Surprisingly based from ND, to be completely honest
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?)
Age over 40 is a protected class, and it is discrimination against old people to block them from running. Congress updating the law or a new ammendment is required to meaningfully get term limits. The old people aren’t going to do that.
It’s still too old. Needs to be 70-75.
65
Needs to be nationwide, top to bottom
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
That’ll never happen, too easy to fudge. Worse, as medical technology improves lifespans increase. By 2100 (if we’re still here) we could potentially have people 150 fucking years old or more in politics that started at 30. You think some old, rich bastard 50 years out of touch is bad, wait until that old, rich bastard is 100 years out of touch. Or 200. Or fuck knows how long we could drag this shit out for if you’re rich and powerful enough to get the longevity tech, medicine, etc.
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
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.
Bush wouldn’t have dodged that shoe without quick reflexes. Haha
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.
Age comes with detriments. We’re better off without them.
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
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.
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.
You act like this Supreme Court is above completely throwing precedent out the window.
Let’s think outside the box. Make all elected officials felons after two terms :)
Being a felon is not a bar to federal office.
If only the Constitution was amendable.
…
Welp, back to our FPTP hellscape reality.
You think the US is a hellscape? Wow.
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.
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.
It would also limit effectiveness in an important and difficult job that requires potentially years of procedural understanding and relationship building to pass impactful legislation.
A company where every employee was “junior” would waste a lot of time and money.
This. I have no idea why it’s a popular trope to just talk about “term limits” as if it would actually solve anything. For some reason, actual expertise at governing is frowned on, but I doubt the very people arguing for term limits would ever argue for term limits for a plumber, a dentist, a mechanic, a roofer…anyone up for having their teeth drilled by an “outsider”? I know I’m not.
It requires years of procedural understanding because there’s no term limits. There isn’t benefit to that excessive procedure apart from making junior representatives lives more difficult. Congress can make their own rules, and they make them benefit those who have been there for 30 years. A term limited Congress can make rules that work better for them.
Yeah, I have strongly mixed feelings on this. Perhaps we should intact term limits, but probably not as short as usually proposed and probably paired with something to limit outside influence. The common claim I hear is that with a more junior Congress they would be even more reliant on the parts of “government” that stick around longer, like lobbyists.
The call for term limits usually comes from the people who want (need?) government to be impotent and dysfunctional - typically echoing messages that very wealthy capitalists have injected into the public discourse.
Yes, it’s a common talking point of the far right and when someone brings it up as some kind of magical solution to something it’s a red flag. It might be that they are arguing in good faith for it, but haven’t really thought it through…
The problem is all the legalized bribery. Having short-term whores in Congress won’t change that at all, it would only give the illusion of change for the better. It would more likely make things far, far worse.
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.
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.
I think these are separate issues and can be managed using different strategies. Corporate influence is about $$ and many different, constitutional remedies can be applied for that.
No they can’t. Money is political speech. Thank you SCOTUS.
Kind of short sighted, especially as life extension may come online and some age-related diseases may become a thing of the past.
Sounds like an even better reason to pass the law.
But why though? Suppose someone like Bernie were to be among the first wave of people living way past current life expectancy?
For every Bernie you get 10 Nancy Pelosi. No thanks.
If we take someone like Biden, for example, and say, he was given 100 more years of healthspan. Given the arc he’s been on, even as a relative moderate, I’d take that, assuming he’s on a trajectory.
I think ruling out people based on the mere number of times they’ve been around the sun is kind of dumb.
Hold up, you think I like the idea of Biden being around longer in our politics? Cause I don’t.
You think it’s good to let out-of-touch boomers control the government because we might cure aging soon? Weird take but ok. Also not like if this fantasy scenario happened, the boomers wouldn’t get any more in-touch with reality and make better decisions. Do you have zero faith in anyone younger than 75 making better decisions here?
I don’t want anyone that is out of touch at any age.
Again, if someone is of sound mind and body and has the right platform, I don’t really care what their age is. I think arbitrarily setting an age limit is rather blinkered. I also happen to think setting age minimums may also look rather silly and arbitrary at some future point (assuming a more reliable metric comes about).
