House Democrat floats radical solution to Congress' age problem

Axios

19 hours ago

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is proposing something unprecedented: Having Congress' ethics office effectively adjudicate whether lawmakers are too cognitively impaired to do their jobs.
Why it matters: The 36-year-old Washington Democrat is publicly calling out a dynamic many of her colleagues refuse to even address — arguing Congress' aging membership is damaging the credibility of the whole institution.
Gluesenkamp Perez, an auto shop owner who had never held public office before being elected to Congress in 2022, has built a brand calling out what she says is a disconnect between Washington, D.C., and everyday Americans.
The age issue, she told Axios in an interview at her Capitol Hill office, is just another facet of that dissonance.
"What I've heard from my neighbors, my community is this idea that this place is being run by a bunch of staffers," she said. "And we're seeing a very real decline in confidence in Congress."
Driving the news: Gluesenkamp Perez tried last month to get her proposal attached as an amendment to the House Appropriations Committee's bill funding Congress for the next year.
The amendment would require the Office of Congressional Conduct to create a standard to determine members' "ability to perform the duties of office unimpeded by significant irreversible cognitive impairment."
That would open the door to ethics investigations into whether a member is mentally incapacitated to the point it is damaging to the House's credibility.
Ethics investigations can result in a wide array of consequences, ranging from warnings and fines to — in the case of former Rep. George Santos — the House voting for expulsion.
Zoom in: The amendment failed in an overwhelming voice vote, with few if any members of the Appropriations Committee voting for it — a show of just how taboo the topic is.
Reps. David Valadao (R-Calif.) and Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), the chair and ranking member of the legislative branch subcommittee, both spoke in opposition to it.
Valadao acknowledged "a lot of concern with some of our colleagues sometimes when we see some of their comments," but argued that the House's bi-annual elections are a sufficient referendum on lawmakers' fitness for office.
What they're saying: "It's not a comfortable thing to think about time being irreversible and how our lives change, but ... real respect for our communities and the body here is [being] willing to have these honest, candid and difficult conversations," Gluesenkamp Perez told Axios.
She said the disastrous debate performance that led former President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 election raised "serious concerns" in her district "that it was not their elected representatives calling the shots."
Gluesenkamp Perez said that while she also supports term limits, her proposal would allow Congress to "impartially evaluate these questions" while maintaining a "representative body of all ages and experiences."
Zoom out: There have been numerous examples in recent years of lawmakers in their 70s and 80s facing painfully public cognitive decline.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein 's (D-Calif.) health and declining mental capabilities were a source of continued heartburn for Democrats in the years leading up to her death at 90 years old in 2023.
Former Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), a former Appropriations Committee chair, was revealed last year to have been checked into an independent living facility with 6 months left in her term.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) is the latest lawmaker whose decline has been the subject of continued headlines, with the 88-year-old's office repeatedly walking back quotes she gives to reporters.
The bottom line: Gluesenkamp Perez plans to continue her efforts and try to build support among her colleagues, telling Axios, "It's clear people want systemic reform. They want accountability."