Phlip Blumel: Congress is heaven’s waiting room. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the term limits movement. This is episode 288, published on July 20th, 2026.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Phlip Blumel: I live in Florida. It’s a state often referred to as God’s waiting room due to its large retiree and elderly population. But Florida has nothing on the US Congress. The big political news last week was the passing of Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina at age 71 of a brief illness. This has, once again, focused the country’s attention on our flailing gerontocracy. The scandal is that more than a third of US senators are 70 or older. Including the House, over a quarter of Congress is now over 70 years old. Now think about that. 136 of the 535 members of Congress are over 70 years old. That’s not normal. Across other Western democracies, that percent is closer to 4%. Now, since we have a seniority system in Congress, the leadership, that is the most powerful members of Congress, are also the oldest. On the Democratic side, the average age of committee leaders is 70. The average. The Republican average is a bit lower because their caucus rules include some six-year committee chair term limits, which helps. Now keep in mind, the median retirement age in the US is 62 years old. So the death of Senator Graham at age 71 is not unusual. And how could it be? And actually, he was relatively young. Over the last few years, we’ve seen several deaths and even more cases of physical and mental decline in the US Congress. Last month, 84-year-old Senator Mitch McConnell was hospitalized. Now, no one knew where he was at first, and I’m not convinced he knew where he was. It turns out he had a fall and was recovering from pneumonia. Recall Senator McConnell’s public confusion on more than one occasion when he simply froze in public. Last year, as Elena Shao of the New York Times reminds us, three House Democrats died in the span of three months: Sylvester Turner of Texas, age 70, Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, 77, and Gerald Connolly of Virginia, 75. And in April this year, Democrat David Scott of Georgia died at age 80 after facing scrutiny within his own party for his refusal to exit politics amid a series of health issues.
Phlip Blumel: So the gerontocracy is a real problem with, fortunately, a simple solution: term limits. Term limits reduce the average tenure and prevent the buildup of very senior and thus older members who dominate leadership through pure seniority. This isn’t theory. 16 states have term-limited legislatures. Actually 17, North Dakota voters added term limits recently, but they haven’t kicked in yet, so we won’t count them. Studies and observations show term-limited legislatures often have more turnover and a younger or more mixed age profile compared to non-term-limited ones. They do not produce the entrenched gerontocracy that we see in Congress. But some non-term-limited states have seen age issues, particularly Hawaii. The committee chair term limits that the Republicans have are helpful, for sure, but they don’t solve the problem. And age limits would help with the narrow problem of age, but they wouldn’t change the incentives of a seniority system and entrenched incumbency that leads these politicians to cling to office even until death. What we need is real term limits for the US Congress. Many Congress members themselves realize this. Actually, they all do, although most of them don’t want us to do anything about it. So while senators like Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell oppose term limits, 113 members of the US House and 20 members of the Senate have signed the US Term Limits pledge to co-sponsor and vote for the congressional term limits constitutional amendment. Pressure to act is also coming from the states. 12 states, including Arizona and Kansas in 2026, have passed a single-subject Article 5 resolution for congressional term limits. The time is right. Thank you for your support in getting this job done.
Speaker 3: This is a public service announcement.
Phlip Blumel: Jon Stewart of The Daily Show reviewed these same headlines and stats about our congressional gerontocracy and had a bit more humorous reaction to them on his show last week.
Jon Stewart: The current Congress is the third oldest in US history, with the average age of senators nearly 64. 131 out of the 535 members of Congress are 70 or older. Graham is the sixth member of Congress to die this term. What the f***? This term? He’s the sixth member of Congress to die this term. Six. If this were any other business, they’d shut it down to figure out what the f*** is going on. Six of them have died. Gas leak? Serial killer? Six of them are dead. My God, those are Petco gerbil numbers. What, do they just come into Congress every morning with a shovel? What the f*** is going on down there? It’s not like the job is dangerous. They’re just sitting there. And not to put too fine a point on it, but the last person to speak to Graham is our 80-year-old president. The governor who chooses Graham’s replacement is 79. One of the candidates being considered is 78, but he backed out because she’s too important at his current job in the House of Representatives. All to save the Todd Blanche hearings, which are being co-run by 92-year-old Chuck Grassley and whippersnapper Dick Durbin, 81. The entire f***ing Congress is falling apart due to a lack of not just political will, but bone density.
Speaker 5: 83-year-old Florida Democratic Congresswoman Frederica Wilson recovering from an eye surgery.
S?: 89-year-old Chuck Grassley getting hip replacement.
S?: Senator Patrick Leahy, a broken hip.
S?: Nancy Pelosi, hip replacement surgery.
S?: Steny Hoyer is in the hospital with pneumonia.
S?: Eleanor Holmes Norton is in the early stages of dementia.
S?: Dwight Evans, who’s 71, had a stroke.
S?: Bernie Sanders sidelined by a heart attack.
S?: Congresswoman Kay Granger lived in an assisted living facility for dementia patients while still serving in Congress and drawing a congressional paycheck.
Jon Stewart: Why are we tolerating this level of national frailty in our lawmaking? And it’s not just anti-old people. It’s not disrespect to ask this question. In Japan, they revere the elderly, but the one thing they don’t do is put them in charge of everything. What’s the for argument here?
Nancy Pelosi: Well, age is a relative thing, as we all know. His experience is an advantage to us and not to be described as a disadvantage.
Jon Stewart: Oh, experience. That’s right. This is actually the most experienced Congress we’ve ever had. How’s that working out? Because we don’t have a system that rewards experience and competence and performance. We have a system that rewards incumbency. These people aren’t brilliant. They’re f***ing barnacles. Utterly incapable of addressing a world moving much faster than the speed of Matlock. Why does it matter? Here’s the co-chair of the House Army Caucus, co-chair Congressman John Carter of Texas, explaining why it’s imperative to remediate our outdated defense systems.
John Carter: Another issue that’s very important, the department has historically relied on outdated production techniques of energetic manufacturing, which may have remained unchanged since the Second World War. Since the Civil War. Second World. They blur in my mind, having been at both. How is the department ensuring that investment in next-generation energetics manufacturing, such as AI, machine learning capabilities, and enabling and assurance of assurance, quality assurance?
Jon Stewart: I take no pleasure in this. But this is not right. The stakes are too high.
Phlip Blumel: Next. I’m often asked where my optimism comes from as I try to change the Constitution to include congressional term limits. Don’t I know there’s no way that they’d ever let that happen? But pessimism conflicts with my personal experience on this issue. I’ve been involved in dozens of state and local term limits campaigns directly, even as a campaign manager. What I learned first and foremost is that when citizens are engaged, we nearly always win. Here’s the latest example. In Ridgecrest, California, voters approved eight-year term limits in 2012 for their city council. Council members would have to sit out a term before serving another eight years. So it’s consecutive eight-year term limits. No problem. Then this year, the council put a referendum on the ballot to alter it. They just wanted to straighten out some ambiguities, they said. First, they wanted to change the limit to two four-year terms rather than eight years. Okay, that sounds innocent enough. Same thing, right? They also clarified that partial terms of more than two years would count as a full term. Oh, that clarifies some things, yeah. These are just minor tweaks that cleared up the law. Sure. The proposal also explicitly included language to treat the current members as starting their first four-year term upon passage. That is, the clock would be reset and the incumbents could serve longer than eight years in office. Only the current batch. Some local citizens actually read it and noticed the scam aspect of the measures and started informing their neighbors. They also asked U.S. Term Limits to assist in the education program. Fortunately, a sufficient number of voters were alerted of the scam and the innocuous-sounding term limits measure was rejected by 54% of voters on June 2nd. Congratulations.
Phlip Blumel: So, see what I mean? Without citizen engagement, the scam would certainly have succeeded. But when citizens are engaged, we win almost every time. This is where my optimism comes from. And when I look at a Congress with 25% of the members signing a pledge to support a congressional term limits amendment, and I see a dozen states and counting officially approving Article 5 resolutions calling for a congressional term limits amendment, when I see polls at 83% plus for a congressional term limits amendment, and when I see people like you joining the effort and funding an organization like ours that are pushing for a congressional term limits amendment, and with all my personal experience on winning on this issue, of course I expect the congressional term limits amendment to win. Let’s engage.
Stacey Selleck: Like the show? You can help by subscribing and leaving a five-star review on both Apple and Spotify. It’s free.
Phlip Blumel: Thanks for joining us for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. The term limits convention bills are moving through the state legislatures. This could be a breakthrough year for the term limits movement. To check on the status of the term limits convention resolution in your state, go to termlimits.com/takeaction. There you will see if it has been introduced and where it stands in the committee process on its way to the floor vote. If there’s action to take, you’ll see a Take Action button by your state. Click it. This will give you the opportunity to send a message to the most relevant legislators urging them to support the legislation. They have to know you are watching. That’s termlimits.com/takeaction. If your state has already passed the term limits convention resolution or the bill’s not been introduced in your state, you can still help. Please consider making a contribution to U.S. Term Limits. It is our aim to hit the reset button on the U.S. Congress, and you can help. Go to termlimits.com/donate. Termlimits.com/donate. Thanks. We’ll be back next week.
Stacey Selleck: Find us on most social media at US Term Limits. Like us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and now LinkedIn.
