Term Limits Or Age Limits

Periodically, there comes a call for some limitation on the length of  time that  a Senator or Congressman or Congresswoman can serve. After all, there is a limit for the President. To date, these efforts have born no fruit. I am wondering if perhaps this issue is being approached from the wrong angle. What if there were an age limit rather than a term limit? The Constitution already specifies a  minimum age of 30 for a Senator and  25  for  a  Representative. For some inexplicable reason, there is no maximum age. That has given us Republican Strom Thurmond who served to age 100 and Robert Byrd who is  still  serving at age 92. On the House side, Ralph Hall of Texas is still present at age 86 and 76 of his colleagues are over age 65.

Now, I realize that any attempt at setting  an age limit would be met with significant resistance, especially from those whom it would affect. After all, there is the power, the prestige, the$(nah, couldn’t be that, could it?), the opportunity to  serve the greater good and of course, the franking privilege.

I don’t have any magic figure in mind, but just for discussion sake, why not 65 or until the end of one’s current term. A number of jobs would open up, new ideas and faces wuld have an opportunity to serve and the excessive power of incumbency would be somewhat cut down to size. Of course, we would lose Kennedy, Byrd, Hall, McCain, Feinstein, Hatch, Specter, Reid, Leahy, Boxer, et.al. Now before one goes overboard, remember how McCain’s age and health was used against him in the campaign for President, both in subtle and not so subtle ways. I confess it would be  a potential problem unleashing all those members of Congress on the  public at once. Might have to be phased in a bit gradually.

Now, let me hasten to add that I am definitely not age biased since  I qualify for AARP already and aspire to hang around for  a few more years.  Taking the Senate first, we learn that the average age is 62 and the House at around 56. So younger could be better, you never know until you try.

Anyone know how old Speaker Pelosi might be?