canada has appointments until 75. Does not seem meaningfully different from appointments for life except less randomness on open slots.
certainly. even lower. Some people can be vigorous in their seventies but they are not the majority, 50's many go down. That is one problem with raising the retirement age in general. There is only a subset that can keep working as age goes up.
No, because in a proper democracy any representative could be removed from office at anytime solely by their constituents voting to remove them. No I don't mean during a predetermined election cycle. I mean at any time.
That way each community can decide if someone should be out of office, and it transfers power back into the hands of the people rather than their representatives.
No. That's age discrimination. If you're concerned that a person could be suffering from mental degradation, require annual testing for it. I know folks in their 90's who are better critical thinkers than a lot of 20-somethings.
The problem we have is not that a bunch of old people run the country. It's that a bunch of young people put them there because they were the only real choices they had. Fix the two-party system first by employing ranked-choice voting. That will break the stranglehold that Republicans and Democrats have on the US political system.
Yep.
Yep, no question.
Term limits please
60*
No. I do support conditional retirement. What I don't want to do is remove those individuals who are older and have the connections and experience to get things done, and actually do the job they are there to do. I'm at work and don't have time to expand on the how, though a system should be put in place so that those conditions need to be followed, and locked in requiring majority approval through the normal process, with a subclause to be revisited every single damn year if it is temporarily unrestricted due to some issue or another.
No, because that's literally agism.
I understand that it's tempting to think that old age necessarily means degraded mental faculties, but there is no scientific link between the two. There are people who develop Alzheimer's in their 30s, and others who remain lucid into their 100s. Tomorrow there could be a scientific breakthrough that doubles the average lifespan of every human on earth, and we'd be sitting here with an irrelevant age limit on the books like simpletons. The abilities of the person are what matters, the number itself is a red herring (in the same way that the color of their skin should not be used to infer anything).
If the issue is term length, then put a term limit on the position. Otherwise, democracy means the people will elect the wrong people sometimes. We're in a unique situation where the baby boomer generation has more voting power than the rest of the population, but this issue will resolve itself.
Edit: the AARP's position on the matter
Mandatory? No. Customary? YES.
There are plenty of people who are cogent, thoughtful, insightful, and able to use their years of experience to see solutions or consequences someone younger might not.
But the custom and usual practice needs to be for congresspersons to mentor the newbies so they can be successful, then get the hell out of the way.
I'd support term limits. Some people are still very sharp at 100. And as recent history shows, people immediately forget lessons learned we learned in WW2 when we (the world) kicked Hitler in the cock.
Plus, as others as said, you have some politicians that are young and as stupid (and dangerous) as they come, wanting us to join the Russians.
I think the people of the United States should be allowed to elect whoever they want, without us interfering.
Not at all. Not all old people are idiots and not all young people are geniuses. Get rid of the minimum age requirement for prez too.
There should also be no "terms" and "term limits". You're voted in. If at any point you face a vote of no confidence, there's an election. That might be 30 days in, it might be 15 years later. Sometimes it takes long periods of time to fix issues. And with a 4 year cycle where 3.99 of it is campaigning, nothing can get done.
The US is broken.