Interactive
Americans overwhelmingly want to cap the age of their lawmakers. The data behind the debate tells a more complicated story: what drives a legislator's output is experience and position, not the year on a birth certificate.
Legislative Effectiveness Scores, 118th Congress, from the Center for Effective Lawmaking. Scores are normalized so the average member equals 1.0. What separates the effective from the invisible is seniority, party control and a committee gavel.
Share who support each reform, NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, April 2026 (n=1,322). Backing barely moves across party lines — and older voters are, if anything, slightly keener than younger ones.
Members of the House of Representatives by generation, 119th Congress. In 2025, Generation X became the largest bloc — the chamber everyone pictures as a gerontocracy is quietly changing hands.
The modern Congress passes a fraction of the laws it once did — but each statute is many times longer, as policy gets bundled into a few sprawling vehicles. Counting laws is a poor way to count legislation.
Sources: Center for Effective Lawmaking (U. Virginia / Vanderbilt); NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll, April 2026; Pew Research Center; Brookings Institution.