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Senate’s power brokers are aging; several to seek new terms

In this March 16, 2016 file photo, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Millennials have emerged as the nation's largest living generation yet you wouldn't know it from the power brokers in the Republican-controlled Senate. The body's eldest members wield the gavel as committee chairmen, and several of them are asking voters to give them another six years. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
In this March 16, 2016 file photo, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Millennials have emerged as the nation's largest living generation yet you wouldn't know it from the power brokers in the Republican-controlled Senate. The body's eldest members wield the gavel as committee chairmen, and several of them are asking voters to give them another six years. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) In this March 16, 2016 file photo, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Millennials have emerged as the nation's largest living generation yet you wouldn't know it from the power brokers in the Republican-controlled Senate. The body's eldest members wield the gavel as committee chairmen, and several of them are asking voters to give them another six years. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

By Associated Press 5 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – Millennials have emerged as the nation’s largest living generation yet that demographic shift isn’t reflected in the upper reaches of the Republican-controlled Senate, where the body’s oldest members are the power brokers.

And several are asking voters for new six-year terms.

At 82, Chuck Grassley wants Iowans to send him back to the Senate for a seventh time. The Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee pitches his seniority as a plus, telling voters he gives them a “big voice at the policymaking tables” in Washington.

Arizona’s John McCain, the 79-year-old chairman of the Armed Services Committee, also is running for re-election. So are Richard Shelby of Alabama, the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee chairman who turned 82 on Friday, and 71-year-old Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who leads the Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the Senate’s ethics panel.

Other committees are controlled by senior Republicans whose terms don’t end for at least a few more years. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the chairman of the Finance Committee, is 82 and has been a senator since 1977 – the same year Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as president, Elvis Presley died and the first Stars Wars movie came out.