Age, term limits for Virginia politicos should be on the agenda

Barbara Henley, the 83-year-old, decades-long Virginia Beach councilwoman, has every right to seek yet another term on the 11-member body in the state’s largest city.

Her constituents, though, have just as much the right to question whether her age has now become a detriment, whether she has anything new to offer, and if she’s still effective. Nor is she the only politico across Virginia who should confront those issues.

Henley was the recent subject of a long profile by WHRO. The article discussed Henley’s continuing fight over land use and development in her section, and the hurdles she faces to maintain its historic agricultural setting. 

One anecdote was particularly telling – and embarrassing: She couldn’t even get a “second” on her motion to deny a bulk storage facility in her district.

I asked Henley if her advocacy of specific issues no longer resonates with voters. “Not as far as the public goes,” she replied in a phone interview, speaking of the support she hears from residents.  

Maybe, maybe not. What’s undisputed is Henley has served a total of 40 years on City Council, after first joining the body in 1978. That was the year after I graduated from high school; my 50th class reunion is next year.

I’m not focusing on Henley alone, nor is there any suggestion her health is an issue. Yet her tenure – and others’ in Virginia – raises uncomfortable but necessary questions regarding elected officials at the local, state and federal levels:

How long is too long for city council members, county supervisors, state legislators and congressional members? Would term limits benefit representation and make it easier for other individuals to share their ideas and expertise? The advantage of decades-long incumbency often scares off would-be challengers.

And, at the risk of sounding ageist: Should elective bodies have mandatory retirement? After all, state appellate, circuit and district court judges in Virginia must call it quits at age 73. It’s reasonable to ask whether similar restrictions should be imposed on politicians, too – wherever the benchmark is set.

Henley isn’t the only 75-year-old-plus official who’s hung on among the commonwealth’s elective bodies. (I couldn’t find a comprehensive list.)

Robert Adkins, a longtime member of the Wise County Board of Supervisors, turns 92 this year. His current term runs through 2029. Pat Woodbury, who served 16 years on the Newport News City Council, was 88 when she decided not to run for re-election in 2024.

Some politicos seem pathological about continuing to vie for office. 

Mary Kate Cary, a former adjunct professor with the University of Virginia department of politics, wrote an op-ed in 2023 ticking off reasons why they stay on the stage even while up in age: Their identity is tied to their job. Their ego convinces them they’re the only one who could handle the role. They enjoy the power and prestige.

I know that advanced age doesn’t always negate effectiveness or clout. State Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, 82, helped shut down then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s bid to locate a $2 billion arena project in Alexandria in 2024. The proposal would’ve authorized public financing of the facility. She also was the most vociferous proponent of forcing data centers to pay more of their fair share in Virginia; a compromise ended up in this year’s budget.

Senate budget proposal keeps data center sales tax exemption, adds new tax for industry

However, at the congressional level, several age-related examples of placing personal status and fame over the public good are easy to find. They’ve been bipartisan, and they’ve often surmounted the bounds of common decency.

Chief among them was the tenure of Sen. Strom Thurmond. The onetime Dixiecrat and later Republican from South Carolina turned 100 while in office in 2002. He’d suffered health problems in his later years in the Senate, and there was open speculation about his fitness for office.

“He sometimes seems confused at Senate hearings, where his participation has been reduced to little more than his reading questions from cards prepared by his staff,” The New York Times reported in 2001. Late in his career he was president pro tem in the Senate, placing him just third in the line of presidential succession. Yikes.

Thurmond died in 2003, a few months after his final term ended. 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, then 89, appeared “shockingly diminished” after returning to her job from a two-month absence in 2023, The Times reported. The California Democrat used a wheelchair, had been hospitalized for shingles and suffered other complications. She’d previously suffered memory problems. 

Yet the six-term senator refused to retire – in a state that overwhelmingly elects Democrats to the Senate and favors them for president. Feinstein died in September 2023 while still in office at age 90.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, a District of Columbia Democratic delegate who has limited powers in the U.S. House of Representatives, announced this year she finally would not seek re-election. She’s served in the role since 1991.

Norton had faced complaints about her effectiveness after the Trump administration intervened in law enforcement activities in D.C. starting in 2025. Now 89, she’d also suffered mental and physical decline in recent years.

President Joe Biden’s insistence on running for re-election, as he was fending off questions about his mental acuity and physical strength at age 81, came to a head following his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump in June 2024.

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It was ultimately the catalyst for Biden to exit the race and throw his support to Kamala Harris, but the late switch was too much for Harris to overcome – and helped usher in a second erratic Trump term. 

Then there’s the continuing saga over the health of 84-year-old Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who apparently suffered a cardiac arrest last month. His staff has been evasive about the extent and nature of his illness. He’s previously looked frail. He fell and suffered injuries in 2023, and he’s had episodes where he froze while speaking publicly; medical observers said he likely suffered mini-seizures.

The timing of a U.S. Senate vacancy in Kentucky has political implications for how it would be filled, too. The Senate currently has a narrow GOP majority.

Henley, the Virginia Beach councilwoman, told WHRO she probably wouldn’t have run again if Winky, her husband of 63 years, hadn’t died earlier this year. I’m sure that’s been painful.

I’m less sure that’s the proper way to decide what’s best for constituents. 

Why not just walk away, even if a successor doesn’t have the same platform? 

“I couldn’t do that,” she told me in our interview. 

It would be better to pass the baton to a younger generation of leaders. But it’s difficult to hand it off to them when the old guard refuses to exit the arena.