“There were 30 other senators looking around seeing this happening, like I was, and to me it was like, ‘Oh my God, if Americans saw this, they would be outraged,’” the staffer said. “I think it was so baked into the culture of the Senate that once you’re there, you’re in the club, and we protect you.”
This staffer took a more cynical view of senators’ defense of elderly, ailing colleagues. “It’s 100 percent ego, for all of them. I think they all see themselves in Dianne Feinstein and Mitch McConnell,” the staffer said. “They all see themselves [in the Senate] for the rest of their lives, into convalescence, and they want to defend their right to do that, if and when that time comes for them.”
The gerontocratic lean of the Senate is well known. The Senate’s average age is 64, and the current Congress is one of the oldest in history. Nearly three dozen senators are aged 70 and older; at 81, McConnell is currently the fourth-oldest senator serving. A few members of the House have pointed to the age of certain senators and their recent health challenges as cause for implementing term limits.