A Constitutional amendment to impose an age limit of 67 on the President?

by philg

An immigrant physician friend, simply based on videos that she watched in 2020, diagnosed Joe Biden with dementia four years ago and referred to him as “the senile puppet” long before the New York Times editorial board noticed that anything was wrong. Democrats now believe that Joe Biden’s cognitive abilities are insufficient to handle the job of U.S. President. Democrats also hate Donald Trump and there are at least some Republicans who prefer Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley to Mr. Trump.

I wonder if these groups could get together and do a quickie amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would impose a mandatory retirement age of 67 (the current Social Security full retirement age for those born after 1960) on the job. We need three-fourths of the states to ratify such an amendment and then both the Republicans and Democrats would have to nominate younger politicians for the November election.

We’ve already got a minimum of 35:

Why not a maximum?

21 thoughts on “A Constitutional amendment to impose an age limit of 67 on the President?”

    • Congrats to Dr. Jill Biden, she is the first woman president! “Edith Bolling Galt Wilson was second wife of the 28th President, Woodrow Wilson. She served as First Lady from 1915 to 1921. After the President suffered a severe stroke, she pre-screened all matters of state, functionally running the Executive branch of government for the remainder of Wilson’s second term“”

  2. As one who is a bad culture fit for 99% of jobs, that would be a conflict of interest. The primary system could use improvement over just following what the internet superintelligence tells us to vote for. The internet can’t possibly have nominated the 2 least qualified humans in order to get itself elected.

    • I don’t see how this would be a conflict of interest, although the age of 67 was probably chosen for actuarial and political reasons rather than through a rigorous analysis. I would say that being 70 (or higher) on Election Day should be disqualifying, which gives you a nice symmetry with 35 being the minimum. This would have allowed Reagan his first term but not his second, which makes sense because it was obvious that by the time of Iran Contra Reagan is merely a figurehead. As an aside Fritz was only 56 when he ran against him.

      New Jersey doesn’t impose an upper age limit on its governor but we do for our Supreme Court. It’s a hard 70, meaning literally on your 70th birthday they hand you a cardboard box with your stuff in it and out you go. I think a little flexibility would be helpful, e.g. maybe allow them to continue hearing any cases currently pending, or maybe let them serve to end of the month or the quarter or the year, but the law isn’t written that way.

  4. Back in 18th century people started working at 12 and lived till 60? Move minimal age requirement for presidency to 65!
    US government agrees, 401 K mandatory withdrawal is moved up to age of 73 years old. Bidenflstion,old 35 is now 70.

    • Died at 60? Let’s look at some of the folks who were around at the time of the Constitution. Benjamin Franklin died age 84 in 1790. George Washington at age 67 in 1799. Thomas Jefferson died at 87 in 1826. John Adams died at age 90 in 1826. Samuel Adams died at 81 in 1803. John Jay died at 83 in 1829 (retired in 1801 before he went Full Biden; he was a noble New York governor who was passionate about liberty other than for the slaves whom he owned).

    • Outliers, except for George Washington.
      What about starting out early and not after graduating with JD/MD/PhD in gender studies at 30? Marquee de Lafayette what was, about 15 years old, when he saved George Washington’s bacon?
      To clarify, I consider all above mentioned to be great men.

    • As far as I can tell, 5 U.S. Presidents died at 60 or younger from natural causes

      • Polk (53)
      • Arthur (57.1)
      • Harding (57.9)
      • T. Roosevelt (60.2)
      • Coolidge (60.6)

      I have to admit that I’m surprised that Teddy had a shorter lifespan than Franklin.

    • No hard data, just anecdotal evidence; as some friend of mine was visiting Africa 20 years ago, he was surprised how many old vital people he saw. Those countries had very low life expectancy, but it is mostly because of infant mortality. If you survive to the age of 60, it is quite likely that you will survive to the age of 80. I believe that it was very similar in Europe or USA 200 years ago.

    • Anon: What about the fact that rulers tend to be drawn from the elite and elites live longer than peasants?

    • Anon, life expectancy is average remaining years of life at a given age. I do not know the distribution, but I guess if 60 is average, it was not so hard to find 80 years old man. Even without the elite argument. From the link you provided, for 60 year old man, life expectancy is 16 years, from what I would guess, at lest one third of them will live till 80. And since medical care was not so good as today, those who lived so long were probably quite vital.

    • mata, I wholeheartedly agree. The question is what percent of total population were old men? Not large, based on referenced statistics. But it is certain that they were lucid, reasonably strong and in reasonably good health, until few last months of weeks of their lives.
      There was American Revolutionary war soldier whose house was attacked by British troops and who joined American War of Independence as a foot soldier and lived to see the Yorktown. He started fighting in colonial wars in first quarter of XVII century. It does not mean that most of the revolutionary soldiers were old.

  5. The FAA has determined a 65-year-old person cannot safely pilot a commercial airliner, even with a capable co-pilot right there. But piloting a whole country–no problem.

    • Dave: Joe Biden has the best co-pilot with him/her/zir/them at all times… Prof. Dr. Jill Biden, Ed.D.

  6. I’m ok with it. I do consider Joe Biden to be competent to continue doing the job but I would prefer 60 year old Joe. I think the age limit is a fine idea though so we can lower the incidence of cognitive decline, especially for those who are already in office and in whom it may already affect.

  7. Philip, aren’t you are trying to wear two hats, and at the same time? After a post lamenting overpopulation through immigration you have new post suggesting early retirement. It is not the trend that independent countries choose, not only Japan. https://www2.deloitte.com/ch/en/pages/press-releases/articles/ageing-workforce-raise-the-retirement-age.html . Anecdotal evidence, a handyman in his seventies who is called to work because millennials apparently are not great at roofing.
    Why have constitutional amendment based on one oddball, who had never been a bright cookie in the first place. Known for his gaffes, Biden also dropped out of 1988 Democrat primaries because he lied about his invented educational background and because he plagiarized British socialist politician, a darling of Soviet press of his times. Back then media task was not yet to promote the only correct party 100% of the times, hence exposure of his lies in 1988.
    Philip has overcame a lot since covid but still some residual statist impulses remain

  8. Philip, often but it is not built into US Constitution and not reflected into 35 years lower age limit. Elites were subject to same infectious diseases as everyone. Examples: common blue collar beginnings man Lincoln and his family. Most of Lincoln’s children did not inherit his immune system and died due to infections caused by the Union Army’s waste dumped into Potomac river from which White House drew water which ms. Lincoln did not boil. Sickly elite child Teddy Roosevelt lived in the lower Manhattan, in area with poor air conditions.

  9. Shouldn’t Dr. Fauci have the final say about Biden’s condition and if he is fit for second term? He told us what we should do for COVIDFear, so why not have Dr. Fauci have the final say about Biden, or even Trump for that matter?

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