Four of the 6-0 votes to enact term limits for mayor, city council and other city offices came from Republican members of City Council.

While we understand the belief that partisanship and parties should be as little a factor in local government as possible, it is noteworthy in regards to the ordinance for one reason: In the most recent mayoral election, the Republican Party failed to offer a candidate.

In 2023, Mayor Derek Slaughter was reelected with 92.2% of the vote in large part because his was the only name on the ballot.

Even in this year’s municipal election, for which voters have begun to cast ballots, the Republican Party had every right to nominate three candidates for the three City Council seats up for election.

They instead have two.

While the timing of council’s vote may bring Republicans’ difficulty in finding or recruiting candidates to the forefront, it would be unfair to ascribe this troubling issue to one party or side. As we have noted numerous times over the past few years, the volume of uncompetitive races throughout our county worries us.

Look beyond the city and even in this election, the 2025 election, many positions including township supervisor, borough council member and school board member are uncontested.

We worry in part because any solution to getting more candidates to enter races — so that voters have the choices they deserve — escapes us as well.

We acknowledged in Thursday’s editorial that there may be strong arguments for an underlying principle of term limits. The belief that greater turnover for elected offices will usher in greater responsiveness and place legislative and governing bodies closer to their constituents.

But the more immediate problem in our eyes isn’t that a candidate can run for reelection many times but that many of those times, there won’t be other choices for voters on the ballot.