A Washington State lawmaker has introduced legislation that would require every member of Congress over the age of 70 to pass mandatory cognitive fitness evaluations — the same kind of assessments already required of airline pilots, surgeons, and commercial truck drivers. The bill targets a long-standing gap in federal accountability: there is no requirement for legislators to demonstrate cognitive fitness, even as the average age of Congress has climbed to historic levels.
A Congress That Has Never Had to Prove It Can Do the Job
The Constitution lists exactly three requirements for serving in Congress: minimum age, U.S. citizenship, and residency in the represented state. That’s it. No education requirement. No financial fitness test. No performance standard. And no cognitive assessment — despite the fact that lawmakers are responsible for authorizing military action, confirming Supreme Court justices, setting the national budget, and shaping policy that affects hundreds of millions of Americans.
The average age of Congress has risen steadily for decades. Today, more than 120 sitting members are over 70. In recent years, several high-profile lawmakers have faced public scrutiny over visible signs of cognitive decline — incidents captured on video that prompted widespread debate about whether the people casting consequential votes are still fully capable of doing so. Yet no formal mechanism exists to answer that question.
What the Bill Would Actually Do
The proposed legislation would establish an independent, nonpartisan oversight office tasked with administering standardized cognitive assessments to all sitting and incoming members of Congress who are 70 or older. The evaluations would be recurring — not a one-time hurdle — and would be conducted by credentialed medical professionals with no political affiliation. Results would be disclosed publicly.
The assessment framework would be modeled on existing federal standards. Commercial airline pilots are required to pass biannual medical and cognitive screenings as a condition of their certification. Board-certified surgeons undergo licensing reviews. Federal air traffic controllers face mandatory retirement ages. The bill argues that if cognitive fitness is non-negotiable in those fields — where lapsed judgment can cost lives — it should not be optional in a chamber where a single vote can send troops to war or reshape constitutional law.
The Opposition — And Why It Has Weight
The proposal faces serious pushback from two distinct camps, and both arguments deserve consideration. Civil libertarians contend the bill is age discrimination dressed in medical language. In a democracy, voters are the evaluators — performance, not test scores, should determine fitness for office. Courts have historically sided with this view when states have attempted to add qualifications beyond the constitutional minimum.
Political strategists raise a different concern: weaponization. A cognitive assessment result — even a borderline one — could become devastating opposition research. Results could be selectively leaked or misrepresented. A tool designed to protect the public could quickly become a weapon in partisan warfare. Both critiques carry real weight.
The Constitutional Wall
The biggest obstacle is the Constitution itself. The Supreme Court has previously ruled that qualifications for members of Congress cannot be added beyond those already listed in the founding document. That precedent likely extends to this federal legislation. Getting this law enacted would almost certainly require a constitutional amendment — two-thirds approval in both chambers, then ratification by 38 states. That is a generational project, not a single legislative session.
What This Means for Americans
The bill may be unlikely to pass in its current form, but the debate it forces is overdue. Americans have watched for years as lawmakers who appeared visibly impaired continued casting votes on their behalf, with no accountability mechanism beyond the next election. Whether the answer is this bill, a constitutional amendment, or something else entirely, the question — who is fit to serve, and how do we know? — is one that voters across the political spectrum increasingly want answered.
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