There are some good arguments both for and against the idea of limiting the number of terms a political candidate can hold office.
The argument in favor of term limits is that incumbents have a built-in advantage over challengers. The very fact that they are in office gives them a kind of free publicity and respectability. Because of this advantage, a mediocre office-holder can hold the same position for decades, even against more qualified candidates running against them. Putting a limit on the number of years a politician can hold a given office guarantees a higher degree of turn-over.
The argument against term limits is that they are anti-democratic; if an office-holder is doing a good job and the public really does want to re-elect them, term limits denies the people that choice. Another argument is that for some kinds of offices (like the U.S. Senate), experience matters, and so there is a benefit to allowing politicians to serve many terms.
Having thought about this for many years, I would like to propose a simple compromise solution: instead of outright forbidding candidates to hold office a certain number of years, instead give incumbents a minor handicap. The formula would look something like this:
- If a candidate for an office has held that office in the previous term, reduce their total vote count by 5%.
- If a candidate for an office has held that office in the previous two terms, reduce their total vote count by 10%.
- If the candidate for an office has held that office for three or more terms, reduce their total vote count by 15%.
This means that if an incumbent is doing a good job and people really do want to re-elect them, they can do so; they just have to win by a slightly higher margin than they would if they were not an incumbent.
The size of the handicap that I have given (five percent) is not set in stone. For offices that are historically closely-contested, you might want to make the handicap smaller. Similarly, if it’s an office where a lower degree of turnover is desirable (because of the need for experience in governing), you could also reduce the size of the handicap. Ideally the exact percentage should be driven by data; an analysis of victory margins by incumbents would be a good place to start.
Also note that the handicap is capped at three terms. That means if an incumbent is running for their 4th, 5th or subsequent term, they are not given any additional penalties. The reason for this is that a 15% handicap is already pretty severe, a candidate has to be really popular to win with a 15 point margin. Making the handicap any larger would be nearly equivalent to barring them from running at all, which would be effectively the same as term limits.
There’s an argument to be made that only a small handicap is needed, because the handicap operates on multiple levels. Not only does it reduce the probability that an incumbent will be elected, it also discourages them from running at all if they know that the race is likely to be close. This also affects donors to the incumbent’s campaign fund, who will consider the incumbent to be less “electable”.
One question to consider is whether a rule like this would even be constitutional. I’m not a lawyer, and certainly not a constitutional lawyer, so I can’t give an authoritative answer. And I imagine it would depend on which constitution is being considered; for example, each of the 50 states of the U.S. has its own constitution which includes, among other things, rules for handling elections.
With that caveat, I imagine that it would be no problem in most cases. Cities and states within the U.S. have, from time to time, changed their voting algorithms, for example changing from plurality voting to instant run-off. And the incumbent handicap proposed here is certainly less restrictive on voters than absolute term limits.
I think that as long as the formula isn’t biased against any specific group of people (either voters or candidates), other than being biased against incumbents, it should pass legal scrutiny.
