The House cleared a narrow bill to give the Capitol Police Board discretion to extend retirement waivers up to age 62, moving it to the president’s desk after a voice vote and aiming to keep experienced officers on the force amid a persistent staffing crunch.
For the second time in less than a month, the House approved legislation aimed at keeping experienced Capitol Police officers on the job longer, this time sending the bill directly to the president’s desk after a voice vote. The change is limited: it gives the Capitol Police Board authority to raise the mandatory retirement waiver age for officers to as high as 62, up from the current cap of 60. Under existing law, officers must retire at 57 unless the board grants an exemption.
The bill does not mandate a new mandatory retirement age; it simply gives the board the option to set a ceiling anywhere between 57 and 62. That modest fix is designed to address an immediate personnel gap: around 60 sworn officers are currently working on retirement waivers, more than double the size of a typical recruiting class. Republican leaders on Capitol Hill argue that losing those veterans would deepen an already thin bench at exactly the wrong moment.
The House had passed a broader version last month that would have let waivers extend to 65, a proposal led by House Administration Chair Bryan Steil, R-Wis. The Senate adopted a narrower approach under Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., capping waivers at 62. Rather than risk a conference fight and delay, the House accepted the Senate’s number by voice vote so the bill could go straight to the president.
Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., framed the choice as pragmatic and urgent on the House floor, arguing for flexibility in who stays. He put the practical point simply: experienced officers in the prime of their careers should have the chance to remain on the force when their work is still valuable. That argument carried enough weight for bipartisan voice-vote passage, a sign that Capitol security remains a rare area of agreement.
“We need to make sure that we not only can keep attracting new officers to the force, but when you’ve got officers in the prime of their career, that everybody agrees are worthy of keeping on, that they have that flexibility.”
Steil, who pressed the more aggressive 65-year cap, warned bluntly about looming forced retirements. He said dozens of veteran officers face mandatory exits in the near future unless the statute is changed, a dynamic that would worsen the staffing shortage at a critical time. That warning pushed lawmakers to accept a narrower bill to secure faster action.
“Unless we pass this statutory change, each of these officers will be forced to retire within the next few years. These forced retirements will only compound the staffing shortage issue that we’re facing within the Capitol Police force.”
The Capitol Police union welcomed the bill as a useful first step while making clear it is not a full solution. Union chairman Gus Papathanasiou said raising the waiver authority to 62 or even 65 would help, but urged Congress to pursue deeper reforms so trained officers do not walk out the door. The union points to structural problems in the federal retirement system that leave Capitol Police less competitive with state and local agencies.
“The authority of the age waiver by the USCP Board to 62 or even 65, will help a little with the manpower issues we face on a daily basis, but Congress needs to look at retaining experienced trained officers for years to come.”
Papathanasiou singled out overtime pay and how it counts toward retirement benefit calculations as a long-standing issue that influences retention. He argued that modern pay and benefits at many state and local departments make it easy for mid-career Capitol Police officers to lateral away. In his view, fixing the retirement math and pay incentives would do far more to keep talent than a temporary age tweak.
“What may have worked in the 1980s and 1990s doesn’t cut it in today’s law enforcement environment.”
The measure itself is deliberately limited: it does not automatically extend any officer’s career, nor does it change the mandatory retirement age by statute. Instead, the Capitol Police Board, where Chief Michael Sullivan is a nonvoting member, would gain discretion to grant waivers up to age 62 rather than being capped at 60. Officers would still have to earn the waiver and the board would still decide which waivers to approve.
By accepting the Senate’s 62-year cap, the House chose speed over scope and moved to avoid a drawn-out negotiation over an extra three years of waiver authority. That posture reflects a pragmatic streak: get a workable tool in place now rather than stall on a larger reform that could take months. In a Congress that often struggles to pass routine funding, the quick bipartisan voice votes on this issue stand out.
The bigger problem remains broader retention and recruitment hurdles that one bill cannot solve. Recruiting is tough across law enforcement, and the federal pay and benefits structure for Capitol Police can lag behind local departments. If overtime, benefits calculations, and competitiveness are not addressed, the waiver authority will be a stopgap rather than a lasting fix.
The bill now awaits the president’s signature, and if signed the board immediately gains the new waiver authority for officers between 57 and 62. How aggressively the board uses that power will determine whether the change actually stabilizes staffing levels. For the union and supporters on the Hill, the hope is that this first step leads to the harder work of reforming retirement and pay structures so the Capitol retains its best people.
