The revelation that Rep. Kay Granger (Republican of Texas) is living in an assisted living facility heightens the focus of aging officials and highlights changing norms around lawmakers’ health, seniority and how long is appropriate is to stay in power.
“Unfortunately, you know, some of these members are waiting until it takes too long, until things have gone too far,” fellow Texas Republican Tony Gonzales said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” in lithe of the News.
“I think it works – goes back to the heart of the matter. Congress should do its job, and if you can’t do your job, maybe you shouldn’t be there,” Gonzales said.
Granger, 81, made history as the first woman to chair the House Budget Committee. She resigned from office in March after Congress completed funding for the 2024 fiscal year, declined to seek re-election and missed every vote after July 24.
Her office confirmed this a Dallas Express Report last weekend However, Granger’s son denied that she was living in the assisted living facility and that she was in “memory care.” told the Dallas Morning News She had “had some dementia issues at the end of the year.”
The outgoing MP Annie Kuster (DN.H.) told the Boston Globe Part of her decision to retire was based on the hope of encouraging other aging lawmakers to resign.
“I’m trying to set a better example,” Kuster, 68, told the Boston Globe. “I think there are colleagues – and some of them are still very successful and very productive – but others just stay forever.”
The norms for questioning lawmakers’ abilities as they age have changed steadily over the decades.
Former Senator Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), the fourth-longest-serving senator, was 100 years elderly when he left office in January 2003. A New York Times report in 2001 described Thurmond’s “visible decline” and that he sometimes appeared confused during Senate hearings. His friends said the senator had hip problems and refused to wear a hearing aid, but stressed he was “neither sick nor senile.”
Increased scrutiny of aging civil servants has been further tightened by President Biden.
Biden, 82, faced attacks and concerns about his mental fitness for years, even before he won the presidency in 2020. White House aides and administration officials often vigorously defended his abilities.
That reached a tipping point over the summer, culminating in Biden’s dismal debate performance against Trump, which sparked a Democratic Party revolt and forced him to abandon his re-election bid this year.
Former Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) also faced a wave of reports of memory problems before her death in 2023 at age 90, raising questions about her ability to hold office.
Concern about mental fitness is not the only thing that has increased. Physical problems have also put an aging Congress in the spotlight.
Longtime Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), 82, had two incidents last year in which he was visibly frozen as he delivered his remarks. His office attributed the moments to him being dazed. McConnell also suffered a fall and received medical attention at the Capitol earlier this month. And former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat from California), 84, broke his hip in a fall I was abroad this month and had to have an operation.
While neither lawmaker is expected to take the party’s leadership next year, both are expected to serve in Congress, with McConnell set to chair the Senate Defense Committee and Budget Subcommittee.
Health problems contributed to a shift in the position of at least one top member of the Democratic Party, with seniority typically playing the dominant role.
Rep. Raúl Grijalva (Democrat of Arizona), 76 years elderly, who missed most of 2024 from the House of Representatives due to cancer treatment, withdrew from seeking another term as ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee after being challenged by 60-year-old Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California).
And 79-year-old Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) lost his Application for re-election to be the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee Concerns expressed about his mental performance and an absence due to back treatment. Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), 52, won that seat.
But for all the talk about Democrats embracing generational change in the face of these changes, the party’s slate of committee chairs in the House of Representatives is still dominated by senior lawmakers – both in terms of longevity and age.
Democrats chose to put Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), 74 years elderly and battling esophageal cancer, at the head of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, rather than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN .Y.), 35. Many senior members faced no competition for their powerful positions, including Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), 81, for the Appropriations Committee and the House Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), 86, for the Financial Services Committee.
The appointments show that age alone is not the deciding factor as Washington grapples with how to deal with aging officials – on both sides of the aisle.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), 91, will chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next year. One of Grassley’s 2022 Campaign ads showed him doing push-ups and jogging in the morning.
President-elect Trump is now 78 years elderly, the same age Biden was when he was elected to the White House in 2020. And that is the case with Trump faced a certain test Given his age and mental capacity, the public perception of his abilities is much more favorable to him than to Biden.
One in mid-November Pew Research survey found that 55 percent of Americans said the phrase “mentally astute” describes Trump very well or fairly well, a Pew poll conducted in July, immediately after the Biden-Trump debate, found only about a quarter of voters said the same about Biden.
But as scrutiny increases, there is no clear way to address the concerns of aging lawmakers other than resignations, retirements or election defeats.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in a Post on social platform X said that Granger’s situation “reveals the problem of a Congress that rewards seniority and relationships more than merit and ideas.”
“We need term limits. We need to get big money out of politics so that a new generation of Americans can run and serve,” Khanna said.
When former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley ran for president, she was required competency tests for politicians older than 70.
While the 25th Amendment outlines a procedure for dealing with an incapacitated president, there is no specific protocol for dealing with a member of Congress who is unable to discharge his or her duties.
The house in 1981 one seat declared vacant after then-Rep. Gladys Noon Spellman (D-Md.) fell into a coma before she could take the oath of office for a recent term and never regained consciousness. However, there is no precedent for the forcible removal of an incapacitated member who had taken the oath of office in Congress. Both the House and Senate can expel a member with a two-thirds vote.
But beyond the personal sensitivities that come with colleagues deciding whether an elderly or ailing colleague is fit to serve, the political realities of a closely divided Congress provide no incentive to change these norms.
After some members left the House of Representatives to take positions in the Trump administration, The Republicans will not be able to spare defectors on internal party legislation, provided all members are present until the vacancies are filled.
But absences – or surprise appearances – could make a massive difference.
In a dramatic vote earlier this year, Democrats unexpectedly defeated Republicans’ first attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas when Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), absent earlier in the day due to abdominal surgery, appeared to vote – still in his hospital clothes.
