Back-to-back 'senior moments' from Feinstein and McConnell illustrate the peril of a government by seniority

• Two of the Senate's oldest and most powerful members had "senior moments" in recent days.
• Congress currently operates via seniority, meaning members gain more power depending on how long they've served.

On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, 81, abruptly stopped speaking in the middle of a press conference before he was escorted away by other senators and an aide. One day later, reports emerged that McConnell, a childhood polio survivor, has fallen several times this year and now uses a wheelchair to navigate crowded airports.

And on Thursday, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 90, the oldest member of Congress, appeared confused in the middle of a Senate hearing vote when she attempted to give a speech, only to have to be reminded by an aide and Sen. Patty Murray that all she had to say was "aye."

The back-to-back "senior moments" from McConnell and Feinstein, two of the most senior and powerful members of the Senate, illustrate just how much of a gerontocracy, a society governed by the old, the US has become.

While Feinstein has said she's retiring at the end of her term, McConnell has suggested no such thing. Both chambers of Congress rely on systems that value a member's length of service to determine their committee assignments, with chair positions typically granted in the Senate to the most senior member, meaning McConnell has little reason to step away from his cushy Senate seat until he and he alone wants to retire.

This has, in part, led to Congress getting increasingly older in recent years. In the 2020-2022 Congressional term, an Insider study found that nearly 1-in-4 members of Congress were over the age of 70.

For many Americans, that's an issue.

According to an Insider/Morning Consult survey from 2022, 41% of respondents said the age of US political leaders is a "major problem" and an additional 37% called it a "minor problem." Another Insider/Morning Consult survey found that members of Gen Z don't feel like their needs are adequately represented in Congress.

As the US increasingly becomes more and more of a gerontocracy, it comes as no surprise that there's overwhelming support to put a cap on how old a member of Congress can be before they're forced to retire.

But don't expect Congress to enact an age limit anytime soon.

For such a limit to go into effect, Congress would need to amend the US Constitution, a process that can only be started if "by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose." The amendment would then need to be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures.

While some members, like Sen. Ted Cruz, have pushed for congressional term limits, there simply doesn't seem to be a growing consensus among members of Congress that this a problem worth fighting.

As long as that's the case, get used to the old folks running the show.