Gluesenkamp Perez in the NYT: “It’s My Job to Reflect My Community’s Sentiment That This is a Problem”

This month, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03) joined The New York Times to discuss her proposal to set ethics standards for Members of Congress experiencing mental decline and memory loss.

This Democrat Wants Cognitive Standards in Congress. Her Colleagues Disagree.
Annie Karni
July 26, 2025

Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Democrat of Washington, was sitting through an Appropriations Committee meeting on Tuesday, staring up at the oil paintings of the past chairs of the powerful panel.

One, in particular, she found deeply unsettling.

“It’s concerning to sit there under a large portrait of Kay Granger,” Ms. Perez said, referring to the former Republican congresswoman from Texas who had suffered from mental decline for years when a conservative news outlet in her state found her, at the age of 81, living in an assisted living facility that included a memory care unit while she still held office.

The portrait served as a glaring reminder to Ms. Perez, the 37-year-old auto shop owner and second-term congresswoman who is a co-chair of the center-leaning Blue Dog Coalition, that she has served in Congress alongside aging colleagues, some of whom suffer from mental decline that renders them unable to perform large portions of their jobs.

Ms. Perez was hesitant to name any particular colleague, because she said the problem was bigger than any one person. But she said she was “concerned” about what she had heard about Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, 88, the nonvoting delegate representing Washington, D.C., who is clinging to her seat despite clear signs of mental decline. There are other cases, she said, that are too painful to ignore.

So last month, Ms. Perez offered an amendment to a federal spending bill that aimed to create basic guidelines in Congress to ensure that members were able to do their jobs “unimpeded by significant irreversible cognitive impairment.”

Her amendment was unanimously rejected, which Ms. Perez chalked up to the fact that it prompted an “uncomfortable conversation” and that Congress does not like to make new rules for itself.

“It’s not a solution that’s been widely discussed,” she conceded.

But Ms. Perez does not plan to drop the issue, which she said is a major concern for voters. In a poll of the 230,000 people who subscribe to her newsletter, more than 90 percent who responded supported the proposal, she said, noting that she represents a district that President Trump won three times.

Back at home, Ms. Perez said, her constituents constantly raise the issue with her. Their overwhelming sense of how the capital functions is that elected officials are too impaired to call the shots. That makes them even more distrustful of their government, she said.

“I hear about it at town halls; I heard a lot about it after the presidential debate,” she said, referring to former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s disastrous performance last summer that ultimately forced him to drop his re-election bid amid questions about his age and mental acuity. “It is my job to reflect my community’s sentiment that this is a problem. It’s my job to reflect the accelerating loss of confidence in this body.”

Her measure would have directed the Office of Congressional Conduct, the independent watchdog that investigates members of Congress, to develop a standard that the Ethics Committee could use to evaluate any complaint received about a lawmaker alleged to be suffering from cognitive impairment. The Ethics Committee could then release its findings, which she says would make Congress more transparent.

“We have all of these rules about dumb stuff — hats — and not this more significant question of who is making decisions in the office,” she said.

Ms. Perez has also been talking to Republicans about cosponsoring a bill that would set some guidelines about mental acuity for lawmakers, and she plans to try again next year to add her proposal to a spending bill.

“This is not an issue that’s going away,” she said. “We’re still talking to other members of Congress about a stand-alone bill, and trying to talk with leadership about a path forward here.”

Ms. Perez’s effort comes as Democrats have been grappling with generational tensions since Mr. Biden’s forced exit from the presidential race last year. There is broad concern within the party that its aging elected officials are not up to the task of countering an unbound President Trump, and that their refusal to step aside is repelling younger voters whose support Democrats need to win elections.

Last year, Democrats pushed out Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, 77, as the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, opting instead for Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, 61. There was lingering anger among younger Democrats after former Representative Gerald E. Connolly of Virginia, who died in May at the age of 75, had defeated Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, 35, to become the top member of the powerful House Oversight Committee.

David Hogg, the former vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, has divided the party over his plans to back younger primary challengers to incumbent lawmakers.

The issue Ms. Perez wants to address is not new in Congress, where there are now more members than ever age 70 and above. The Capitol has long been criticized as the world’s most powerful retirement home. Aging lawmakers are reluctant to relinquish their jobs and seniority, staying on in some cases well past the point where they can function independently in office. Figuring out how to nudge them aside can be as difficult as getting an older family member to voluntarily give up driving.

Part of the problem is that it is never clear whose job it is to tell an aging lawmaker that it’s time to hang it up and retire. Barring extreme circumstances, elected officials can only be forced out of office during an election, by voters.

At a news conference earlier this week, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, was asked if every member of his caucus was mentally and physically fit to serve another term, and what his role was in helping them make that determination.

“That’s not a discussion that we have had at the moment with individual members who are going to make decisions about their future,” Mr. Jeffries said. He added that he expected lawmakers would reach their own conclusions about what was in “the best interest” of their constituents and families.

Ms. Perez said she was not looking to rid Congress of elderly lawmakers altogether.

“You should have members of Congress who are navigating those questions of health care and the medical conditions older people face, just like you should have pregnant women and mothers here,” she said. “That makes a stronger body.”

But she said there should be standards that prevent members from serving past the point where they no longer have the capacity to cast votes and do business on behalf of their constituents.

“It’s a question of whether the elected member is making the decisions,” Ms. Perez said. It’s really not about a single member; it’s about a systemic failure.”