Enacting A 28th Amendment On Aging Might Help Our Divided Parties Heal!

By Donald A. Collins | 3 September 2023
Church and State

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The November 2024 Election seems like an eternity away as we daily get endless updates on how our political divisions are affecting our lives, despite the overwhelming fact that our current lives are among the best worldwide.

Many things need our urgent attention such as climate change or a seemingly endless list of national and international fixes needed, but agreeing on anything between our major parties could certainly use a positive example.

Here’s one which could gain enough support to go through the difficult process of getting approval for a Constitutional Amendment.

Here’s the Constitutional Amendment process.

We constantly confront questions about the ages of important leaders.

Senator Feinstein’s apparent incapacities, Senator McConnell’s “freezes” and the ages of the present President and his likely opponent in 2024 make the need for action clear. The plentiful history of those in high places serving beyond their capacities is well known. People well past their best should not serving in elective office.

McConnell is likely not to escape with continuing excuses about his medical condition as this Post piece tells us.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried to tamp down concerns about his health on Thursday, a day after freezing while speaking in public for the second time in five weeks and again sparking questions about his physical condition and age.

Publicly, Republican senators remained supportive of McConnell and none has questioned whether the 81-year-old Senate stalwart should set a timeline for resigning his leadership post. But the public nature of Wednesday’s incident proved jarring again for senators, raising concerns about how their GOP leader was faring and prompting calls among some Republicans outside the Senate for McConnell to step down.

McConnell’s health needs serious scrutiny as you can read here.

The language of the new Amendment could allow those when the Amendment was approved who were over 75 to complete their terms and would give sitting Supreme Court Justices over 75 a finite period, say 2 years, before retiring.

Of course, setting an age limit of say 75 doesn’t cover a very difficult aspect of whether an important public official less than 75 becomes incapacitated.

That could be solved by requiring, as is not now, an annual or at least every two years, a physical examination. This would not allow the clearly inadequate report on Senator McConnell’s capacity to pass muster.

The text of an Amendment is something which a bi-partisan Congressional committee could iron out, such as who specifically would be included among the top officials in our government. There are many possible choices that the Amendment might cover, but certainly at a minimum for all members of Congress, the Supreme Court and the President and Vice President and members of the sitting President’s Cabinet.

Details such as those and others could be approached on a bi-partisan basis as they would apply equally to both sides.

Any discussion will of course face the question of unfair ageist discrimination. How old was Ben Franklin when he was pivotal in assisting our republic’s formation? Solution? Allow consultants who now are commonly involved in the processes of every business and government decision making.

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote”, “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?”, “Will Choice and Democracy Win?”, “Can Our U.S. Survive 8 Plus Billion of Us” and “Economic Growth: A Cancer on all Earthly Life”.

Why are so many US politicians so old? | DW News

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