{"id":31563,"date":"2023-09-18T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/when-it-comes-to-how-old-is-too-old-for-congress-colorados-lawmakers-believe-voters-should-be-the-judge\/"},"modified":"2023-09-18T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T16:00:00","slug":"when-it-comes-to-how-old-is-too-old-for-congress-colorados-lawmakers-believe-voters-should-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/when-it-comes-to-how-old-is-too-old-for-congress-colorados-lawmakers-believe-voters-should-be\/","title":{"rendered":"When it comes to how old is too old for Congress, Colorado\u2019s lawmakers believe voters should be the judge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Senate
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., speaks to the media, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)<\/span>Mark Schiefelbein<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Founding Fathers set a minimum age for when people are allowed to run for federal office, but when it comes to the issue of a maximum age limit, they were mum.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an issue that has come up as questions have swirled around the health of Sens. Mitch McConnell, 81, and Dianne Feinstien, 90. In the 118th Congress, the median age of Senators is 65, while in the House it\u2019s almost 58 years old.<\/p>\n

A maximum age limit for some types of work is not unheard of. There are mandatory retirement ages for airline pilots, the military, even for state court judges, (Colorado\u2019s mandatory judicial retirement age is 72.)<\/p>\n

Still, when it comes to whether any age is too old to hold public office, Colorado\u2019s congressional delegation seems to have found some common ground: They don\u2019t think there should be a mandatory age limit.<\/p>\n

Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, 44, thinks it\u2019s a question best left to the voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like the idea of putting an age limit on something like an elected position because there are people who have served for a very long time that are in their senior years who are remarkable members of Congress and extremely high performing. And there are younger folks who I question, frankly their lucidity and their stability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Letting voters decide whether a politician is too old to serve was a common refrain.<\/p>\n

Dean of the Colorado delegation, Rep. Diana DeGette, 66, looks at politicians like 83-year-old Nancy Pelosi, who recently announced she will run again for office, as an example of what would be lost with a mandatory retirement age. Pelosi \u201cis still 150 percent there, she\u2019s still helping with strategy. She\u2019s still active, she\u2019s still effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Crow, DeGette noted there are people years younger who aren\u2019t as effective, and it should be up to voters to choose who they want to represent them.<\/p>\n

Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, 58, said, \u201cthere are people that have been here for a really long time, whose wisdom the American people benefit from. And there are people that have been here for a really long time that I\u2019m not sure who they\u2019re benefiting.\u201d<\/p>\n

He concluded, \u201cwe probably are better off just letting the American people make the decision\u201d and for him, one element of that is reforming the campaign finance system to make political participation more fair.<\/p>\n

Instituting a one-size-fits-all solution via an age limit, added GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn, 69, \u201cisn\u2019t a good way to run a country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican Rep. Ken Buck, 64, said he\u2019s given this issue some thought and doesn\u2019t believe an age limit is appropriate. The problem, he laid out, is that there are some 80-year-olds who are energetic and sharp \u201cand to say they can\u2019t serve because they\u2019re a certain age is ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he wonders if there couldn\u2019t be some other way to ensure the people serving are up to the challenge, like how the FBI and the military have physical fitness requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what the answer is,\u201d Buck said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very complicated answer, but we leave that up to voters, that\u2019s the key. Voters are able to judge, is someone healthy enough to serve in office?\u201d<\/p>\n

Freshman Rep. Yadira Caraveo, 42, also thinks it\u2019s a question each lawmaker has to ask of themselves as they age. \u201c(What) I would hope is that people can just be cognizant of when it\u2019s time to move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pediatrician likened the considerations to the medical profession, where there is no mandatory retirement age, but practitioners have an ethical obligation to leave when it\u2019s time. \u201cI think that doctors are very good at knowing, \u2018I make life and death decisions, and I should know when I\u2019ve slowed down to a point where maybe it\u2019s not a great idea for my patients anymore.\u2019 I would hope that it\u2019s the same thing here. That people would be cognizant of it\u2019s time to pass the torch on to the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fellow freshman, Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen, 42, thinks term limits, rather than age limits, might be an approach. But she\u2019d like to see people allowed to serve longer than the eight years allowed in each chamber of the Colorado State Legislature, which she thinks gives lobbyists more power. \u201cThere\u2019s a time at which it\u2019s time to step aside and make way for the next generation.\u201d Pettersen noted the man she replaced, former Rep. Ed Perlmutter, did just that.<\/p>\n

Perlmutter, 70, said he thinks an maximum age limit would be unconstitutional, and like others he thinks voters are the ultimate judges of someone\u2019s fitness for office. But he added politicians also have to decide for themselves, like he did. He said he listened to his own \u201cinternal clock,\u201d and when it told him enough is enough, he decided to step down in 2022.<\/p>\n

It helped, he said, that there was a good bench in Colorado. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to let the bench rise. You can\u2019t say to somebody, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re doing great, but it\u2019s not your turn yet.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He added retired lawmakers could always serve as informal advisors for those still serving. As he said with a chuckle, \u201cthere is life outside of Congress,\u201d including interesting and rewarding work.<\/p>\n

The oldest member of the Colorado delegation, Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper, 71, agreed retirement is less about age, and more about supporting new blood in Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely think there should be ways to encourage more turnover and maybe that\u2019s a two term or three term limit for senators. Something that allows us to let the process reinvigorate itself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., speaks to the media, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo\/Mark Schiefelbein)Mark Schiefelbein The Founding Fathers set a minimum age for when people are allowed to run for federal office, but when it comes to the issue of a maximum age limit, they were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-31563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31563"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=31563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}