Congressional 'gerontocracy' worries resurface after member found to be living in senior facility
24 December 2024
'Astounding': Experts stunned by sitting GOP rep found in dementia facility
Concerns that elected officials in Congress are too old resurfaced over the weekend following news that retiring U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, 81, has been residing at a senior living facility, according to her son. Granger has not cast a vote since July.
On Friday, the outlet The Dallas Express published an investigation into Granger's whereabouts, reporting that Granger (R-Texas) is currently living at Tradition Senior Living in Fort Worth, which provides memory care services. Granger's son, Brandon Granger, said that his mother is not in the memory care facility, but he said she does reside at Tradition Senior Living, according to The Dallas Morning News. The outlet also reported that her son said she has been "having some dementia issues late in the year."
Reacting to the news on Sunday, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) wrote: "Kay Granger's long absence reveals the problem with a Congress that rewards seniority & relationships more than merit & ideas. We have a sclerotic gerontocracy."
"American gerontocracy, on both sides of the political aisle, is an absolute embarrassment," wrote the journalist Mehdi Hasan on Saturday.
The journalist Ken Klippenstein echoed these remarks. In a post on Bluesky he argued it shouldn't be taboo for the media to point out when elected officials appear to be impaired by age. "Part of why the gerontocracy exists is because the news media is so squeamish about calling this stuff out," he wrote.
According to a breakdown from The Washington Post in 2023, the median age in Congress has been trending upward in recent decades. Last year, 48% of all members of Congress were Baby Boomers, and 19 lawmakers elected to the 118th Congress are members of the Silent Generation, meaning they were born at some point between 1928 and 1945.
After the 2024 presidential race, during which President Joe Biden stepped down as the presumptive Democratic nominee following a disastrous debate performance that sparked widespread concerns that he was not fit to run, there was somereshuffling of the Democratic leadership on congressional committees which saw younger lawmakers take over. However, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), 35, was unsuccessful in her bid to be the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. She was bested by 74-year-old Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.)
Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer indicated that the thinking that drove some members to favor Connolly is also what was behind Democrats' loss of the White House on November 5.
"Valuing seniority over political and messaging chops is exactly how Democrats got into this mess in the first place," he wrote on X in mid-December.