WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Tuesday, voters in Massachusetts will decide who will be on the ticket for the November election. In a highly-watched Democratic Senate primary election, political experts said the state’s 80 year-old incumbent Senator, Ed Markey, is facing a “generational challenge” by a younger candidate, Rep. Seth Moulton. So how has age played a part in this year’s primaries and why are some calling for age limits in Congress? A political expert explains.
80 year-old Senator Markey is being challenged in the primary by Rep. Moulton, who wasn’t even alive when Markey was first elected to congress.
“I think whats really being brought up in this particular race is the idea of age and generational replacement,” said Dr. Todd Belt, a professor and director of the graduate political management program at George Washington University. “There’s been about seven pretty high profile outstings of older candidates by younger ones who are really making age an issue. There’s about 200 Democrats that are running in districts where they’re challenged so thats 7 out of 200 so thats not a huge number but we are seeing a little bit of a trend here where people are bringing it up.”
Dr. Belt adds: “It’s not just that these candidates are older but its also that people think they’re out of touch and these older candidates can still be in touch if they go out there and talk to their voters.”
According to online data, the average age of congressional members has increased throughout the years. Currently the average age in the Senate is 64 to 66 years old and over in the House, 57 to 58 years old. There’s a minimum age to hold a position of power: 25 in the House, 30 for the Senate and 35 for President but there’s no maximum age limit.
With age becoming a bigger focus in some races, we asked what are the pros of having age limits for Congress:
“We’ve had a member of the Senate, Strom Thurmond, who was over 100 years old and I think this issue is becoming more and more important as they saw what happened to Joe Biden when he ran for re-election and he was just really out of touch and not completely with it,” said Dr. Belt. “The question is: do you want people in positions of power making decisions where they don’t appear to be really with it? So, the argument is you need to move some people out but also if you have age limits then you can move people in at an earlier age so that they can get some of the seniority that you need in order to be a real effective legislator.”
And the cons:
“The argument against age limits is it takes a lot to learn about how to become a legislator,” said Dr. Belt. “There’s an old saying in congress ‘you’re not a member of the House unless you’ve had three elections’ and then you’ll know what to do, how to get reelected and then how to focus on policy making which isn’t simple.”
