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Why does a U.S. presidential candidate need to be 35 years old? (2016)
- chinabot 4y agoI guess by that age you have been totally corrupted by the system, so you fit the job description better.
- erichocean 4y ago
- sbelskie 4y agoI’ve never heard that interpretation before. Do you have links to further explanation? It doesn’t seem all that intuitive to me.
- egberts1 4y agoUmmmm, Constitution before Amendment for anything explicitly stated … unless explicitly ratified by Congress and 3/5th of all states and signed by a president. See any amendment impacting age of president, vice president, or congresscritters? Besides, clearly-defined elected Federal office is a privilege, not a first-class citizen nor a rights, much less citizen-related. Furthermore, only the 7th Federal District ruled like you advocate. None of the remaining 12 districts agree with this and only one ruled against it. IMHO, Supreme Court will likely vote this down given leaning 1-12 opinion count but a third district probably needs to chime in with any ruling on this before SCOTUS can take it up and put it on their docket. But even so if it should get ruled in favor, it remains a far, far, far-away tenuous claim toward an age-nostic but voter-elected president/VP/Congress of what are already well-defined clearly-concise Constitutional job descriptions. Besides, 14th Amendment is an instruction toward the 50 states and not toward Federal. See “No state shall …” part of the 14th. Nothing amendment, as currently written and ratified, would be able to touch those said Federal job descriptions. Sorry. Source: Levin v. Madigan, 692 F.3d 607, 615-22 (7th Cir. 2012).
- erichocean 4y agoMarriage is also a privilege, not a right. And yet…the 14th Amendment (and CRA) still applies, so…gay marriage is the law of the land. All adult, non-felon American citizens legally have the same rights, responsibilities, and privileges regardless of their age, sex, country of origin, marriage status, etc., etc., etc. It's 2022 and that's the law. Why would you think it would be anything else?
- hirundo 4y agoBecause of Article II section 1 No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. And the lack of an amendment explicitly changing that.
- erichocean 4y ago> And the lack of an amendment explicitly changing that. The 14th Amendment (and the CRA) didn't explicitly change the definition of marriage, either. You are hung up on technicalities that the Supreme Court has already rejected many, many times.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoI would contend that marriage is neither a privilege, nor a right. Government recognition of your marriage is a privilege. In theory you can jump the fence with anybody and say we are married. With contractual law what it is today, you don’t need government recognition for your marriage to be valid.
- throwaway6734 4y agodo you have any links to legal scholars that share this point of view?
- ericpauley 4y agoLet’s look at the text of the 14th amendment (The pertinent Section 1): > All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Clearly applies only to the states. Not sure how anyone could reasonably interpret this as affecting presidential eligibility.
- erichocean 4y ago> Not sure how anyone could reasonably interpret this as affecting presidential eligibility. You could say the same thing about gay marriage. Obviously, the Supreme Court…disagrees. The Civil Rights Act clarified the meaning of the 14th Amendment, and they now go together whenever the Supreme Court is deciding what the Constitution requires/allows.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago> You could say the same thing about gay marriage. Obviously, the Supreme Court…disagrees. How so? Marriages are performed under state law, not federal law. How does the court ruling on gay marriage demonstrate that the 14th Amendment applies to the federal government, rather than (as it explicitly says) the states?
- Turing_Machine 4y agoOne might also note that both the federal government and individual states have age limits on things like getting married, having sex, driving a car, buying alcohol, voting, etc. To the best of my knowledge, no such age limit has ever been successfully challenged on 14th Amendment grounds. Can you provide a citation to one?
- zuminator 4y agoGay marriage and eligibility for office aren't remotely comparable. There is nothing in the US Constitution that explicitly denies marriage to any class of people, therefore the 14th amendment can claim to be applicable, whereas the Constitution specifically sets 35 as the minimum age to be appointed as president, and this has never been repealed. Nor is there any chance that the so-called originalists who make up our current Supreme Court would reject an explicit limitation in the Constitution for an uncertain interpretation of the language in the 14th amendment. On top of which, the position that the 14th amendment prohibits discrimination is not accurate. (Even the ADEA itself only prohibits age discrimination against individuals 40 and older.) The 14th amendment merely requires that the government have a good reason to discriminate. See McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420 (1961) for starters, wherein it was stated that, "The Fourteenth Amendment permits the States a wide scope for discretion in enacting laws which affect some groups of citizens differently than others. The Constitutional safeguard is offended only if the classification rests on grounds wholly irrelevant to the achievement of the State's objective. State legislatures are presumed to have acted within their constitutional power despite the fact that, in practice, their laws result in some inequality." In particular, age related laws generally fall under the "rational basis" standard. Meaning, that the scrutiny of such laws is not as strict as gender and religion related discrimination, but just entails some "rational basis" by the state for the law to pass constitutional muster. One can see this looking by at various policies set by the Federal government. People under 62 may not apply for Social Security Retirement. People over 26 are not covered under the their parents' policies in the Affordable Care Act. Children under 5 can ride WMATA for free in DC.
- csande17 4y agoThe article mentions a recent case where federal courts rejected your argument: > In 2012, Peta Lindsay challenged the presidential age restriction by running as a presidential candidate for the Peace and Freedom Party candidate, at the age of 27, within the state of California. > In 2014, Federal appeals Judge Alex Kozinski and two other federal judges rejected arguments that Lindsay’s rights were violated under the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and that the 12th Amendment’s language didn’t allow states to set age requirements.
- erichocean 4y agoAnd? Courts rejected gay marriage many times too. And they were wrong.
- beaned 4y agoWell... They were right, until they were wrong.
- rt4mn 4y agoMaybe your right that the 14th overrides the 35 year minimum (I can see legal arguments going both ways), but until you get a court ruling to that effect then in practice the limitation exists.
- dragonwriter 4y ago> the 14th Amendement prohibits age discriminatio No, it doesn't. > as interpreted by the Civil Rights Act the Civil Rights Act: (1) does not, and does not purport to, interpret the 14th Amendment, and (2) does not prohibit age discrimination. The main restriction on age discrimination is the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which restricts most discrimination based on age over 40, but not age discrimination generally, and is not 14th Amendment based (but instead is Commerce Clause based.) > It also prohibits discrimination based on country of origin, so non-US-born individuals (that are US citizens) can become President, too 14th Amendment anti-discrinination rules only restrict the states, not the federal government, so it cannot impact the pre-existing federal Constitutional qualifications for the Presidency.
- pyuser583 4y agoI can’t tell if you’re trying to be funny, making a point, or trolling. What are you trying to do?
- torstenvl 4y agoNo. Age is not a suspect classification for purposes of equal protection analysis. It is subject to rational-basis analysis only. This is why laws such as minimum drinking age are Constitutional. There is clearly a rational basis for ensuring the leadership of the country is of a certain (proxy for) maturity. The Civil Rights Act has no bearing on this question, as the Office of the President of the United States is not a place of public accommodation. Additionally, the Civil Rights Act has nothing to do with the Fourteenth Amendment, but sounds in Congress' commerce power. Your argument is not quite as weak with regard to national origin; however, courts have rejected your argument on numerous occasions, both because there isn't a "positive repugnancy" between the two provisions that would justify Constitutional repeal by implication, and because equal protection with regard to generalized rights and privileges does not have any bearing on eligibility for a specific office.
- mdavidn 4y agoThe 14th Amendment was passed in the wake of the Civil War. It clarified the citizenship of former slaves and their rights in southern states. The amendment goes on to overturn the three-fifths compromise, to disqualify insurrectionists from office, and to cancel the Confederacy's debts. The amendment did not alter Article II's requirements for Office of the President.
- LatteLazy 4y agoBecause the constitution was a horrible mess of weird ideas and compromise and intentional ambiguity written ~200 years ago. Stop trying to discern the hidden wisdom. There isn't any.
- Xeoncross 4y agoInteresting, this is a very jaded take. A this point it seems most of the constitution has been changed with amendments and legal precedents. That said, what constitution do you consider to be better written than the US?
- Turing_Machine 4y agoI don't know about most of it being changed, but yeah, a number of things have been changed. The argument there is that you need to strike a balance between making changes too difficult and too easy, and of course there are arguments on both sides. One point of comparison might be France, which is currently on its fifth attempt at a republic (with intervening reigns of terror, emperors, restored kings, anarchies, and Nazi collaborationist regimes), while we're still on our first one (or second, if you want to count the Articles of Confederation). Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. have all had multiple attempts as well.
- Xeoncross 4y agoThe fact the same document survived so long, with a population so large, makes me think that they succeeded where other governments continuously failed. The US constitution was certainly a unique document with a number of power checks we've certainly (as a nation) worked hard to erode. Most founding documents seem to be more focused on maintaing the rights of the rich from the start (i.e. no free speech or protesting allowed), the US seemed to focus on it's citizens more.
- Turing_Machine 4y agoFor sure. I wouldn't argue that it's optimal (given that it's been amended 27 times, obviously it is subject to improvement) but it's clear that they did a really, really good job.
- tcmart14 4y agoReally, its just an arbitrary line in the sand. What is different about 34 vs 35 that change's someone eligibility? Eh, not much.
- madrox 4y agoListening to these old arguments are interesting, because it comes during a time where there wasn't mass disillusionment about American democracy, and the people arguing for no age restriction didn't take into account how disillusioned voters may behave. I'd assert that people are far more willing to "meme" vote today than they were at our founding, and the chances of the next Shirley Temple becoming president are uncomfortably high should there be no age restriction.
- celdon25 4y agoWhat? This was hardly the first time of such political hardship in the USA. Have you heard of Pigasus the Immortal? The founders were remarkably cognizant of how things could go wrong.
- Turing_Machine 4y agoIndeed they were. If one examines the debates and arguments, it's clear that they spent much time studying the failure modes of previous republics, and attempting to build in safeguards against those modes.
- batch12 4y agoIt'd be nice if we even had viable candidates who were close to this line. It may be an improper statement, but a president at 70-80 won't be around long enough to see the full impact of many of the decisions they make. Maybe an upper limit is needed...
- smaddox 4y agoTotally agree. Unfortunately, it will never happen. Not without a violent revolution, anyways, and that would be worse. If we could just get approval voting implemented universally, maybe we wouldn't need an enforced upper limit.
- humanwhosits 4y agoI think a 1-line amendment would be one of the more plausible amendments to pass. "No person may be inaugurated as President if they are 70 years or older on the day of the election" Neither party or area of the country would be impacted any more than any other, so there's no partisan angle. Just a few older politicians would be excluded.
- yucky 4y agoThat doesn't sound very democratic at all. If the people want to nominate older candidates in the primaries, who are we to criticize that? Isn't that what democracy is all about?
- pwinnski 4y agoMost democratic processes have limits. While it's amusing to have subs named Boaty McBoatface, completely unfettered democracy isn't as amusing when there are serious consequences, such as long-term elections to national office. We have primaries and qualifications for getting on the ballot, and while one might quibble about the exact details, I don't think most people would be happy if we somehow collectively elected a 10-year-old, or a goat, as President of the United States of America.
- pyuser583 4y agoOne obvious reason is to prevent the offices from becoming de facto hereditary. It would be very hard to consistently pass an office from parent to child when the officer holder has to be at least 35. Especially since there was already a de facto requirement the office holder be male, excluding older daughters.
- batch12 4y ago> Especially since there was already a de facto requirement the office holder be female, excluding older daughters Are you talking pre-US monarchies? If so did you mean to say not be female?
- pyuser583 4y agoSorry, I just fixed that. I didn’t mean monarchies per se. Plenty of things were passed father to son: titles, property, reputation.
- notahacker 4y agoAn interesting idea, but even in the 1700s it would have been easy enough to keep it in the extended family, should the voters have been in favour. The first US president to have kids was the beginning of the US' first political dynasty
- pyuser583 4y agoJohn Quincy Adams was elected two decades after his father left the White House. That’s not exactly reliable succession.
- notahacker 4y agoHe'd have been eligible for the presidency at the end of his dad's second term, if his dad had served one. The obstacle to reliable succession was voters, not age.
- tunesmith 4y agoThis is just another example of laws necessarily needing to create discrete benchmarks for continuous realities. Yes, it probably is true that age 35 is more mature and experienced than age 30 and 25. And while arguable, it's at least defensible that the presidency should require a higher bar of maturity and experience than other government offices. But beyond that, the question of where to draw the line is just gonna be clumsy, because the law is a blunt instrument. Feels related to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox . Yeah, you can say there's not a big difference between 34 and 35. And you can say there's not a big difference between 33 and 34. And so on.
- goalieca 4y agoTrump was 70 and rather immature. You could more easily argue that having to drop out of school to pay the bills because your single mom got cancer will mature you so much faster than being a rich and spoiled heir.
- sys_64738 4y agoExperience. Nothing beats it and the younger you are then the more likely you would bungee jump off a bridge.
- batch12 4y agoAlso political capital earned by kissing the right asses and compromising one's values takes time to accumulate.
- ralusek 4y agoAt age 25, I would've thought that I was better suited for the job than a 35 year old. At age 32, I'm quite sure I'd be better suited at 35 than I am now.
- fortylove 4y agoGiven the lower limit, and upper limit only seems right. The world that formed 79 year old Biden, or 76 year old Trump, is not the same world that we live in today.
- fardo 4y agoMost people would probably agree an age limit of some sort makes sense. Very few people would want a 10 year old elected president. Once you agree on the premise, it’s only a matter of asking what the limit ought to be, and while there may be some theoretical value to that discussion, it seems the average voter in practice is at most ambivalent about candidate age, and I definitely don’t think it’s a given that were the limit ever changed, that the number would be lowered, rather than increased. By way of example, people in the last decade seem to currently have a preference towards significantly older candidates. Biden took office as this nation’s oldest president at 78 [1], and Trump was our nation’s second oldest president at 70. [1]. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s largest competitor for delegates in the 2016 primary, would have been 75 had he been nominated. [2] America, for better or worse, seems to like old people. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_by_age#Age_of_presidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Un... [2] September 8, 1941 birthdate; +75 gets to 2016
- ceejayoz 4y ago> Most people would probably agree an age limit of some sort makes sense. Very few people would want a 10 year old elected president. Wouldn't they just... not elect them, then?
- pwinnski 4y agoMaybe? With current systems, a surprising number of people vote without any belief that their vote will make a big difference. And yet, if enough people do that, those votes do in fact make a big difference. Celebrities have been elected quite a few times, and presumably at least some of those votes came from people who assumed the celebrity in question wasn't going to win, and so there was no risk in their vote.
- thrill 4y agoI think the minimum should be 35 and the maximum 40.
- yieldcrv 4y ago> James Monroe also wrote about the presidential age requirement making it difficult for a father and son to serve in a dynastic way. and I oop
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- Markoff 4y agoThe better question should be why if there is bottom limit for age of candidacy, why there is no upper limit. If candidate needs to be adult at least 14 years he should be also at least 14 years away from average retirement age (63) so he will be productive, thus upper limit should be 49. Personally I wouldn't be so strict and let run anyone adult in productive age from 18-68 to avoid having there people with dementia like certain democratic president. What I would make another condition for all politicians is they must work at least few years in private sector before running for office, I don't really like we are often governed by people who "worked" whole life in comfort and safety net of their gov funded job with no risks and productivity requirements detached from experience of majority population. They should also pass basic test how much cost milk, bread, etc. and how to deal with daily scenarios.