The U.S. Senate is a gerontocracy

[Revy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_Senators_by_age

The minimum age to become a Senator is 30. Despite this, there are no Senators under the age of 40.

Of the 100 current U.S. Senators:

3 Senators are in their 80s
19 are in their 70s
38 are in their 60s
30 are in their 50s
and 10 are in their 40s

That means 60% of Senators are age 60 or older. 90% are age 50 or older.

A majority of progressives, leftists and socialists are young and under the age of 30. As such they cannot set up a campaign for Senate or President without people asking questions about their eligibility. The House has an age requirement of 25, also shutting out a large percentage of youth (I define young people as people under the age of 30). The candidate may be shut out of debates, the media, and other avenues of public appearances, and not taken seriously.

Edited to add what I think is an important point:
If you're old enough to vote, you should be old enough to run for any office.

[miltonwasfried...man]

That just means they are closer to death and we can soon replace them. Absolutely ridiculous though.

[RichardAWilson]

We need Term-Limitation. America is being run by Wall St. and a bunch of rich old white men.

[Zeus the Moose]

I think this is one of the lesser offences of the US Senate, but it is ridiculous that there are age requirements for office other than being old enough to vote. Ultimately it's meaningless; I would think a socialist government would abolish the Senate anyway if one was ever elected.


We need Term-Limitation. America is being run by Wall St. and a bunch of rich old white men.

Terms limits cut both ways, though. On the one hand, it can help prevent the build-up of a professional political caste, but on the other hand people should have the right to have whomever they want as their representative. With term limits, that right is curtailed.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

We need Term-Limitation. America is being run by Wall St. and a bunch of rich old white men.

And that would change what, exactly? You fancy it's beyond the adaptive abilities of capitalists to have young representatives, or adapt to term limits? If necessary they'd elect an all-non-white congress, changes nothing.

[Jose Gracchus]

Term limits also of course increase the number of freshmen who are dependent on career politicos and connections, often supplied by K Street lobbyists. You'd create a Congress of amateurs, which, in the same social and political context as now, would just be the useful idiots of lobbyists who they would depend on to get anything done.

In fact, this is just exactly what the 80-90s fetish on the Republican populist right wrought in the U.S. Congress. A decline in extreme incumbency (greater than the Soviet Presidium, in fact), but an increase direct influence and power by corporate lobbyists.