Paul Farago · Revision 2.0 · 2026-01-10

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FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATING TERM-LIMIT DESIGN

Structural Validity and Washington–Madison Doctrine

METHODOLOGICAL STATEMENT

This framework evaluates eligibility rules as institutional design structures. It does not infer intent, speculate about motive, or assess political desirability.

Findings are grounded in:

textual features of the rule,
predictable structural effects, and
administrability in real institutional settings.

The framework distinguishes between two forms of evaluation:

Structural Validity — whether a design functions coherently as a rule
Normative Adequacy — whether a design advances a theory of republican rotation

These two forms of analysis are deliberately separated.

Structural Validity is analytic and descriptive.
Normative Adequacy, articulated through the Doctrine, is evaluative and theoretical.

PURPOSE

Current discourse on term limits frequently conflates structurally distinct institutional designs, leading to invalid empirical conclusions and distorted policy evaluation. In particular, systems that merely simulate limits while preserving incumbent continuity are routinely analyzed alongside designs that genuinely impose rotation, obscuring meaningful structural differences.

This framework provides a disciplined reference for evaluating eligibility rules as institutional architecture, independent of office, jurisdiction, or political context. It is not a proposal, a campaign document, or a model statute. Its function is to clarify how rotation operates structurally, and to provide criteria for distinguishing coherent bounded-eligibility systems from designs that only simulate limits.

The framework is elections-based. It treats elections—not years, not consecutive service—as the unit of democratic authorization and limitation unless the governing text explicitly provides otherwise.

SCOPE BOUNDARIES

This framework does not evaluate:

political feasibility
partisan advantage
popularity with voters
democratic legitimacy
likelihood of enactment
constitutionality under existing doctrine
policy outcomes beyond structural effects

Its sole purpose is to evaluate the design logic and systemic behavior of eligibility regimes.

INTERPRETIVE DISCIPLINE

Where textual features clearly produce unequal, incoherent, or non-administrable effects, those effects are treated as structural defects.
Where ambiguity exists, ambiguity is treated as a defect only if it creates real risks of inconsistent application, discretionary judgment, or predictable gaming.
Otherwise, uncertainty is acknowledged rather than resolved in favor of critique.

This discipline preserves analytic fairness and guards against over-reading.

MODULE I — STRUCTURAL VALIDITY

(Analytic, descriptive, professionally neutral)

Purpose

To determine whether a design constitutes a structurally valid term-limit system — meaning a bounded eligibility regime capable of uniform, coherent, and mechanical application.

A system may be structurally valid yet normatively weak. This module addresses only structural function.

CORE STRUCTURAL TESTS

Each test is applied through:

a diagnostic question,
textual evidence, and
observed structural effect.

1. Equal Application Test

Question:
Does the rule treat all persons identically across time, without cohort-based differences in cumulative eligibility?

Structural failure indicators:

exemptions tied to incumbency
cohort carve-outs
protected classes
grandfathered eligibility
service counted differently based solely on timing

2. Aggregation Integrity Test

Question:
Does all qualifying service accumulate toward a single bounded eligibility ceiling?

Structural failure indicators:

eligibility resets after absence
multiple clocks or parallel limits
excluded categories of service
artificial discontinuities in counting

3. Transition Coherence Test

Question:
If the rule shifts regimes, does the transition operate as a finite mechanical bridge rather than as a permanent exemption?

Structural failure indicators:

legacy service permanently excluded
undefined integration of prior service
discretionary extensions
transitional carve-outs that never expire

4. Administrative Coherence Test

Question:
Can the rule be applied mechanically and uniformly, without complex interpretation, discretionary judgment, or predictable gaming?

Structural failure indicators:

multi-layered counting rules
reliance on interpretive discretion
unstable edge cases
foreseeable litigation or manipulation pathways

Administrability is treated as structural because lack of it undermines equal application in practice.

STRUCTURAL OUTCOME CATEGORIES

Results are classified analytically rather than rhetorically:

Structurally Valid Term-Limit System
Coherent aggregation, equal application, administrable mechanics.
Structurally Compromised Term-Limit System
Retains bounded eligibility but exhibits identifiable defects (complexity, partial laundering, weak transitions, etc.).
Not Structurally Valid as a Term-Limit System
Fails to function as a bounded eligibility regime (resets, exemptions, cycling, cohort privilege, or equivalent failures).

CONFIDENCE LEVELS FOR FINDINGS

All findings are expressed using calibrated levels of confidence:

Clearly present
Present
Weakly present
Indeterminate
Not present

This reflects professional analytic practice and preserves intellectual honesty where evidence is ambiguous.

NORMATIVE EVALUATION (SEPARATE ANALYTIC STAGE)

This section is intentionally distinct from the Structural Validity analysis above.

Structural Validity asks whether a design functions coherently as an eligibility rule.
Normative Adequacy asks whether a structurally coherent design advances a substantive theory of republican rotation.

The distinction is deliberate. A system may be structurally sound yet normatively weak, or normatively attractive yet structurally defective. Collapsing these questions produces analytic confusion and rhetorical overreach.

The material below therefore shifts registers explicitly:

from descriptive analysis → to evaluative theory
from neutral classification → to value-based judgment
from institutional mechanics → to constitutional ideals

This separation is designed to preserve credibility in professional contexts while still allowing serious normative inquiry to occur transparently rather than implicitly.

MODULE II — NORMATIVE ADEQUACY

THE WASHINGTON–MADISON DOCTRINE

(Normative, theoretical, explicitly value-based)

Purpose

To evaluate whether a structurally valid system meaningfully promotes republican rotation, discourages careerism, and aligns with the conception of officeholding as temporary civic trust rather than durable professional station.

This module assumes the design has already been evaluated for Structural Validity.

THE WASHINGTON–MADISON DOCTRINE (DEFINED)

As used here, the Washington–Madison Doctrine refers to a modern synthesis of founding-era principles associated with republican self-government, particularly the view that:

elective office is a temporary public trust,
durable accumulation of political power is a structural danger,
regular turnover is necessary to preserve civic humility, and
governance should remain intelligible to ordinary citizens rather than dominated by a permanent political class.

This doctrine is normative by design and is stated openly to invite serious engagement rather than rhetorical agreement.

CORE WASHINGTON–MADISON TESTS

Entrenchment Risk Test
Does the design permit tenures long enough to allow durable accumulation of institutional power, seniority, or dominance?
Careerism Incentive Test
Does the structure rationally support long-term career planning around officeholding rather than temporary civic service?
Rotation Cadence Test
Does the expected turnover meaningfully disrupt elite continuity across electoral cycles?
Civic Intelligibility Test
Is the system simple enough that ordinary citizens can readily understand eligibility boundaries and institutional turnover?
Elite Disruption Test
Does the design materially reduce the likelihood that the same political elite will dominate governing institutions over time?

NORMATIVE OUTCOME LANGUAGE

Because this module is evaluative rather than classificatory, findings use calibrated descriptive terms such as:

Normatively strong
Normatively weak
Moderate rotation
High entrenchment risk
Low disruption of elite continuity

No claim of neutrality is made here; transparency is preferred to pretense.

STRUCTURAL DEFECTS VS. DESIGN TRADEOFFS

The framework distinguishes clearly between:

Structural defects
Failures that undermine equal application, aggregation, coherence, or administrability.
Design tradeoffs
Structurally coherent choices that nonetheless weaken rotation strength, simplicity, or elite disruption.

This permits analytically precise conclusions such as:

“The system is structurally coherent but normatively weak under the Doctrine,”

rather than collapsing all critique into a single undifferentiated judgment.

SUMMARY

This framework provides:

a disciplined method for evaluating term-limit design as institutional architecture,
a transparent separation between neutral structural analysis and normative constitutional theory,
language suitable for academic, professional, and institutional contexts, and
an analytical structure capable of scaling across statutes, initiatives, constitutional amendments, and administrative regimes.

FAILURE-MODE MAPPING (REFERENCE)

This section operationalizes the two-module architecture above by distinguishing between:

Structural failure modes — breakdowns that violate the requirements of Structural Validity (Module I), and
Normative risk patterns — outcomes that may be structurally coherent yet conflict with the Doctrine (Module II).

This separation preserves methodological discipline: structural defects are analytic and descriptive; normative critiques are openly value-based.

A. Structural Failure Modes (Module I)

These failure modes describe recurring structural patterns that prevent an eligibility regime from functioning as a coherent, bounded, administrable rule.

A proposal exhibiting one or more of these failures cannot be classified as structurally valid, regardless of intent or stated purpose.

1. Equal Application Failure

A proposal fails equal application when service is not counted uniformly across persons or cohorts, or when eligibility logic produces structurally unequal classes despite facial neutrality.

Common manifestations

Universal Reset (Explicit New Clock) — Prior service is explicitly excluded for all persons (e.g., “service prior to enactment shall not be counted”), creating facial equality but a structural incumbent windfall.
Grandfathering Exemption — Explicit exemption for incumbents or defined cohorts, creating a protected class by text.
Dual-Use Laundering (Contradictory Eligibility Architecture) — Designs in which prior service simultaneously functions as:

a basis for exemption (protecting incumbents), and
a mechanism for restricting newcomers,
producing an internally inconsistent eligibility regime that cannot be coherently or uniformly administered and that enables post hoc interpretive manipulation.

2. Aggregation Failure

A proposal fails aggregation when service does not accumulate toward a finite eligibility ceiling.

Common manifestations

Cooling-Off Laundering — consecutive limits without a lifetime or aggregate cap

3. Measurement Failure

A proposal fails measurement when the unit being limited is unclear, inconsistent, or internally contradictory.

Common manifestations

Unit-of-Measure Collapse — mixing or failing to define elections, terms, or years

4. Transition Integrity Failure

A proposal fails transition integrity when transitional provisions function as deferral, erasure, or exemption rather than convergence toward a single coherent rule.

Common manifestations

Appointment ≠ Election Laundering — appointed or acting service excluded from counting in ways that invite gaming or unequal treatment

5. Administrative Coherence Failure

A proposal fails administrative coherence when its rules cannot be applied mechanically and uniformly in real institutional settings.

Common manifestations

multi-layered or internally inconsistent counting rules
reliance on interpretive discretion to resolve eligibility
predictable edge-case litigation or manipulation pathways

A structurally valid term-limit system must avoid all structural failure modes above.

B. Normative Risk Patterns (Module II)

These patterns do not indicate structural incoherence. Instead, they identify outcomes that may arise from structurally valid designs but that conflict with the evaluative commitments of the Doctrine.

Their inclusion here is transparent and deliberate: they are value-based critiques, not analytic defects.

1. Confidence ≠ Rotation Risk

Voter approval, electoral success, or public confidence is treated as a substitute for rotation rather than as a mechanism operating within a bounded eligibility structure.

2. Office ≠ Leadership Risk

Formal office limits leave open parallel pathways for durable influence (e.g., proxy leadership, shadow authority, or structural dominance) that undermine the practical effect of rotation.

3. Service ≠ Seniority Risk

Experience, institutional memory, or seniority is invoked to justify extended tenure or exemptions that conflict with the conception of officeholding as temporary civic trust.

These are properly assessed under Normative Adequacy, not Structural Validity.

STRUCTURAL ROTATION INTEGRITY TEST (MODULE I)

This instrument operationalizes the Structural Validity analysis only. It is designed to classify whether a proposal constitutes a structurally coherent bounded-eligibility regime.

How to Use This Test

Copy the prompt below.
Paste it into an AI analysis engine (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini).
Paste the full text of the term-limit law, proposal, or description where indicated.
Review the Yes / No determinations for each failure mode, the accompanying structural justifications, and the final classification.

This test analyzes structure, not intent and not normative desirability.

Meta-Prompt: Structural Rotation Integrity Test

[Begin copy below]

Analyze the following proposal strictly as a structural design, not as advocacy.

Avoid first- and second-person pronouns ("I," "we," "you," "your”).
Use formal analytical tone suitable for academic or professional publication.

Do not infer intent, speculate about motive, or evaluate desirability. Do not reinterpret ambiguous language charitably; unresolved ambiguity should be treated as a structural defect only if it creates real risk of inconsistent application, discretionary judgment, or predictable gaming. Do not propose fixes unless explicitly asked.

For each of the following structural failure modes, state Yes / No, with one sentence of justification if Yes:

New-Clock Collapse (incumbent exemption via reset clocks or delayed start dates)
Prospective Laundering (prospective language that nonetheless creates unequal application)
Cooling-Off Laundering (consecutive limits without a lifetime or aggregate ceiling)
Unit-of-Measure Collapse (unclear or inconsistent use of elections, terms, or years)
Appointment ≠ Election Laundering (appointed or acting service excluded in ways that invite gaming or inequality)
Administrative Coherence Failure (rules too complex or discretionary to apply mechanically and uniformly)

Conclude with: “Is this a structurally valid term-limit system, structurally compromised, or not structurally valid?”

[Paste the term-limit law, proposal, or description to evaluate here and press enter]

[End copy]

OPTIONAL COMPARATIVE MODE (SIDE-BY-SIDE USE)

This section provides an optional wrapper for users who wish to evaluate two proposals in a single run for demonstration, teaching, or comparative analysis. It does not replace the core tests above and does not alter their criteria. Each proposal must still be evaluated independently against the same standards.

Purpose

The purpose of Comparative Mode is to allow side-by-side presentation of results while preserving analytical discipline. Proposals are not judged relative to each other; each is evaluated against this framework, and any contrast arises from the independent classifications.

Meta-Prompt: Comparative Evaluation Wrapper

[Begin copy below]

Two proposals are provided below. Apply the Structural Rotation Integrity Test independently to each proposal using the same criteria. Do not evaluate one proposal relative to the other. Do not use comparative language such as "better" or "worse." Treat each proposal as a standalone evaluation under this framework.

Avoid first- and second-person pronouns ("I," "we," "you," "your”).
Use formal analytical tone suitable for academic or professional publication.

Produce the output in three sections:

Proposal A — Structural Results and Classification
Proposal B — Structural Results and Classification
Comparative Summary — A brief, neutral summary identifying where the classifications, failure modes, or conclusions differ, without evaluative language.

[Paste the term-limit law, proposal, or description A to evaluate here and press enter]

[Paste the term-limit law, proposal, or description B to evaluate here and press enter]

[End copy]

This optional wrapper preserves neutrality while enabling side-by-side demonstration of how structurally distinct designs classify under the framework.

NORMATIVE EVALUATION PROMPT (MODULE II — OPTIONAL)

This separate prompt operationalizes the Normative Adequacy analysis under the Doctrine. It assumes the design has already been assessed for Structural Validity.

This prompt produces calibrated risk assessments for each criterion, brief explanations, and a concluding normative characterization.

Meta-Prompt: Washington–Madison Normative Evaluation

[Begin copy below]

Assume the following proposal is structurally coherent.

Avoid first- and second-person pronouns ("I," "we," "you," "your”).
Use formal analytical tone suitable for academic or professional publication.
Ratings should follow logically from the structural features of the design and the definitions provided above, not from rhetorical balance or moderation. A “High” rating is warranted where the structure would predictably prevent ordinary citizens from forming an accurate mental model of eligibility and turnover; “Moderate” should be reserved for designs whose complexity remains broadly intelligible without technical explanation. Evaluate it under the Doctrine, which holds that elective office is a temporary public trust and that durable accumulation of political power poses structural risk to republican self-government.

For each of the following, assess whether the design exhibits low, moderate, or high risk, with one sentence of explanation:

Entrenchment Risk (does the structure permit durable accumulation of power?)
Careerism Incentive Risk (does the structure rationally support long-term career planning in office?)
Rotation Cadence Weakness (does expected turnover meaningfully disrupt elite continuity?)
Civic Intelligibility Deficit (can ordinary citizens readily understand eligibility boundaries?)
Confidence ≠ Rotation Risk (is approval treated as a substitute for structural turnover?)
Office ≠ Leadership Risk (does durable influence persist outside formal office limits?)
Service ≠ Seniority Risk (is experience invoked to justify extended tenure?)

Conclude with a short characterization such as: “Normatively strong,” “Mixed,” or “Normatively weak under the Doctrine.”

[Paste the term-limit law, proposal, or description to evaluate here and press enter]

[End copy]

OPTIONAL COMPARATIVE MODE — NORMATIVE EVALUATION (WASHINGTON–MADISON DOCTRINE)

This section provides a parallel optional wrapper for users who wish to compare normative outcomes side-by-side under the Doctrine. It mirrors the discipline of the structural comparative mode and preserves analytical neutrality.

Purpose

The purpose of this comparative mode is to allow readers to observe how different designs perform against the same normative criteria without converting the instrument into advocacy. Each proposal is evaluated independently under the doctrine; contrasts arise from the results, not from editorial framing.

Meta-Prompt: Comparative Normative Evaluation Wrapper

[Begin copy below]

Two proposals are provided below. Apply the Washington–Madison Normative Evaluation independently to each proposal using the same criteria. Do not evaluate one proposal relative to the other. Do not use comparative language such as "better" or "worse." Treat each proposal as a standalone evaluation under the doctrine.

Avoid first- and second-person pronouns ("I," "we," "you," "your”).
Use formal analytical tone suitable for academic or professional publication.

Ratings must follow logically from the structural features of each design and the definitions provided in the framework, not from rhetorical balance or moderation. A “High” rating is warranted where the structure would predictably prevent ordinary citizens from forming an accurate mental model of eligibility and turnover; “Moderate” should be reserved for designs whose complexity remains broadly intelligible without technical explanation.

Produce the output in three sections:

Proposal A — Normative Evaluation and Characterization
Proposal B — Normative Evaluation and Characterization
Comparative Summary — A brief, neutral summary identifying where risk profiles and final characterizations differ, without evaluative language.

[Paste the term-limit law, proposal, or description A to evaluate here and press enter]

[Paste the term-limit law, proposal, or description B to evaluate here and press enter]

[End copy]

This optional wrapper completes the framework by supporting side-by-side normative illustration while preserving doctrinal discipline and institutional voice.

Applied Example:
Equal-Duration Congressional Term Limits Amendment (Rev. 3.1C)