I am a strong supporter of the elder of the candidates. But should he really contemplate a second term? Finish up at 87, like Chuck Grassley who is still clinging to the Judiciary Committee gavel?
When I was younger (not young) I readily began long term projects. I started studying Chinese at 60. Still plugging away. But should I - at soon to be 75 - embark on new long term projects? That's not a rhetorical question. It's a question. I oppose term limits, but would we choose life tenure for judges again? Shouldn't we term limit them? At full pay, fine. Subject to recall...fine. But do you think that our octogenarian judges know what is happening in the culture? Or do you think it doesn't matter? - gwc
We have a political problem no one wants to talk about: very old politicians - Vox
by Harold Pollack (University of Chicago)
In one of the most dramatic moments in the Senate in years, 80-year-old John McCain rallied from surgery and a diagnosis of brain cancer to cast a 1 am vote that torpedoed Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare — for now. The vote had been put on hold once already, to give him time to recuperate.
For all the drama, we shouldn’t be surprised that a medical emergency interfered with Senate business. The highest levels of American politics bear an uncomfortable resemblance to a gerontocracy. From the Senate to the presidency to — perhaps most strikingly — the Supreme Court, top positions are held more and more by people in their 70s or above.
Disruptive medical tragedies are an unavoidable statistical consequence of this trend, as is the risk that key political actors will develop cognitive impairment. There's no easy solution to the problem, but it demands a frank conversation.
Reforms such as term appointments for justices could help with the problem, but it’s just as important to try to shift societal norms to take more seriously some elemental realities of human aging.
Tact and, perhaps, anxiety surrounding our own mortality too often short-circuit these conversations.
McCain's diagnosis was hardly the first time senatorial health played a key role in the partisan battles over health reform. The Affordable Care Act passed in the first place because 92-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd was wheeled out onto the Senate floor for three vital votes in 2009. And Byrd’s votes were especially critical as a result of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s poignant struggle with the brain cancer that killed him, at 77, in August 2009.
Kennedy was replaced by Republican Scott Brown, depriving Democrats of a filibuster-proof majority and therefore almost destroying the centerpiece achievement of the Obama presidency.
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