TL;DR; they can't run if they would turn 81in the last year of their term.
The headline sounds nice but this law barely does anything to address the issue. Legislators also expect this law to be overturned so it's more of a vague gesture than it is an enforcable measure
It would disqualify the 2 major presidential candidates if it was applied nationally, as well as 50 sitting members of Congress (assuming they all wanted to run)
Does it at least set some kind of (small) precedent? I don't know of anywhere in the US that has an old-age restriction like this
(Setting aside for the moment that the constitution explicitly states that age is a factor in eligibility for office -- must be 35 to be president -- so why wouldn't age also be a factor at the other end?)
Hell yeah, good job North Dakota!
We did it! Wasn’t sure if it’d happen or not.
You kinda didn't though? The age limit is 81. Retirement is 65. 16 years. That's someones childhood. That's longer than some peoples careers. Gotta start somewhere I guess. Impressed it happened, disappointed at the fine print. Nice headline though.
Gotta start somewhere, yes.
Now try to get them to pass a minimum age for marriage.
They have one; it's 16 with parental consent, 18 otherwise.
https://www.findlaw.com/state/north-dakota-law/north-dakota-marriage-age-requirements-laws.html
The four states that don't have a minimum marriage age are California, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Oklahoma; and all of them require parental consent or a court order for under-18s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_age_in_the_United_States#Underage_marriage
Term limits for congress and the senate are also needed , make it so that you can not serve more than 2 terms in any state or federal office. This would reduce the influence of career politicians and allow fresh ideas to be tried.
Except it would be reducing the influence of career politicians by increasing the influence of corporate plants. It would make political offices even more of a revolving door than they already are. Would also increase the number of people just going rogue on their last term because “what are you gonna do, not elect me again?”
A whole lot of other shit would need to change first before implementing term limits would make any sense to do. At the very least overturning the Citizens United decision and some sort of mechanism to help ensure that politicians actually govern according to the platform they run on. And arguably both of those things would do a lot more to help our current problems than term limits would…which means neither is ever going to happen.
Why would corporate influence increase with term limits? It's way easier to influence the same person for 30 years than a new person every 5-10 years.
Not when the new person goes straight from being on your payroll to being in office, then back to being on your payroll when they’re done.
No. Absolutely not. The problem here is age, not politics as a career. This is how you get monolithic parties where the internal politics between unelected party officials and billionaires run the country.
I don't care how old a person is... I care if they're sound of mind. We need to start having cognitive testing done before someone can run
You're not allowed to be an airline pilot over the age of 67. If that's too old to command a plane, it's too old to command a country.
I mean... I could see quick reflexes coming into play for a pilot more than for a president though
Bush wouldn't have dodged that shoe without quick reflexes. Haha
The military retires officers of all ranks at 62. If you're too old to sit in an office and command a division, you're too old to sit in the oval office and command the entire military.
This. Age is just a number.
Old people aren't sound of mind by 70. Most current cognitive screening is about Alzheimer's which is far to low of a bar to be meaningful for congressional representation.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Voters in North Dakota approved a ballot measure that sets a maximum age for representing the state in Congress, The Associated Press said on Tuesday.
Experts said they believed North Dakota was the first state to impose such a requirement on members of Congress, though they said the measure is likely to be challenged in court.
The measure provided a rare glimpse into how one state’s voters think about age at a time when questions over the effectiveness of older political leaders have been part of the national conversation.
As a practical matter, the rule does not pose a threat to the state’s three current federal lawmakers, all Republicans, who range in age from 47 to 67.
In 2022, Mr. Hendrix led a successful effort to set term limits for governor and state legislators.
A Supreme Court case in 1995 established that states cannot add eligibility restrictions beyond those in the Constitution.
The original article contains 338 words, the summary contains 152 words. Saved 55%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
While I like the idea, I can’t imagine it would pass a constitutional test. However, an age limit that kicks in only after a person has been in an elected position for X years probably could. This would allow an 81 year old that had never held office to run for the first time and not be discriminated based on age.
If only the Constitution was amendable.
...
Welp, back to our FPTP hellscape reality.
I always worry that putting so much on FPTP as the problem is going to backfire. I open to trying to move away from it, but it does make it a little cheaper for dark money to invest in a candidate's image when they only have to maintain a strong showing vs overwhelming the 50% total tally.
It didn't keep the UK from Brexit and the EU is moving to the right. FPTP may not the game changer we imagine, it may simply be a 'grass is always greener' scenario.
It won't survive a court challenge, as the Supreme Court already ruled on this back in 1995 in the case of U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton. The ruling says that states can't add additional eligibility requirements to be elected to or otherwise serve in federal office beyond what the constitution lists.
Let's think outside the box. Make all elected officials felons after two terms :)
Being a felon is not a bar to federal office.
You act like this Supreme Court is above completely throwing precedent out the window.
So you’re saying there is a constitutional provision to prevent young people from running for office but not old people?
Given that on average teenagers are, according to any testable criteria, smarter and saner than old people, maybe the constitution needs to be amended. Septuagenarians shouldn’t even be allowed to vote let alone run the fucking country.
While I think mandatory retirement ages need to be discussed across the board on all three branches, it's a cheap shot and unconstitutional
Why is it unconstitutional? We have age minimums. If you are a commercial pilot there are age limits.
Because right now there are no age limitations in the Constitution for elected officials. A state cannot change that, it needs a constitutional amendment.
What? I thought you had to be 35+ to be POTUS. Am I wrong?
You do, but that's in the constitution.
How's it unconstitutional? There are lower age limits to all of these offices too.
The are age requirements for minimum age but not limited age. You would have to have a constitutional amendment to change that.
Disagree with this one, voters should have the final say in who is electable. If there's an 85 year old out there who can convince 51% of the electorate to vote for them in the primaries, go for it. This rule will become a problem if life expectancy continues to increase at the rate it has the past 50 years, with AI and some major changes in genetics, we are poised to solve a lot of causes of death in our lifetime, which means longer life expectancy.
Although I agree with this in principle, it ignores the reality of why officeholders get re-elected into their 70s and 80s. It's not because voters like them in particular, but it's because they are the "safe" option. They increasingly become nobody's first choice but there is often no logical alternative. Incumbents are also much more able to raise more campaign money than their opponents and thus have a large advantage just because they can blast their message more often.
Or because they're just genuinely well received by the public. One of my reps has been in public service for decades and I actually like most of his positions. The longer you are in office, in theory, the better you will understand the legislative system and be able to push issues your constituents want. If you do, you keep getting re-elected, if you don't, you don't.
Regardless, this is a problem of FPTP and the primary system not age. Primaries select for who is considered the "most electable" not the candidate "most want". Fix that system, and age is not an issue. Or if more people who don't like 80 year olds participated in the primaries this would also be less of an issue. But they don't, they just complain about the "lesser of two evils" choice even though they had a "lesser of 10 evils choice" and chose not to participate in it.
I agree that the first-past-the-post voting system should be replaced with something better, but at the same time, complaining that people should participate more in primary elections is not a solution to the problem. A solution would be implement mandatory voting. That's not a popular solution (and you probably personally hate the idea), but it is a solution. I am not advocating for it.
There's also just a sense of election fatigue. The US has a general election every other year which is far more often than most other countries.
At the same time—
Can't read the link and how no desire to search around for a way around the paywall today.
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