Barack's Ballyhooed Youth Brigade Should Be Asking: "Dude, Where's My Congress?"
Lots of upbeat, buoyant, exceedingly sanguine-type folks have been proclaiming that the November 4th election constituted nothing less than a generational watershed in our nation's history, ushering in a post-boomer epoch of youthful governance. After all, we elected the whippersnapper 47 year old instead of the creaky, cranky, crotchety 72 year old. Young voters favored Obama by a 2-1 margin. An estimated 23 million young voters overall cast ballots, amounting to 18% of the total tally. Those 18-29 year old voters turned out at the highest rate (est. 52-53%) since 1972 (55.4%), the year when the 26th Amendment went into effect.
This new era of young, hip voters has already been branded as Generation O. New energy. New ideas. A new youth movement. Social networking. Technological savvy. Civic engagement. The times they are a-changin'. The future is bright. Green with greenhorns. Optimism. Hope springs eternal. A fresh start. Youth shall be served. All of that.
Not so fast.
Did the tidal wave of young voters actually elect into office a fresh-face cohort of younger federal representatives, beyond Barack, who might better understand, and more closely relate to, and more directly represent their generational interests? Let's look carefully at the ages of our new congressional representatives.
(Spoiler Alert: We elected a bunch of OLD GUYS into office. Really old guys. The oldest guys ever, in fact.)
The 111th Congress, when it convenes on January 6th, will be the oldest in our nation's history. Each of the last five Congresses has, successively, set a new record as the oldest our country has ever seen. Our elected federal representatives keep getting, as a collective body, more and more elderly. Maybe we should be calling our government what it has literally become: a veritable gerontocracy. (Critics have also called it a plutocracy, a patriarchy, and a white-ocracy; yet the dominating effects of class, gender, and race have been, in recent years, recognized and mitigated just a bit, whereas the tendencies toward seniority keep trending upwards, and unwittingly so.)
Here are the facts: The average age of both houses combined in the 111th Congress will be 57.6 years old--that's an all-time high, beating the 110th Congress's record of 57 years old. [Note that there are still five House races undecided and three unresolved Senate races; but those outcomes will not reduce the average ages below record-setting levels.]
The Senate will be the oldest ever. The average age will be 62.7 years old. The former record, set by the 110th Congress, was 62 years old.
Robert C. Byrd will be 91 years old. The Senate will have 3 octogenarians (add one more if Ted Stevens prevails in Alaska), 18 septuagenarians, and 36 sexagenarians (37 if Saxby Chambliss prevails in Georgia). Hence a strong majority--60% of the Senate--will be 60 years old and above.
The youngest senator, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, will be 45 years old--and he'll turn 46 on January 10, 2009.
(I wonder: Did the not-yet-jaded 18-29 year olds fully realize, as they were voting, that there would be absolutely no senator under 46 years old? Back in the day, Joe Biden ran for and was elected to the Senate as a 29 year old, knowing he would turn 30 before the swearing in ceremony.)
The House will also be the oldest ever. The average age will be 56.4 years old, beating the 110th's record average of 56 years old. There will be 3 octogenarians, 40 septuagenarians, and 171 members altogether age 60 years and above.
The youngest member, Aaron Schock of Illinois, is 27 years old--the one and only under-30 member in several sessions. Think about it: If a particular policy issue divides along generational lines (e.g., Social Security), Rep. Schock might find himself as the sole age-appropriate spokesperson for those 23 million 18-29 year old voters (not to mention the 44 million 18-29 year olds overall).
What does this mean? As I speculated two years ago on Huffpo: Surely a number of factors contribute to the graying of Congress: the graying of the voting public overall (life expectancy in the U.S., btw, has doubled since the founders designed the Constitution); the ever-increasing need for campaign money; the increased advantages of incumbency. Yet these numbers and trends should also raise obvious questions about whether such an elderly body can claim to be adequately representing--both procedurally and substantively--the interests of younger American citizens.
Maybe it's time to review the U.S. Constitution's age requirements for candidacy (25 for the House, 30 for the Senate, 35 for the Presidency), because changed demographics and changed practices have rendered them antique. Most democracies the world over set the age of candidacy to coincide with the age of majority. The U.S. is one of the clear outliers. Last year Britain, for instance, lowered its age of office eligibility for Parliament from 21 to 18. Why are we such laggards?
If our youngish new Prez wants to deliver on his promises in particular to those 18-29 year olds who voted for him in such overwhelming numbers, Obama will have to convince a large bloc of oldsters in Congress that they ought to legislate in favor of a group whose generational interests and purview the oldsters may no longer share, or appreciate, or even understand. It may be an uphill battle: All of the senators, but one, will be older than Obama himself!
If Obama and the new Congress end up dashing the elevated hopes of those newly energized young voters, what then? Will they begin to suspect that they were suckered into voting for a bunch of graybeards? When will it dawn on them that the system is constitutionally rigged against them: The 18-24 year olds among them cannot run for any elected federal office, nor can they vote for a candidate from their own age cohort; and none of them can vie for the Senate. When will our younger adult-age citizens start claiming for themselves the same level of political freedom, of civic standing and codified equality, that most of their democratic compatriots the world over already enjoy? When will they realize that they have been officially designated as second-class citizens under the explicit terms of the U.S. Constitution? When will they come to regard the condition of generational guardianship, under which they now operate, as anathema to the ever-unfolding American project of insisting upon direct, as opposed to virtual, representation in our legislative halls? Why are their elders so fearful of young talent and young competition entering into the political arena?
I suspect that reactions to this post may correlate significantly to age. Do tell.
Full disclosure: I've written a book exploring the problems of our constitutional age requirements and, in turn, proposing that we need an AGE Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would lower the age of eligibility for elected federal office (AGE = All Grown-ups Eligible). The book will be forthcoming eventually (currently in production), to be published by the Penn State University Press. Please send me your ideas and feedback.
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Statistics show that young voters in the Democratic Primaries only voted for Obama and left the "Down-ballot" candidates blank. This gave the incumbent candidate the edge and resulted in older candidates being elected.
Just proves the "movement" only benefited Obama and not the Democratic Party as a whole. There should have been a Democratic Super-majority in both branches of Congress and yhat hasn't happened.
I'm not sure that I see how changing the age requirements will affect the age of congress. It took two years for people to get over Obama's "youth" (and many still haven't) and he is a full 12 years over the legal age requirement for president - and his competitors were almost all over 60 (save John Edwards).
Instead of changing the age requirement (which I believe will have little effect), why don't we set term limits? Even if we don't get younger people in congress, at least there will be a higher rate of change, new ideas and new leadership. The incumbency rate in this country is ridiculous (around 90%, but don't quote me on that). I feel that after a while, we stop holding our representatives accountable.
In MN, we had a person running for congress who was 30 years old (D-Ashwin Madia), by far the youngest candidate I've seen. But I have to believe that the only reason he ran was because he was going for an open seat. I highly doubt he would have been able to raise the money necessary to even come close to Jim Ramstad, who had been in congress for years and years. Madia was narrowly defeated by a Rep challenger. I don't know that he'll run for the same seat now, against the same candidate, but I hope he runs for office again, in some capacity.
I live in New Jersey where we had the youthful Frank Lautenberg (84 years young!) running. I voted for the Socialist worker party candidate. I don't want to be in a state where we woulkd have a 90 year old senator. That's a thing for the south.
Ouch! (says the Floridian who is STILL radiating with joy at the fact that my sunshine state turned blue--the south seems to have some sort of pulse).
"If Obama and the new Congress end up dashing the elevated hopes of those newly energized young voters, what then? Will they begin to suspect that they were suckered into voting for a bunch of graybeards?"
Hellloooo - saying that the young were "suckered into" voting for people they did not approve of is a load of horse pucky. Were they too young to see the gray in the beards? Too stupid to cast an informed vote?
Whenever the young folk get tired of the graybeards - they'll do something about it. Or they won't.
Either way it is their choice to make.
"Either way it is their choice to make."
I think you're missing the point there. It is not, in fact, a choice that "young folk" can make to elect others of their age cohort--the constitution forbids it.
As a 21-year-old, many of my friends and I care deeply about the future direction of this country and political issues. The knowledge that I am legally prohibited from running for many offices because of my age unquestionably dampens my desire to attempt to become more directly involved.
Time to step-up then isn't it? Can't just sit and whine about it, elect some new blood. Meanwhile whose going to watch the store. We're waiting for the YOUNGERS to STEP-UP. Just voting isn't going to do it, IINSANT GRADIFICATION is not REALITY. Follow Obama's example and go out and DO IT. We have an old Texas oil man T. Boone Pickens who is trying to ignite the younger generation in the how to's of energy, like he said I can lead YOU the top of mountain...BUT I'M EIGHTY YEARSOLD. GENERATION 0...get out there and DO IT, LIKE WE DID. This AIN'T A VIDEO GAME, THIS IS REALITY.
I'm 32 and I think a lot of people are looking over one of the most obvious reasons there aren't more young people running for seats in congress. It takes inordinate amounts of money to run for a seat, and I would strongly suspect that older people would be highly reluctant to fund a young person's run for congress. Unfortunately, it would probably also be quite difficult (although not completely impossible) to raise the necessary fund within that person's age group.
Not to mention, a young person would have to be a complete boy/girl scout to avoid some of the "gotchas" that would come up during a campaign. Some of which are thing they may not be that far removed from in terms of years.
Granted, the money is an obstacle to overcome, however, in order for there to
be any possibility of young people running for office, the rules need to be
changed first. I personally have no problem with lowering the age for
public elected office to 18 (and I'm 59). There are plenty of youth out there right
now that have been boy/girl scouts and would probably relish the opportunity
to run for office, even if they didn't win on the first try.
Also, by lowering the age now, the younger generation of bright 'leader types'
would know up front, that their behavior and actions as teenagers might affect
their future possibilities of running for office.
Plenty of positives to think about.
Ugh. I'm so sick of the boy/girl scout requirement. Most people don't live in a bubble of purity. This "requirement" seems to force politicians to act up while in office because they never went to a club, smoked some weed, acted the fool, dined-and-dashed, or had *any* foolish, regrettable, hormonally-driven fun at all when they were younger. Politicians need to get that isht out of their system *before* they take office.
Maybe a younger electorate will address that problem. I doubt too many 18-to-29-year-olds cared much about Obama's youthful dalliances with pot and cocaine.
Interesting.
I had a conversation with my son during the election years(s) about this very subject. I admit I was rather amazed that at his age he was so aware of what was going on in this country.
He said if obama wins he's going to change everything from gun laws on down.
I said the President can't just willy-nilly change anything that he wants or at least he's not supposed to be able to do that. And then I told him that the mess we're in now is because of the people in office not doing their jobs but instead are letting corporations and lobbyists help to write laws.
He said what can we do.
I said VOTE THEM ALL OUT.
I'd be interested to see how this trend in Congress compares to the demographics of the workforce as a whole, particularly in professional institutions such as law firms, major corporations, universities and hospitals. My guess is we would see the same pattern. For whatever reason, most likely related to improved health and medicine, older people are not retiring until later in life. And if older people don't retire there are fewer seats at the table for younger people.
I think much of Obama's power came from tapping into a deeper frustration that we young folks (I am 34) have felt watching our nation crumble and our leaders futz around proposing ideas and arguing with premises that, from our point of view, make little sense. We've been dismayed for years but have felt that we could not change anything. And then Barack Obama came along and said "Yes, we can!"
The new leaders are coming -- check out Tom Perriello in Virginia's 5th district. But the shift that is coming is not about fairness, it's about understanding the world we live in and how to set things right.
You may find that over the next couple of years there are even fewer jobs available
in the fields you mentioned. It's not just "improved health and medicine" that stops
seniors from retiring, currently it's the financial mess we are in. I've already lost
50% of my 401K and over 40% of the value in my home. As a member of the 'baby
boom' generation, I know that I won't be able to retire when I hoped. It's probably
going to take the next 10-years for me to just get back to where I was when the
financial crisis occured.
In a way this is both a positive and a negative. Positive in that 'baby boomers'
might work longer, therefore, they won't be tapping into Social Security as soon
as expected, thus lessening the drain on that fund. Negative in that, as you
mention, there might not be as many jobs available for awhile. However, since
I believe (?) baby boomers are the largest generation, as they retire and die-off,
there might be more jobs available than there are people for them thus driving
up wages and opportunities.
Try looking at the 'glass half full' instead of 'half empty'.
The age requirements as they exist seem right to me, in terms of the level of psychosocial maturity one can be reasonably expected to have attained by 25, 30, and 35 years of age. Perhaps our concerns might be better addressed by setting term limits and/or mandatory retirement age for members of congress.
Every election cycle the vaunted ‘youth vote’ is expected to turn out in droves and every time they stay home. This year they youth vote was one percent higher than 2004. If we want younger politicians we need younger voters to participate in far greater numbers than they do now. Having watched the hoped for horde of young voters fail to live up to expiations for fifty years, I don’t think we will every see this change. Let’s face it partying, hooking up, and living large on daddy’s dime is far more fun then politics.
I think what Seery is getting at is that the lack of youth voter turn out is a result of the age requirements. Why would an 18-24 year-old care to choose between two AARP card carrying members (AARP spent $23m lobbying on 2006, btw, according to wikipedia) who are eligible to receive Social Security? If you argue that the youth vote should be pumping out 30 year-old senators, but are too lazy to, isn't it possible that the precedent of 35 year-olds being inexperienced is set by the fact that they can't be elected before 30? Even Barack Obama, at 47 and with superb internet surfing capabilities, is nearly twice the age of his strongest contingent, the 18-24 year-olds! If he is a youngster, then who should I, at 18, vote for?
For your enjoyment, Ive listed some people, who at the tender ages of 18-24, were amazingly NOT hooking-up, partying, and, dare I say, were making their own money (and still doing things more fun than politics)!
Peter Jennings (high school dropout!)
Bill Gates
Steve Jobs
Michael Dell
Ted Turner
Ray Bradbury
Sergey Brin
Larry Page
Warren Buffet
the list goes on...
Being the adolescent 30-year old Obama supporter that I am, I guess I'll be too busy watching really bad Ashton Kutcher stoner movies to care about Congress.
Young people will not be elected until they run for office; the average age of Congress is not the result of a huge number of 31-year-olds losing elections. When younger people become engaged, as I believe many have now, they will run. They will be at a disadvantage, as anyone is trying to unseat an incumbent, but many will succeed. Many would have succeeded in this election had they been contesting it.
A previous comment asked "aren't we supposed to run corporations.. first?" Only if that is the path you prefer. If public service floats your boat, go for it. While seniority is a benefit in politics, because of the rules, "experience" is crap. Most experienced politicians become so immersed in the process that they can no longer see the forest for the trees, and are more likely to develop erectile dysfunction than a new idea.
I am 63 years old and tremendously excited to see the under-40 crowd getting stoked on politics. 2008 to me is a watershed year, a moment that the torch is passed, or if you prefer, snatched out of the hands of the boomers who have so thoroughly effed things up over the past decade.
Ditto! Ditto! Ditto!
As a 59-year old, I couldn't agree with you more and couldn't have said it better!
I...actually didn't know what the age requirements for Congress were until just now. I've never heard of anyone running for office straight out of college, but I never imagined that it was because we COULDN'T. (I'm currently an undergrad, btw.) I always just thought you had to pay your dues as an minion - sorry, I mean intern - on a campaign or something before you could run yourself. Huh.
Perhaps our expectations of our representatives has changed as a result of the changing population and demographics of the country. In the first congress, each congressional district represented (on average) 47,000 people. Now it's 690,000. In an environment where young people are less likely to be "known," they are less likely to be elected.
~s~
Re: "expectations"
We've also come to expect a whole bunch of time-consuming "prerequisites."
If you haven't done the law school/the school board/state legislature dance, you just won't be taken seriously as a candidate for Congress.
Although the focus of this article is on the Congress, there's no reason
that those who don't happen to meet the congressional age requirements
can't find out what the age restrictions are for their local government elected
offices and start there. Every state and city has their own set of age restrictions
for various offices.
IMO people are looking for intelligence, honesty and practical ideas. You don't
have to be as charismatic as Obama, provided you don't 'bore the pants off
of them', but, some strong speaking skills can get you into the game along
with those three characteristics.
From the vantage point of this young person, it also seems like public service is not the first stop we're supposed to make these days. Aren't I supposed to run a corporation, be a professor, or spend a few years in the campaign trenches before I can be deemed a worthy representative? It is absolutely true that we, the young people need to have a voice in the halls of congress. But so long as we are led to believe that selling their souls to the corporate workforce is the American Dream, we're going to have a problem. Not only do we need to change the law, but also our young peoples' mentality about public service.
And as for who can shake things up and make public service the "cool" route to take? Barack Obama is a darn good start...
I am afraid that the young will be unenthusiastic when they see YOUNG Obama wanting to move and change for the better (I hope) and the ineffective, old congress stonewalling real change. They will even more disillusioned when they see Harry's and Nancy's lack of leadership in action.
I am afraid that changing one key player will not be enough to tackle the problems the USA has.
Your right! That's why it's important that the grassroots of Obama supporters stay engaged
every step of the way. They are the ones that need to pressure their own congressional
representatives for the change they voted for. Whether it be through phone calls, letters
or the internet. Every senator and representative has e-mail and/or a website.
If you want change, make your voices heard!
one "key player" BUSH created 99.9 percent of these problems.....why can't one "key player" OBAMA start to fix them?
Maybe they just needed to believe and now they do. Most candidates, young OR attractive or both, fall short of the Obama effect that galvanized this cohort of young activists. Maybe now they'll seem able to help some candidates who'll come forward to lead them into their future. us old guys can spend our last decades trying to get the other old bastards out of office.
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