A Rising Generation

One aspect of American politics I’ve paid attention to is the stark reverse agism that has resulted in the average age of a federal politician to be the average starting age for retirement for regular Americans (early 60s). If I had a pile of cash to spend on politics, I would invest in not just engaging younger Americans in the political process, but encouraging younger people to run for office and to challenge the establishment in both parties.

We need a “rising generation” of politicians under 40. (Ok, for Senators I’ll let that be 50, seeing just how many senators are older than 75 right now.) With luck, however, we have quite a list of Senate and House members who fit that description.

Take Senator Mark Begich (D-AK) – only freshman Senator under 52 (at a spry senatorial age of 46, no less).

Now, consider a list of all incoming congressmen at or younger than the age of 40:
Anh Cao (R-LA) – age 40
Dan Maffei (D-NY) – age 40
John Boccieri (D-OH) – age 39
Tom Rooney (R-FL) – age 38
Martin Heinrich (D-NM) – age 37
Ben Lujan (D-NM) – age 36
Glenn Nye (D-VA) – age 34
Tom Perriello (D-VA) – age 34
Jared Polis (D-CO) – age 33
Duncan Hunter (R-CA) – age 32
Aaron Schock (R-IL) – age 27

The House Democrats dominate in the Generation X/Y department in this election, but look at Aaron Schock. That Illinois Republican is barely two and a half months older than me. I need to get cracking! Hehe. (In reality, I live in Jim Moran’s district – no chance of winning there, and I’m not moving back to Gainesville to take on Cliff Stearns, as much as I’d like to, partly because I just can’t afford the move.)

At any rate, we’re making progress. These 11 House freshmen are being added to a group of 9 D’s and 6 R’s who are already serving in the House.

Oh, and about Mark Begich? He’ll be nearly the youngest Senator in the entire body, second only to Mark Pryor, who is just 9 months younger, at age 45. That’s progress, too!