Once again, Nikki Haley is calling for a competency test, but her latest defense of the proposal, published at Fox News, has a curious detail:
The test I’m proposing for Sen. Feinstein, President Biden and others is not complicated or difficult. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test is a widely used tool for detecting cognitive decline. It involves rather simple things like naming animals, memorizing and recalling a few words, and listing words that begin with the same letter. They should both take the test, along with every other politician over the age of 75 – Republican or Democrat, man or woman – and publish the results.
This is not a qualification for office. Failing a mental competency test would not result in removal. It is about transparency. Voters deserve to know whether those who are making major decisions about war and peace, taxation and budgets, schools and safety, can pass a very basic mental exam.
Wait, as Haley envisions it, a public official could fail a mental competency test, and then remain in office? They wouldn’t face any consequences for failing that competency test until they next faced the voters in a reelection bid? Haley points to 89-year-old Dianne Feinstein as a prime example of someone who has gotten too old and addled to do the job; Haley writes, “I agree with several congressional Democrats who say Feinstein should resign immediately and let someone else who is able to do the job take over.”
But Feinstein isn’t running for reelection, and her current term ends on January 3, 2025. So under Haley’s proposed plan, Feinstein could take the competency test, fail… and nothing would change. The test would give us specific numbers to match what we can see in the officeholder’s increasingly rare public appearances.
A second-term president would be in the same situation, unless his cabinet invoked the 25th Amendment after a failed cognitive test. An elderly senator could flunk the cognitive test in the first year of a six-year term, and stick around, helped along by staff, for another five years.
How is that better than the current circumstances?
Finally, is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test really going to sort out who can handle the duties of high office? Oh, you say the officeholder can name animals, memorizing and recalling a few words, and list words that begin with the same letter? We feel better already.