The U.S. is inching toward a gerontocracy, a society in which elderly people rule

When Democrats decided after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance that he was no longer fit to serve at the top of the ticket, a multifaceted pressure campaign was able to convince him to step aside, reported NBC News.

But federal judges, as well as Supreme Court justices, have lifetime appointments and there is no easy process for easing them aside.

At the age of 97, Judge Pauline Newman is the oldest full-time federal judge on the bench, but despite concerns about her ability to do the job, her colleagues are struggling to get rid of her.

With people generally living longer, a lifetime appointment can now last many decades. The average age of a federal judge is 69, according to a recent study, and there is no clean way to force someone to step down.

“That’s a feature, not a bug,” said Greg Dolin, a former Newman law clerk who is now working as her lawyer. “There’s no way to get rid of a judge, but I don’t think that’s something to amend. That’s something to celebrate.”

On the other hand, some judges have no wish to stay on the job for life out of fear they may lose their faculties, and courts have put measures in place to assist them.

“The judges are engaged in very challenging work. We have a responsibility to the public to try to be at our best both mentally and physically as we perform and discharge those duties that can have very wide impact,” said Judge Phyllis Hamilton, a long-serving federal district judge in Northern California.

Acute problem

Pressure on judges to retire often becomes public only when it concerns a Supreme Court justice. When President Barack Obama was in office, liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg rebuffed calls from liberals that she step down. At the time, she was in her early 80s and had faced multiple bouts of cancer.

She died in September 2020 at the age of 87, giving then-President Donald Trump the chance to replace her with staunch conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a huge change that shifted the court to its current 6-3 conservative majority.

While the Supreme Court attracts the most attention, “the problem is probably even more acute” on lower courts because of the sheer number of judges, said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a judiciary watchdog.

As of last year, there were 870 active federal judges, including the nine Supreme Court justices and judges serving on the 13 appeals courts and the 94 district courts, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Of those, 70 district judges and 34 appeals court judges are eligible to take senior status, whereby judges take on a lesser role but maintain their title, or retire on full pay, according to an NBC News analysis of data on judges from the Federal Judicial Center, the research arm of the judiciary.

It is not just in presidential races and the judiciary where advancing age is a factor. The average age of members of Congress has also risen, reaching almost 60 for members of the House of Representatives and 64 for senators, according to the Congressional Research Service. Last year, the focus fell on Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who showed signs of cognitive decline while in office before dying in September at the age of 90.

It has led some to claim that the United States is inching toward becoming a gerontocracy, a society in which elderly people are in charge.

“I think there’s something special for old people who, once they’ve enjoyed a lot of power, fear irrelevance and neglect if they give it up — you know, they’ll be less important, and they’ll be marginal,” said Samuel Moyn, a law and history professor at Yale University who recently wrote an article on the issue. “I think there’s a gerontocratic crisis across all branches of government and frankly many other places too.”

In the judiciary, Newman is just one of 14 judges still listed as actively hearing cases on a full-time basis and who are older than Biden, according to the NBC News survey.

By coincidence, all three of the oldest active judges sit on the same appeals court. Joining Newman are Judge Alan Lourie, 89, and Judge Timothy Dyk, 87.

At the district court level, Judge David Hurd of the Northern District of New York, who turned 87 this year, is the oldest active judge, according to the Federal Judicial Center data. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1999 and recently announced plans to take senior status. He had previously rescinded a pledge to step aside.

The second oldest is Massachusetts-based Judge Nathaniel Gorton, born in 1938, who was appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1992. (The Federal Judicial Center database includes year of birth but not specific dates.)

The judges all declined interview requests.

Hundreds more aging judges are still in office but have taken senior status. The judiciary does not have exact numbers on how many senior judges are still actively working on cases, but a 2023 judicial business report said there are 520 senior judges who have staff assigned to them, indicating that they are conducting at least some judicial duties.

These so-called “active” judges are the ones who get more scrutiny about stepping down, or refusing to do so, because when they announce their retirement, the president gets to pick a much younger replacement.

Leaving active status does not necessitate giving up the judicial salary. Under judiciary rules, any judge can retire or take senior status at age 65, which means they still get paid as long as they have served for 15 years.

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