It's Time To Put An Age Limit On Elected Federal Officials

The following editorial is by Dr. Anahita Due at MS NOW:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., died suddenly over the weekend after what his office described as a “brief and sudden illness.” The following day, Sen. Mitch McConnell released a statement for the first time after three weeks in the hospital for a fall. Those two incidents are part of a broader issue. Former Sen. Dianne Feinstein spent her final years in office with multiple colleagues questioning her fitness to serve. Five members of the House of Representatives have died in this Congress alone. President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign amid persistent questions about his age and cognitive stamina. President Donald Trump has faced scrutiny about his health as well. 

Enough. This is not a Republican problem or a Democratic problem. It is an American problem.

The U.S. political system has virtually no objective standards to ensure that the people entrusted with the highest offices in the country remain physically and cognitively capable of performing some of the most important and demanding jobs in the world. That is no longer acceptable.

Every profession carries responsibilities. As a vascular surgeon, if I developed a serious medical condition that impaired my judgment, concentration or stamina, I would have an ethical obligation to step away from the operating room. My patients deserve a surgeon whose complete focus is on them, not someone distracted by illness or struggling through a medical crisis. If my attention wavered at the wrong moment, a patient could die.

We accept this principle throughout society. Airline pilots undergo regular medical examinations. Members of the military must meet physical standards. Physicians are credentialed and can be evaluated for fitness for duty. These requirements are not discriminatory. They exist because the consequences of impaired performance are too great.

Politics should be no different. Serving as president or in Congress requires extraordinary judgment, focus, stamina and resilience. These positions involve national security briefings, crisis management, sensitive negotiations, economic policy, military decisions and consequential choices. If someone is battling a significant medical illness or cognitive issue, their attention should be where any reasonable person’s would be: on their health and recovery. Why should we expect less from the people making decisions that affect 340 million Americans?

As a surgeon, I believe we should consider three reforms.

First, we need an independent, nonpartisan system of routine medical evaluations for candidates seeking the nation’s highest offices and for those who hold them. While the president undergoes physical exams at Walter Reed Medical Center, that is inadequate so long as the White House can pick and choose what information to release. Those examinations should be conducted by physicians who are independent of any campaign or administration using standardized criteria that include physical and cognitive assessments. Voters deserve transparency regarding whether the people asking for their trust are capable of performing the job.

Second, we need to look at term limits. Such rules would have to be carefully constructed: the Supreme Court has ruled that congressional term limits require a constitutional amendment, and if the limits are too strict, they risk the loss of valuable experience and institutional knowledge. But no elected office should become a lifetime career simply because incumbents possess clear fundraising advantages and decades of accumulated name recognition.

Finally, age limits must be considered as well. We accept that reality in countless other areas of society. We establish minimum ages for driving, voting, military service and even kindergarten. We have maximum ages for commercial airline pilots, federal law enforcement personnel and the boards of most S&P 500 companies. Many states have age limits for judges. The same principle should apply to those who govern us. Yes, many Americans remain remarkably sharp well into their 70s and 80s. But there will always be individuals who defy expectations. Public policy, however, cannot be written around those exceptions.

Our nation’s founders also remind us that transformative leadership does not require spending decades in office. Many of the architects of the American republic were remarkably young by today’s standards. Thomas Jefferson was 33 when he drafted the Declaration of Independence. James Madison was 36 during the Constitutional Convention. Alexander Hamilton was in his early 30s when he helped shape the new nation. They did not need decades of experience to be capable, energetic, innovative and willing to challenge convention.

None of these reforms will be easy. All will require bipartisan cooperation. But the status quo is no longer tenable. This is not about Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell, Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Democrats, Republicans and independents — all of us deserve leaders who are healthy enough to shoulder the responsibilities of public office, transparent enough to earn our trust and humble enough to know when to pass the torch.

That is not ageism. That is responsible governance.