Examining the Growing Concern of Aging Politicians in the U.S.
Disclaimer: This article was originally published in April 2024.
As the 2024 presidential election creeps closer, a significant component on voters’ minds is the age of nominees President Joe Biden and Former President Donald Trump. By Election Day, they will be 81 and 78 years old, which urges the question: is age really just a number? With the recent death of Senator Diane Feinstein, news networks being quick to cover Biden’s speech slip-ups and Senator Mitch McConnell choosing not to run for reelection amid multiple public freeze-ups, many are questioning the number of “older” politicians across all U.S. government branches. While age minimums for Senate, House and President have been set in stone since the writing of the Constitution, a lack of age maximums make young voters wonder if they will start to see younger representation any time soon and what that means for the future of our country.
Constitution, Calculations, Chaos?
When it comes to age and politics, there’s no arguing U.S. history and the Constitution. You must be at least 25 to be a house representative, 30 for senator and 35 for president. Thus far, Theodore Roosevelt still holds the title of youngest U.S. president at age 42, when he took office in 1901 after President William McKinley’s assassination.
The U.S.’s oldest president: none other than Joe Biden. Biden was inaugurated in 2021 at age 78, taking the title from Ronald Reagan, who left office at age 77. Biden is currently 81 and will be 82 by the next inauguration; thus, he will beat his own record if he wins the 2024 presidential election.
Going back to his first campaign, media was quick to scrutinize Biden for his speeches as he often stutters, mumbles and slurs. The most recent example is his 2024 St. Patrick’s Day speech at the White House, where he met with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and slurred his way through a story about his great grandfather building a cathedral in the 1800s, claiming he has touched the bricks his relative worked on. At the end of the speech, Biden appeared to look lost before Varadkar guided him off the stage.
While Biden claims he has had a speech impediment since childhood, many U.S. citizens are concerned about his memory as several speeches include word or fact mix-ups. Another notable example was Election Day 2021, where he spoke in Philadelphia with his granddaughter, Natalie. With his arm around Natalie, he said to the crowds over a megaphone, “This is my son, Beau Biden, who many of you helped elect to the Senate in Delaware.” However, Beau died from a stroke along with brain cancer complications in 2015 and was an attorney general, not a senator. Natalie is the daughter of Beau.
Even with this, former president Donald Trump only trails behind Biden in age. Inaugurated in 2017 at 70 years old, Trump was the oldest to be officially elected and inaugurated into the U.S. presidency at the time. Trump turns 78 in June, meaning if he wins the 2024 election, he will be tied with Biden as the oldest inaugurated.
Facing the Facts
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, 52, who dropped out of the race in March, made age a prominent point of her campaign. She argued that candidates like Biden and Trump come from an era of politicians and Americans who are increasingly “out of touch” with the rest of the country. Throughout the last month of her campaign, Haley often spoke about how she was ready to be the leading force and representative of a new American generation who wants to enter the political spotlight.
On the Democratic side, presidential nominee Dean Phillips, 55, a house representative of Minnesota, made the case in his campaign that while he supported and voted for Biden, he argued he was much more in touch with the ideology of younger generations. However, neither Haley’s or Phillips’ rhetoric seemed to sway primary outcomes, as most voters decided to stick with Biden or Trump.
University of Miami political science professor Matt Nelsen, who specializes in studying youth political engagement and is the current faculty adviser of the UM College Democrats, said, “I think an interesting component of this is some of the most consistent voters today are older voters. I think a lot of older voters see with age comes experience and perspective.”
But as we know, elections aren’t up to voters alone. Sean Kaps, a junior political science major and director of political affairs of the College Democrats, said, “parties know who their reliable members are and hence retain them for important offices as they can be trusted. [To piggyback] off the notion of reliable members is the lack of an age limit in governmental positions. This produces a situation where youth engagement is not promoted with the ever-present continuity of older politicians.”
Young Democrats aren’t the only ones with their notions as to why current politicians are mostly Gen X and Boomers. Daniel Espinal, senior computer science major and Public Relations Chair of UM College Republicans, said, “the institutions that have been created around U.S. politics make it hard for any young independent politician to get elected with non-conforming ideals. For example, any young Republican or Democrat with views that don’t conform to the party’s value in one of some aspects will have difficulty getting support from the party. Without the party, it is difficult for them to get elected. This leads to older politicians often getting the support because if they are the incumbent to run, they are more often likely to get re-elected.”
Stagnant and Senile
Statistically, fifteen percent of the current seats in the Senate have been occupied by the same person for the past 20 years. In the House of Representatives, more than eight percent have likewise had tenure longer than 20 years. Not to mention that 15 senators and 43 members of Congress are 75 years or older.
The oldest senator to date, Dianne Feinstein, died in September 2023 at the age of 90. The former San Francisco mayor served as a California State senator from 1992 until her death, and towards the end of her tenure, she often had to take time off work due to illness. Unlike many past presidents, Biden has had the opportunity to appoint new federal judges during his tenure. However, in a split government, Feinstein’s temporary absences often prevented him from making those appointments.
Similarly, late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who died at 87 in 2020, was given the opportunity by former President Barack Obama to step down so he could appoint a younger liberal justice.
“RBG obviously decided not to take that invitation and then passed away while Donald Trump was president. From a symbolic standpoint, it certainly raises some questions that the average age in the federal government is so much older, especially given that there are larger, younger generational groups that are kind of in the wings ready to take a bigger role,” Nelsen said. “An individual’s decision to hang on to power and then passing away or getting sick suddenly can have real political consequences.”
Young and Hungry for Change
With no age maximums in place, questions, concerns and room for potential political issues are certainly on the rise. So, what can younger generations do now to feel represented — as voters and potential future representatives — in a democracy of politicians three or four times their age? One solution might be to increase the number of young people in the voting booth. Arthur Simon, who served as a Democratic State Legislator of Florida from 1982 to 1994 and is now a political science professor at UM, calls himself “the number one advocate for lowering the voting age.”
“That 18-year-old voting age means the state cannot deny you the right to vote if you’re 18. But there’s nothing that prohibits a state from allowing you to vote if you’re younger than 18,” Simon said. “Voting is infectious. If we had a law that allowed high school students to vote at 17, maybe in local elections, even 16, whenever there is an election coming up, every high school would then become a critical voting precinct where registered voters could vote.”
Simon also argues that throughout the country, most 16 and 17-year-olds who commit a major crime are tried and convicted as adults and sent to prison with other adults and that if the government finds them mature enough to be in an adult prison instead of juvie, they should be able to vote like adults.
While no change in voting age is currently in the works in Florida, student organizations like College Democrats, College Republicans and Get Out The Vote are helping to increase the number of young voters at UM. Throughout election season, especially gubernatorial and presidential elections, these organizations hold several informational events on campus and off-campus with other local party-affiliated organizations to help increase voter turnout.
This year, Election Day will be on Tuesday, November 5th. We’re only young for so long, so why not vote and advocate for change while it matters to us most?
words_amanda mohamad. illustration&design_marita gavioti.
This article was published in Distraction’s Summer 2024 print issue.
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