By Bill Bailey

Guest columnist

Once a person reaches their mid-60s, and certainly their mid-70s, a certain sense of both understanding and freedom sets in.

My guess is that once the first number of your age becomes an 8, that must be even more true.

Sometimes, that age freedom creates a desire to offer opinions or get involved in ways that earlier years didn’t lend themselves to. Risk means less. I’m there.

First, I believe that the time is ripe with reasons for two amendments to our Constitution.

The Constitution already has several requirements that one must meet before they can run for president. Among them is an age requirement. One must be 35 years old or older. That “or older” concerns me now.

I think we need a new amendment to the Constitution that sets a limit on the other end. No person can serve as president if they will be 70 years of age during their presidential term.

Thanks to technology and medicines, we are living longer now. I am not convinced our mental skills, our emotional balance or our decision making has kept up with our longevity. “Stumbles” and confusions by both leading presidential candidates in the last year is sufficient to prove my point. And they seem to be occurring more frequently … scarily so.

Hearing improved by a hearing aid, eyesight made clearer by glasses or even walking made steady by a cane is one thing. You can’t improve real cognitive confusion. Men or women who can order a nuclear attack need to be as sharp as possible.

Secondly, it is way past time for term limits. I say this with some experience.

After some period of time, 99% of all elected officials begin to see their elected office as who they are, rather than what they do. In the Indiana legislature, I saw members who had been there way too long. But they had done a good job of not doing much that might cause anyone to be offended, belonged to enough groups or clubs back home and had cast enough votes in support of organizations with large checkbooks that would make a contribution to their next campaign that they were “safe.”

Term limits would guarantee a constant refreshing of the thinking and enthusiasm it takes to be a good elected official. The argument that staff or bureaucrats would end up governing has no merit. One, it is not their personality to want to be in charge. And two, all elected officials have a healthy ego … they think they can do it better. That’s why they ran.

So my second amendment to our Constitution would be a limit of 12 years or 70 years of age, whichever came first, for all state and federally elected or appointed positions. That would include federal judges and the Supreme Court. The presidency and vice presidency would continue at eight years.

Members of Congress and state legislators doing that for the courthouse, state administrative offices, the president, even federal judges could be done much more easily than for local, state or federal legislators. Those guaranteed incomes, the perks, the pensions and knowing that a dozen lobbyists will fund your re-election campaign is probably too much to expect of the legislative branches to include themselves.

And finally, the restatement: No one is above the law. The first part of the first sentence of the preamble to our Declaration of Independence reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (people) are created equal …”

I don’t want the most connected, the most wealthy, the most popular, the most important, the current or the former held to any different measure of the law than me. We may have the best health care that money can buy, but justice cannot and must not be for sale or trade.

Bill Bailey is a former Seymour city councilman, mayor of Seymour, state representative and president of the Greater Seymour Chamber of Commerce. He is a current resident of Seymour. Send comments to [email protected].