For the second time in about a month, Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell froze up for 20 seconds while speaking to reporters. It marks the latest in a string of episodes involving different lawmakers to call attention to the age and health of the legislature.
On the whole, Congress is getting older.
The current class of lawmakers is one of the oldest in history, with an overall median age of 59. The median age of senators is 65, the highest on record. In the House, the median age has hovered between 57 and 58 for the past decade, higher than in any year before that period.
These numbers have steadily ticked up since the 2000s, even as the country elects younger members. The freshman class sworn in this year was the youngest in recent history, with 18 new lawmakers under 40 elected to both chambers.
But the older generations still dominate Congress, and debates about term limits, ageism, and the overall fitness of the gerontocracy to lead the nation have become a feature of American political discourse.
At 81, McConnell is the fourth-oldest senator and one of more than two-dozen members who come from the Silent Generation born between the late 1920s and the end of World War II.
One of McConnell’s peers, 90-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), is the oldest senator and has experienced severe health complications this year after recovering from a case of shingles. Last month, she appeared confused when called on to cast a vote in a committee hearing and had to be nudged by the committee chair, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), to say “aye.”
Congress has long been older than the overall American population, and the nation’s median age is creeping up, too. But with baby boomers, the generation that came after McConnell’s and Feinstein’s, making up nearly half of Congress, it’s unlikely that the age balance among lawmakers will change significantly any time soon.
Millennials such as 38-year-old J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and 33-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) account for just 12 percent of lawmakers in the Capitol. And Gen Z is represented by a single member, Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), who became the youngest member of this Congress and the first elected from his generation when he won his race in the district encompassing Orlando last fall.
