A sitting member of Congress could have significant cognitive decline and still cast votes on your tax dollars, your healthcare, and your national security. There is currently nothing stopping it — except the next election. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) wants to change that, and she is refusing to quit.
The Amendment That Failed — And What Comes Next
Gluesenkamp Perez proposed a “cognitive acuity” amendment to the FY2026 Legislative Branch Appropriations Act. The amendment would have required the Office of Congressional Conduct to establish formal standards for determining whether a sitting lawmaker is experiencing significant, irreversible cognitive impairment — and whether that impairment prevents them from performing their duties.
The committee shot it down. Almost unanimously. But Gluesenkamp Perez is not walking away. She is already in talks with Republican colleagues about a bipartisan standalone bill and has promised to bring the issue back to the floor. Her core argument: in too many Congressional offices across the country, it is staffers — not elected members — who are quietly making the real decisions. The person who won the election may no longer be the person governing.
The Case For: Congress at Historic Age Highs
The numbers back up the concern. Congress is currently at or near historic highs in average member age. Several high-profile incidents of apparent cognitive decline among sitting lawmakers have played out publicly in recent years — stumbled press conferences, forgotten names, confused hearings. Supporters of cognitive testing argue that Americans deserve assurance that the people casting votes on trillion-dollar budgets and declaring wars are mentally equipped to do so.
Proponents also point to precedent. Federal judges face mandatory retirement ages in some jurisdictions. Military officers face fitness reviews. Commercial airline pilots must pass regular medical and cognitive evaluations. The argument is simple: why should Congress be exempt from the same accountability standards applied to other high-stakes positions of public trust?
The Case Against: Who Writes the Test?
Critics fired back hard — and not just from aging members protecting their seats. Several substantive objections have been raised. Who designs the test? Who administers it? Who decides what score disqualifies a sitting lawmaker — and at what point during a term? Is this a genuine medical standard, or a political weapon that could be used against opponents who are simply unpopular, not impaired?
There is also a constitutional dimension. The U.S. Constitution sets out the qualifications for serving in Congress — age, citizenship, residency — and says nothing about cognitive fitness. Critics argue that adding a cognitive standard would require a constitutional amendment, not a House committee vote. Others insist that voters, not federal bureaucrats, should be the sole arbiters of who is fit to represent them.
What This Means for You
The people in Congress vote on your taxes, your healthcare costs, your children’s education funding, and whether the country goes to war. If even one of those votes is cast by someone who lacks the cognitive capacity to fully understand what they are voting on — that is a direct impact on your life. The question is not abstract. It is about whether the system you pay into and depend on is actually being run by the people you elected, or by the staff who work for them.
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