VOICES: Should older elected leaders get their heads checked?

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating.

I don’t think we should exclude anyone from elected office based solely on their age, as has been suggested on both sides of the political aisle in recent years.

I mention this again because the age issue was raised anew last week after 81-year-old GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell once again froze for half a minute in front of reporters, the second time in two months.

Despite this disconcerting moment for the Kentucky senator, a physician said McConnell was OK to continue his Senate duties.

That might be so, though I have my suspicions about that assessment. And a doctor’s note does not end the argument about McConnell’s efficacy as a lawmaker representing the Bluegrass State.

Because from my vantage point, he doesn’t look or sound like someone up to the task following two freezing incidents and the concussion he suffered earlier this year.

As someone who’s been concussed more times than I care to admit, I can assure you it takes a while to get over it. Couple that injury with the unavoidable ravages of time, and the growing concerns start making more sense.

That’s not ageism. It’s an acknowledgement of reality and the ultimate fragility of human beings.

Similar concerns are expressed by Republicans and Democrats about 80-year-old President Joe Biden, often the butt of jokes and condemnation by conservatives who think he is “clearly senile” while somehow also a “criminal mastermind.”

I still can’t figure out how both can be true. That’s a contradiction for another day.

However, their alarm isn’t entirely unfounded. Biden has fallen a few times during his three years in the White House, and the verbal gaffs don’t assuage concerns.

Because there’s no denying that getting older comes with certain “developments,” shall we say. I’ve noticed many in myself: hearing loss from work-related explosions and ear-splitting concerts in my youth; one bad eye surrounded by plates and pins; a hitch in my step from a nasty leg break; gnarled broken fingers; creaky shoulders with little cartilage; aforementioned concussions; and other injuries that have surely also affected my brain.

I don’t know how impaired I am without the benefit of a cognitive skills test (“Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.” Nailed It.), but as the world’s oldest 49-year-old, I bet the point on my pencil is a little bit duller than it was in my 20s.

At the same time, I’m also willing to wager there are plenty of folks out there in better cognitive health than I, many with a couple more decades on their odometers.

So, I see the value in regularly evaluating those we elect to make sure they’re up to the task as they get older.

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, 51, seems to agree. Following McConnell’s second freezing incident, she questioned his ability to carry on and said she “wouldn’t care” if competency tests were conducted on people older than 50.

Haley took her assertion on age and serving even further, telling a largely geriatric audience watching Fox News that “right now, the Senate is the most privileged nursing home in the country.” 

In addition to delivering a spot-on zinger, Haley points out the obvious: there are some pretty old Democrats and Republicans serving in the Senate. The average age of a U.S. senator is currently 65, the highest ever.

89-year-old Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and California’s 90-year-old Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein have hung on too long. They both need to retire … like yesterday.

Don’t count on it though. Grassley says is planning to serve out his final term, at which point he’ll be 95.

And Feinstein has had so many recent health scares and absences from the Senate that she’s prevented her party from moving numerous nominees through the judiciary committee.

So, like Haley, I think it’s a good idea to periodically check in on the mental and physical abilities of those that serve as the years pile up.

After all, you need your eyes checked to drive. And serving your fellow Americans in offices requires some semblance of mental acuity (Yes, I’m talking about you, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, 68).

Haley also suggested in her recent McConnell rant that term limits might be another way to weed out those no longer up to the task, an idea I also support.

More than two decades ago, I was a reporter in Washington, D.C., sometimes covering Capitol Hill.

A couple of times I spotted a 99-year-old South Carolina GOP Sen. Strom Thurmond in the halls of Congress, led around by aides with no apparent clue what was going on around him.

Thurmond looked like an unwrapped mummy, just a little thicker and more brittle.

Yet in today’s Republican Party, were he to crawl out of the grave and primary his successor Lindsey Graham, I’m willing to bet the former 1948 Dixiecrat presidential candidate (that was the short-lived pro-segregation party, mind you) would give Graham a real run for his money.

We need to cap the amount of time lawmakers can park themselves in an elected seat so that fresh ideas and the next generation of public servants can attend to the interests of future generations of Americans.

And they also need to get their heads checked.