Arbitrary minimums must go
Voters under the age of 25 have the right to vote, but not to run for federal office
Eric Boose / Opinion Editor / The USD Vista
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the star of the Democratic party. A former bartender from the Bronx, Ocasio-Cortez ran an energetic, grassroots campaign to unseat a well-liked Democratic incumbent and represent New York’s 14th Congressional District. She is witty, charismatic, politically skilled, and firmly believes that America can and should be better than it is now. The New York Times calls her “one of the Democratic Party’s most talented operatives.” Despite all of that, she cannot run for president. Ocasio-Cortez is only 29-years-old, six years below the constitutional minimum for presidents.
In the United States, people from the ages of 18-35 cannot fully participate in politics. The Constitution lays out age requirements for all three elected federal offices. A member of the House of Representatives must be at least 25 years old, a senator at least 30, and the president must be at least 35. These limits mean that, at least in terms of the federal government, people below the age of 25 do not have the right to be elected. We have the right to vote, but not the right to be voted for. As Slate’s Osita Nawanevu puts it, “A black voter who thinks a black politician would be better attuned to the issues affecting him can vote for a black politician. A woman can vote for a woman. But a 20-year-old cannot, by law, vote to send another 20-year-old to Congress.”
To some degree, an American citizen does not enjoy full-political rights — the right to both vote and be voted for — until the age of 35, when they are no longer barred from any office by their age. As Nawanevu reports, in 2014 there were 74 million Americans who are able to vote in a presidential election without being able to run for president.
Of course, the writers of the Constitution, as well as the writers of state constitutions, would say that there is a reason for minimum age requirements. In general, the concern is that people under the set age limits are not mature or experienced enough to hold that office. As a general rule, it makes sense. Governing is arguably the single most important thing that anyone in this country does. It would be terribly detrimental to a state or country if its elected officials were inexperienced and immature.
However, when young, experienced candidates want to run, that general assumption of youthful immaturity and inexperience looks suddenly very nonsensical and arbitrary. Representative Ocasio-Cortez is certainly a good example of this. Another example is Daniel Hernandez, Jr. of Tuscon, Arizona. In 2014, the then 24-year-old Hernandez was gearing up to run for the Arizona Senate. Hernandez was a Sunnyside Unified School District board member, had worked on multiple campaigns, was a lobbyist for and director of the Arizona Students Association, and a staffer for former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, among other things. The only problem was that Arizona state law says Senators must be 25-years-old. In the eyes of the law, Hernandez was too inexperienced or immature to run for office.
Candidates like Hernandez demonstrate the greatest weakness of arbitrary age minimums for elected officials. While they aim to protect us from immature and incompetent young lawmakers, they end up depriving us of exceptionally talented, energetic young minds. As Nawanevu implies, it denies young voters true representation.
Ultimately, formal age limits should be abolished. If someone is old enough to vote, why are they not also old enough to run for office? In order to create a representative government that better represents all of the people who it governs over, the formal age limit for all offices, federal and state, should be reduced to match the voting age. This will be a difficult process, especially at the federal level, but it is one worth undertaking.
Of course, there will be a concern that lowering the age minimum for elected officials will open the door to a wave of inexperienced, immature lawmakers. To assume that this will be the case is almost insulting to the ability of voters to choose a candidate who they believe is actually qualified to hold the position. Eliminating age limits does not mean that there will suddenly be a horde of teenagers and twenty-somethings running for president. In fact, it is unlikely to significantly change the age demographics of political candidates in this country.
What it does is open the door for more young people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Daniel Hernandez, Jr. — talented young political minds who will bring new life to city halls, state houses, and even Washington, D.C.