OPINION:
The great Jack Kemp once said that during their first terms in office, when using the word “we,” members of Congress meant “the folks and me back home,” but by their third terms, “we” meant “the other members of Congress and me.”
I thought about that recently after news of the passing of Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican (eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord), and the illnesses of Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican.
With respect to Mr. Graham, although his death was unexpected, it was not that unusual for a man of his age. The average age for aortic dissection is 63.
With respect to Mr. McConnell, it is not that unusual for an 84-year-old man to spend more time than most others in the hospital, although it is safe to say that few patients are evasive about it to the point where proof-of-life photographs are necessary.
The simple reality is that we have an actuarially unsound Senate (five senators are older than 80) and House (about 20 members are older than 80). The average age of a member of Congress nowadays is 59, which makes this one of the oldest congresses, if not the oldest.
The average age of senators is 64; the average age in the House is 57. The median age for Americans is about 39.
The median age of our presidents at their first inauguration is 55. The current president is 80; the previous president was 82 on his last day in office. The only other presidents to serve into their 70s: Dwight D. Eisenhower (who turned 70 about two months before leaving office) and Ronald Reagan.
For comparative purposes, the average age of the signers of the Declaration of Independence — whose anniversary we are celebrating this year — was 44. Thomas Jefferson was 33 when he wrote the Declaration. John Adams was 41, and George Washington was 44 in 1776.
Benjamin Franklin, the oldster in the group, was 70 when he signed the Declaration. He would be considered young in the current Senate, where 50 members are older than 70.
About 10% of Americans are older than 70.
It is no small wonder that we have a Congress that cannot perform its most basic functions. It cannot balance a budget, keep the peace, win wars, preserve the value of the currency, secure the borders, educate the young or do anything else one might reasonably expect from a legislative body.
Why should they? Despite members’ poor performance, the system is designed to reward incumbents and encourage reelection, with more than 90% of incumbents winning contested elections.
In other words, very limited consequences are attached to failure, which could explain why we get so much of it.
The line from sclerotic congressman to sclerotic congresses is easy to draw. Much of what Congress does is necessarily about the future, about a world yet to be created.
It is not clear that aged and aging sets of legislators are the right people to prepare the nation for a future that none will see.
How concerned can a 75-year-old really be with a debt and deficit mess that will probably not become a full-blown emergency until well after they have moved on? How much meaningful time and attention can an organization run by octogenarians give to the essential components of our future, such as artificial intelligence? How many members of Congress do you figure can set up their own phones?
About 80% of voters are convinced that term limits for members of Congress are absolutely required to right the ship of state, that incumbency is a disease damaging representative government. Those voters probably need to start thinking about age limits as well.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
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