Vote for Pedro

Maybe the hippies had it right: "Never trust anyone over 30."

Princeton professor John Seery believes that the age requirements for election into federal office -- 25 for the House, 30 for the Senate, and 35 for the presidency – are "antiquated” and should be lowered. Not doing so, he argues, imperils the Republic by depriving it of the talents our young people could provide as inspired politicians. Not only is the tyranny of the "doddering old codgers" not working, it’s getting worse. Seery says much of the governing class does not even know how to work a PC, let alone understand the "intertubes." Our new mandate should be: "Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote, Old Enough to Run." Seery makes a compelling case. In theory, a Congress chocked full of Mark Zuckerberg-like visionaries might indeed rival the candlepower of the Founders if not their enlightened output.

But there are two problems with this political nirvana. First, wunderkinds possessing the talents of a young Mr. Lincoln are rare. And let’s face it: The gathering of eagles in 1787 was a providential fluke. Today, it would take more than a few brilliant young minds to make a dent in the ways of Congress. So, dropping the age limit would simply open the flood gates to the likes of, well, Napoleon Dynamite. Do you really want your creepy student body president, a year out of high school, in the Senate? Second, life between ages 18-34 is about scholarship and/or apprenticeship punctuated by youthful indiscretion and impulsiveness that is uninformed by experience. (It’s great fun, but it’s a miracle most of us get out of it alive.) I’m not certain what an entire class of shavetails would add to the body politic.

I’d also posit that the Framers (the devisers of the age rules) were arguably the best class of representatives America ever fielded. They were also “old codgers.” At the time of the Constitutional Convention, all but 12 were older than 34. The majority were 40 or older. The one wunderkind was Alexander Hamilton, age 30. Though I suspect Hamilton was several orders of magnitude smarter than Zuckerberg (see the Federalist Papers), he was easily matched in brilliance by his elders.

Yes, Congress is shot through with dunderheads at the moment. But lowering the age limits for federal office won’t fix it. “Pedro for President” is a nice, idealistic dream. That doesn’t mean I’d really want Napoleon Dynamite’s pal to run. Hell, he could win.