Ross K. Baker

Opinion columnist

With Sen. Bernie Sanders' heart scare, age is a rising concern among Democrats whose top presidential candidates are among the oldest in history, including Sanders, 78, former Vice President Joe Biden, 76, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 70. As an impeachment investigation in Congress heats up, age could become a factor there, too.

Seniority in Congress for Democrats has always been a mixed blessing. When majorities switch or committee chairs are defeated or die, the next person in line in terms of length of service on the committee automatically steps in to take the gavel.

Interestingly, the Republicans abandoned the practice in the mid-1990s, when incoming Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich experienced a revelation: Many of those Republicans who had been waiting patiently for a chairmanship since the GOP last held the House in 1954 were in an advanced state of decrepitude. Gingrich shunted them aside for younger and more combative Republicans and then replaced seniority with six-year term limits.

The Democrats, having decided to retain the seniority rule, now confront President Donald Trump with many of their major committee chairs in their 70s and 80s. These very senior Democrats are not showing well against the administration and its backers. It is a problem not easily solved.

Frailness on display

The problem was illustrated recently when former Trump campaign chair Corey Lewandowski appeared before the House Judiciary Committee. A natural performer in the Trump style, Lewandowski, 46, danced circles around Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, 72, who appeared at times befuddled and gob-smacked. A photo of Nadler made him appear to be fighting off a migraine. It took Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, 49, chairman of the Democratic Caucus, to warn the president’s former campaign chief that he was out of line. But the double-edged sword of seniority cuts across a number of the most important panels.

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One of the few universally recognized powers of Congress that can be used to rein in an out-of-control president is the power of the purse. Article I, section 9 of the Constitution is explicit in stating that no money can spent except pursuant to a congressional appropriation, yet Trump has been able to redirect money designated for certain military projects and disaster relief to the construction of the wall on the border with Mexico that has proved no barrier to tens of thousands of asylum seekers. But the “repurposing” of taxpayer money is only one of the areas in which the power of the purse has proved a rubber sword in the hands of Congress.

Rescinding money appropriated for the operation of Cabinet departments is a tool that can be used on high officials who are acting improperly. The House Appropriations Committee headed by Rep. Nita Lowey, 82, could lower that boom on Attorney General William Barr, who has acted more like the president’s consigliere than the peoples’ counsel. Barr needs to have his personal office account slashed. He can do very well without his private dining room at the Justice Department. Let him use Uber instead of an armored SUV to get to his bagpipe recitals. But the Appropriations Committee seems to have no stomach for the fight. It might be age and the inertia of doing things as they have always been done.

Many committees have this issue

The age issue in the House has mostly focused on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 79, but it runs far deeper. Rep. Richard Neal, chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, is 70. Rep. Maxine Waters, chair of the Financial Services Committee, is 81. Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel is 72 and should be inquiring into President Trump’s strong-arming the president of Ukraine to produce political dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.

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Mere age, of course, is no sure marker for inability to do a job, and accumulated knowledge based on longtime tenure on a committee is invaluable. Senior members are the committees’ organizational memory. They have stored in their brains the schematic of all of the outside players within the committee’s jurisdiction. They know who lobbies them and who contributes to the members’ campaigns. But as the performance of special counsel Robert Mueller and Rep. Nadler’s behavior appeared to reveal, endurance and mental acuity in older men and women can be problematic. However, the solution adopted by the GOP has created a totally new set of problems by inducing GOP chairs who are term-limited to retire instead of having to step back into the back benches.

Now, the Democrats have the House majority, and it is their job to hold the administration’s feet to the fire. There is considerable doubt that they are capable of living up to the moment.

Ross K. Baker is a distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers University and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter @Rosbake1