As Old Leaders Hang On, California Democrats Decide Not to Discuss Mandatory Retirement Age

California Democrats postponed discussion of a resolution demanding a mandatory retirement age for state and local officials, even as the Democratic Party’s leadership ages and faces new forms of public scrutiny.

Though sales have been slow for CNN anchor Jake Tapper’s Original Sin, which alleges that Democrats covered up former President Joe Biden’s infirmity, the book is driving an internal conversations about age.

The San Francisco Chroniclereports that Democrats were to have considered a resolution on a mandatory retirement age for state and local oficials, they decided not to have that tough conversation at the moment:

The author of the resolution, Eric Kingsbury of San Francisco, said Thursday he was disappointed that the party delayed this “uncomfortable conversion,” even as the New York Times bestseller list is led by “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.”

“We need the fierce urgency of now in our leaders, and we’re not seeing it, and we need to understand the generational change is part of bringing that urgency forward,” said Kingsbury, an elected member of the board steering the Democratic party in San Francisco. “We have to show voters that we understand that what happened in 2024 was unacceptable, that what happened with Joe Biden was unacceptable, and that we are making changes as a result.

…

The party’s resolutions committee said it “postponed” the San Francisco proposal because that is a term that the committee uses when it has to conduct research or seek input from stakeholders, or when a resolution is not written correctly and requires extensive changes, said party spokeswoman Robin Swanson. It will be eligible to be considered at the party’s Executive Board meeting this summer.

California Democrats are known for embracing older leaders — whether former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who is 85 years old; or the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who passed away in office in 2023 at the age of 90; or former Governor Jerry Brown (D), who retired after a fourth term, at the age of  80.

The Democratic Party as a whole is also struggling with the issue. Democrats are currently acting to remove Democratic National Committee vice chairman David Hogg, who said that he intended to spend party funds to support primary challenges by young activists against entrenched, aging congressional incumbents.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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