Does Congress need a retirement age? Houston is the testing ground
Houston voters are casting ballots this week to fill a Congressional seat left vacant for nearly a year.
When U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner died in the hours after the 2025 State of the Union address, the longtime politician left a wide void in his home city of Houston, Texas. Most pressingly, his passing at the age of 70 meant his Congressional seat would be vacant due to a death for the second time in less than a year.
Turner, a two-term Houston mayor who battled cancer during his final four years in office, had only been sworn into his first term in Congress 61 days earlier, filling the seat left open upon the death of Sheila Jackson Lee the previous summer. The 18th District — long a stronghold for Black Democrats — has remained vacant, affecting the razor-thin divide between Democrats and Republicans in the House.
No matter the outcome of Saturday’s special election, the district is guaranteed to see a generational shift in its representation. Both candidates vying for the seat, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, 37, and former Houston City councilwoman Amanda Edwards, 44, are Millennials. Turner and Jackson Lee, the latter of whom represented the 18th district for 29 years, were both Baby Boomers.
The fact that the 18th district has lost two older leaders in quick succession while younger candidates — including Edwards, once an intern of Jackson Lee’s — have waited for a chance to jump in, has not been lost on the district’s constituents. But, there are no rules that say one generation must step aside to make way for another in public service.
Yet.
Do Americans want a mandatory retirement age for elected officials?
During an event last week, Rahm Emanuel, a former Chicago mayor and ambassador to Japan, called for a mandatory retirement age of 75 for the president, cabinet officials, members of Congress and federal judges.
Emanuel, who has said he’d like to run for president in 2028, is trying to jumpstart the Democratic party. Many feel it is time to send the party in a new direction after former President Joe Biden was pushed to abandon his 2024 re-election campaign at 81. Emanuel’s call for the age limit also comes as President Donald Trump, 79, has appeared to fall asleep during meetings in the Oval Office in recent months.
This is not the first time a politician has floated limits on how long elected officials can serve in office. Pew Research Center polls show 79% of Americans favor maximum age limits for elected officials in Washington, D.C.; 74% support such limits for Supreme Court justices.
Age limits are a complex topic, said Tracey Gendron, chair and professor of gerontology at Virginia Commonwealth University.
“Using age as a barometer or a marker for anything is misguided and dangerous,” she said. “Age alone isn’t a good indicator of anything — it’s not a good indicator of health or cognitive status and you could end up limiting someone from participating who is really talented or a great advocate.”
Gendron said that while Trump will turn 80 in June, that birthday will mean something different for him than it would for someone else. While “aging is universal, everyone ages differently,” Gendron told Straight Arrow News.
If Americans have concerns about how someone’s age could affect their service, that’s what voting booths are for, she said.
“Part of the democratic process is that we get to vote,” she said. “You can do that rather than with a law that is putting ageism with practice into policy.”
What kinds of term limits are already in place for politicians?
American presidents are limited to two terms; 37 states have some form of term limits for governors; and another 16 states have term limits for legislators, according to The New York Times.
“People aren’t starting to campaign for office for the first time when they’re in their 80s,” said Scott Tillman, chief operating officer of U.S. Term Limits, a non-profit advocacy group in support of term limits. “So, with a term limit, you’d get a younger crowd.”
Congress has never imposed limits on itself, and the Constitution’s “good behavior” clause has long been interpreted as a lifetime appointment for federal judges.
Two of the nine Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., are 75 or older. The Senate has 17 members who are 75 or older, and the House has 45 such members.
If officials were serious about implementing age limits, it would be a drastic undertaking that would likely require amending the Constitution, according to Pew. Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds vote in both the U.S. Senate and House, followed by ratification by three-quarters of the states. Alternatively, Congress could call a convention to propose amendments if requested by two-thirds of the states — a threshold that has never been reached.
When the Constitution was initially written, people lived into their mid 40s and 50s, said Calvin Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the average life expectancy in the United States has risen to a new high of 79, thanks in large part to better access to health care, technology and public health standards.
What do voters value?
Jillson said voters must consider whether they value an older incumbent’s experience more than youth and vitality and the possibility of new ideas.
“Experience is very valuable,” he said. “It means that the benefits can come back to the district. So in that case, you’re looking at longevity and experience and clout, and saying, why would I replace that with youth and vigor?”
In Texas, there is no age limit for the executive or legislative branch, but there is one for the judicial branch, said Jon Taylor, the department chair of political science and geography at The University of Texas at San Antonio. For judges across the state, he said, there is a mandatory retirement age of 75.
“Not only does it allow for younger, fresh minds and blood to get onto the bench but it also allows for some sort of exit strategy for a judge or justice,” Taylor told SAN.
Taylor pointed out that other fields have retirement mandates, like in the military. He said something as taxing as the presidency or serving in Congress would lend itself well to an age limit.
The national conversation about age limits is intersecting with Houston politics, Jillson said, as the run-off election is held this weekend.
When Jackson Lee died in the summer of 2024 of complications from pancreatic cancer, her death set off an internal primary with numerous politicians, including Edwards, jockeying for a spot. Ultimately, Turner prevailed as the Democratic candidate.
Before his eight-year tenure as mayor, Turner spent three decades in the Texas legislature and earned the nomination — and the votes — largely because of his name recognition and experience.
What is happening in Houston, Taylor said, underscores the necessity of youth — particularly as the district has sat unrepresented for over a year, which he said is “unfair.”
“When you have people who have increasing health issues as the years go along, we end up with the situation like what we had with Sheila Jackson Lee, and then what we have with Sylvester Turner,” Taylor said. “We have a lot of people who are younger, who have a lot of experience, and it’s time to encourage people to understand that we all have limitations as we get older.”
While the winner of Saturday’s special election in Houston will be sworn into Congress shortly after the results are finalized, theirs will not be a long term. The winner will remain in the seat through the end of 2026, but a March 3 primary will determine who represents the 18th district beginning in 2027. Because of the redistricting in Texas, U.S. Rep. Al Green has been mapped out of the 9th district where he is finishing out his ninth term; he has already secured his place on the March 3 ballot in the 18th district.
Green is 78.
The post Does Congress need a retirement age? Houston is the testing ground appeared first on Straight Arrow News.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
