No One Owns the Office
Public service must come with an ending.
Senator Lindsey Graham died in office this month at 71, after more than thirty years in Congress. His death was sudden. He had been traveling, legislating, and seeking another term. It should not be misrepresented as evidence that he was incapable of serving.
But his death came as 84-year-old Mitch McConnell remained absent from the Senate, reportedly recovering from a fall and pneumonia after his office provided little information for nearly a month. It also followed the extended decline of Senator Dianne Feinstein and the discovery that Representative Kay Granger had been living in a senior care facility during her final term. Together, these cases have renewed an overdue debate about age, capacity, and health transparency in Congress.
Elected officials, as with the rest of us, grow old, and that isn’t the problem.
The problem is that our political system allows public office to become a possession held until death, defeat, or incapacity finally forces it loose.
Experience matters. Institutional memory matters. A government endlessly cycling through inexperienced legislators would leave more power in the hands of permanent staff, lobbyists, and private interests. But experience is not the same as ownership. Elections are also not an adequate safeguard when incumbency brings decades of accumulated donors, name recognition, party protection, and seniority. The longer someone serves, the more difficult they become to replace, regardless of whether the public still benefits from their service.
The result is a Congress that has grown increasingly detached from the age and experience of the country it represents. At the beginning of the current Congress, the median senator was nearly 65, while the median House member was 57.5. The Senate has grown slightly younger, but a significant share of its greatest institutional power remains concentrated among its oldest and longest-serving members.
Public service must come with an ending.
A reasonable constitutional reform would limit members to four terms in the House and two terms in the Senate. Someone serving in both chambers could still spend twenty years as a federal legislator. That is not a brief experiment in government. It is a substantial career, long enough to develop expertise, build relationships, lead committees, and leave a durable record of service.
Term limits alone, however, would not prevent someone from entering Congress late in life and remaining beyond a reasonable capacity horizon. Maximum eligibility should also be tied to the nation’s official life expectancy, rather than an arbitrary age selected by politicians.
The formula could be straightforward: national life expectancy at birth, minus the length of the term being sought, equals the maximum age at which someone may begin that term. With American life expectancy currently at 79 years, the maximum starting age would be 77 for the House and 73 for the Senate. The threshold could be recalculated once each decade using a rolling national average.
This would not declare every older American incapable. Many remain extraordinarily capable well beyond those ages, while plenty of younger officials demonstrate little judgment at all. It would establish something different: holding public power is not an entitlement that continues for as long as one individual can personally endure it.
It would also create an appropriate connection between the longevity of our leaders and the longevity of the people they govern. If the governing class wants a longer opportunity horizon for itself, it should first help create a longer life horizon for everyone.
Age limits still cannot replace a standard for functional capacity. Legislators can experience serious illness, injury, or impairment at any age. Yet the public does not need every diagnosis, medication, or private medical detail. We need to know whether the person entrusted with an office can still perform its duties.
A neutral capacity certification could evaluate whether a legislator can understand the matters before the office, personally make and communicate decisions, maintain meaningful participation in legislative and constituent work, and notify the appropriate continuity authorities during an extended incapacity. Reasonable accommodations should be protected. The underlying medical information should remain private. Only the functional determination should be public: capable, capable with accommodations, temporarily incapable, or unable to discharge the office.
These standards must apply automatically and indifferently. No partisan demand for a test. No selective release of embarrassing medical records. No turning illness or disability into spectacle. A plainly reasonable rule, applied to every officeholder regardless of party or personality.
We should also provide a dignified path out.
Term-limited legislators could, with the approval of their former constituents, serve fixed terms on nonvoting Senior Advisory Councils. These councils could preserve institutional knowledge, advise committees, and mentor newer legislators without retaining legislative authority. Their deliberations and compensation should be public.
That opportunity should be paired with a lifetime prohibition on former members lobbying Congress and strong restrictions on accepting compensation from industries they recently oversaw. Former senators currently face only a two-year restriction on lobbying Congress, while former House members face one year. Even Congress now contains bipartisan proposals for a lifetime ban.
A legislator should not spend years cultivating private interests as a retirement plan disguised as public service.
Experience deserves respect. Service deserves honor. Neither creates ownership.
The office was there before any of us arrived. It must remain available to those who come after us.
No one owns the office.
A steward knows when to give it back.