A young Democrat in the House has proposed a radical idea to deal with Congress’ age problem, Axios reports.
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) is a two-term Democrat who won a district that Trump won twice - and has heard from voters about the age of lawmakers.
“What I've heard from my neighbors, my community is this idea that this place is being run by a bunch of staffers,” the 36-year-old told Axios. “And we're seeing a very real decline in confidence in Congress.”
In response, Gluesenkamp Perez proposed an amendment to the appropriations bill to that sets aside money for congressional operations to require the Office of Congressional Conduct create a standard to assess members’ “ability to perform the duties of office unimpeded by significant irreversible cognitive impairment.”
Such an assessment could lead to investigations into whether a member is mentally incapacitated to the point that their service damages Congress’s credibility.
The amendment failed to pass during a markup, with subcommittee chairman David Valadao (R-CA) saying “a lot of concern with some of our colleagues sometimes when we see some of their comments,” but that elections are the proper barometer.
But Gluesenkamp Perez told Axios that “It's not a comfortable thing to think about time being irreversible and how our lives change, but ... real respect for our communities and the body here is [being] willing to have these honest, candid and difficult conversations.”
Congress, particularly Democrats, have dealt with questions about whether senior lawmakers can continue to do the job. Last year, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) became the top Democrat on the House Oversight & Accountability Committee and died earlier this year after a diagnosis of esophageal cancer.
Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-TX), a freshman Democrat, died in March shortly after President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress. Turner was 70 and had a history with cancer.
In addition, earlier this year, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) died after a long battle with cancer. Grijalva had missed most votes in the House of Representatives last year.
Last Congress, the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein died in office at age 89 after she had faced multiple questions about her mental fitness to do the job.
Perhaps the most pressing example came when former president Joe Biden had his disastrous sole debate with Trump in June of last year, where he sounded frail, stumbled over his words and often trailed off mid-sentence. Biden, who was 81 at the time, stepped aside less than a month after the debate and his vice president Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president and later lost to Trump.
Other Democrats such as Rep. David Scott (D-GA) and Del. Eleanor Holmes, Washington, D.C.’s nonvoting delegate in Congress, have also raised questions about their mental fitness.
