Individuals running for Congress in North Dakota will now be subject to new age restrictions.
Roughly 60% of voters supported Measure 1 during the state’s primary on June 11. The measure, titled the Congressional Age Limit Initiative, bars anyone who will be 81 years old on Dec. 31 of the year before the end of their term from running for the United States House of Representatives or Senate.
The measure takes immediate effect upon its approval. Current law requires individuals to be 30 years old if running for the Senate and 25 if running for the House.
North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer was a public opponent of the amendment. The 63-year-old said he “can’t imagine why any patriotic conservative would vote to limit their choices,” per The Washington Examiner.
Some officials were preparing for a legal challenge to the law before it had been put to a vote. According to PBS News, a top legislative panel “unanimously approved a $1 million cost estimate for the state to defend the age limit.”
“Some legal scholars and political observers have said a state age limit for members of Congress would be unconstitutional,” reported the outlet in April. “They cite a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on term limits that states cannot set congressional qualifications beyond those in the U.S. Constitution.”
The average age of a member of the 119th U.S. Congress is 58 years old – three years younger than the 117th Congress’s average. The average age of a U.S. senator is 64. Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff is the chamber’s youngest member at 37 followed by Ohio Senator J.D. Vance at 39. At 90, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is the oldest member of the Senate.
The oldest member of the House is Congresswoman Grace Napolitano of California (87) while the youngest is Congressman Maxwell Frost of Florida (25).
“Of its 435 members, the House has 64 members born in the 1980s — almost doubled from the previous Congress — and one born in the 1990s,” reported FiscalNote in February 2023. “The age group with the biggest gain compared to the 117th Congress was 40-49, while the 60-69 group saw the biggest losses."
In 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the average age in America was 38.9 years old.
“As the nation’s median age creeps closer to 40, you can really see how the aging of baby boomers, and now their children — sometimes called echo boomers — is impacting the median age," said Kristie Wilder, a demographer for the agency’s Population Division. "While natural change nationally has been positive, as there have been more births than deaths, birth rates have gradually declined over the past two decades. Without a rapidly growing young population, the U.S. median age will likely continue its slow but steady rise.”
In 2022, the possibility of capping the maximum age of the president of the United States was supported by three out of every four Americans. A poll conducted by Business Insider and Morning Consult found the age of the nation’s political leader was regarded as a minor problem for 37% of participants and a major for 41%. Just 10% of Americans thought the issue was not a problem at all.
