Over three-fourths of Americans think there should be a maximum age limit for elected officials, according to a CBS News/YouGov survey.
Over three-fourths of Americans think there should be a maximum age limit for elected officials, according to a CBS News/YouGov survey.
I’d think, because the Constitution only defines minimum ages, we would need an amendment identifying maximum ages.
65? 70?
Let’s set it up with term limits as well.
President is already capped at 2 terms of 4 each, what seems fair for everyone else?
2 six-year terms for Senator? 12 years?
6 two year terms for Congress? Also 12 years?
18 years for Supreme Court?
I’m not sure age is the problem. It’s greed and corruption.
I would also require anyone RUNNING for an elected office to divest themselves completely of all investments and business ties. Everyone running would get the same campaign funding and that is all they are allowed to use. For anyone elected, base pay would be significantly increased. This would naturally allow more younger candidates to both run and be elected, since you don’t have to be a corrupt, wealthy, ancient subhuman to fund a campaign.
I’m with you on the term limits, too.
As far as divesting, would you be okay with not necessarily liquidating but moving investments into a 3rd party holder?
Basically like "okay this is what you had in an investment fund, now a third party (for sake of argument fidelity) takes over the fund and now fidelity advisers manage it in its entirety until the person is no longer a representative.
The question really being, what kind of divesting do you want? Because straight liquidation could still negatively impact younger candidates, given that the liquidation would remove potential legitimate interest from their portfolio. Meaning that them running could negatively impact their future.
Yeah straight liquidation would be really bad. It should absolutely be a blind trust.
I like that idea… but I’d split the difference. Put your assets into escrow when you run, and it’s liquidated only if you win.
The idea is that public service should be sustainable… maybe even modestly beneficial in it’s own right, and strict term limits prevent it from being milked.
If a multimillionaire puts their assets into holdings and gets it back after their tenure, then the incentive to corruption still exists because they can still make decisions that affect those assets even indirectly. We should not tolerate that as even a possibility.
Not really if they don’t know what the portfolio is composed of, the only way they could definitely positively affect it is if they make decisions good for the whole of the economy.
That’s what I was actually proposing, the politician would transfer complete holding to someone like vanguard and they would diversify the assets in a reasonable way. The politician would not have control over it or even see what stocks are in the account, but still be able to benefit from the country’s economy.
All the politician could see is the valuation of the holdings in the event they do want to liquidate, but again, they wouldn’t directly choose what is being liquidated (because they don’t know what they have)
Term limits and an inability to invest would just make it a completely unwanted job for anyone without some significant fallback plan.
“Base pay would be significantly increased.”
Throwing a number out there: $400K/year should be good enough for anyone to both live on and save toward the future, especially over the course of, say, 4 years. I’d even support a $50K/year pension over the course of 8 years after leaving office, just to keep it fair.
The point is: making the job attractive to people who want to actually do the job, and not selfish, rich, corrupt asshats looking to enrich themselves and their fellow “upper crust” cronies.
Retaining any manner of private interest while serving in such a role is, by it’s very nature, inherently corrupt. Always.
Blind trusts exist
Can I keep running for office and spend my campaign dole on pot?
How well do you share?
But seriously, if you are going to commit fraud, you might want to run as a Republican. I mean, they seem to have the best support network for treasonous felons.
Who’s committing fraud?
My platform is, “I Am Going To Smoke All Of This Here Pot.”
This is irreverent but I am being serious. Were campaigns to be publicly financed will there be restrictions on how the funds are used, and if not won’t everyone run just for the cheddar?
On the other hand if there are restrictions will people who have disposable funds (landlords, other exploitative scum) be able to use those as additional funds?
There already are rules on how campaign funds can be used, but they are weak and what is there is not actively enforced.
So to answer your question: yes, those rules/laws would need to be modernized as well… and vigorously enforced.
Age is absolutely the problem. Bickering partisan politics over 40 years led to a division in our country. The millennial conservatives I know are reasonable, the boomers aren’t. Their minds went funny with too much fox news and that’s just the plain facts.
Younger. We want people who have decades left to live with the decisions they make.
I’d argue (as a 54 year old, naturally), that you need experienced people in these positions.
Capping it at 45 would mean you have a 10 year window on public service, 35 to 45. That won’t work.
At the same time, too old, and they don’t comprehend what they’re legislating. I’m not sure I would be competent to write laws on AI, and I’ve been working in tech for 30 years.
I would argue you don’t. You need to make mistakes. We aren’t making mistakes everything thrown out these days is gridlocked.
We should be piloting things and changing things with lessons learned. Except people are so set in their ways they want to keep things the same even though a vast majority of things have been and will continue to get worse in every state of the country.
We need to stop putting static laws in place they need to be dynamic because shit changes and then loopholes are created.
If the generation most representative is the oldest and the limit doesn’t bar to, It should.
They shouldn’t have the population to swing votes and to lead the country. There should be checks and balances on the voters as well.
Baby boomers are setting the terms and vote the most and have the highest population. It’s no wonder the US is out of touch, and in debt all the way inside of its own asshole.
If I fell upstairs stroke out reading a prompt of course I don’t give a fuck about young people lol I’m just trying to survive walking and talking. It’s just not right.
The President needs to be capped at 1 6 year term. So we dont get this fake progressive rhetoric the first term, and selling out to their corporate donors the next.