There are already requirements for most elected officials. Age, citizenship, and residency requirements are common. Thus the slippery slope argument "if we have any requirements at all that's a slippery slope to having arbitrarily bad requirements" already applies equally to the current situation as it would to any proposal to change the requirements.

> Thus the slippery slope argument

That wasn't an argument I made though. I asked:

> Who gets to set the test?

Which gets to the core of the point. The current requirements are fixed in legal stone and nobody gets to alter them. They aren't being [ab]used for political advantage.

People on here are proposing arbitrary ability tests that [someone] gets to create and alter using [some] undefined methodology.

You combine that with the history of ability-based testing (which, incidentally none of the existing requirements are) and it leaves a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths.

I don't really understand your argument. All laws are set in stone and unalterable, except by the legislature of course. A proposal to change the requirements for an elected office would require the same process as any other legislative change. In the case of the governor of Missouri, this would require amending the Missouri Constitution. I don't think anyone is proposing that some random Hacker News commenter gets to create and alter a test whenever and however they want.

History is littered with examples of eugenics programs, but that doesn't mean we should ban genetic testing.

A better analogy would be:

> History is littered with examples of eugenics programs, but that doesn't mean we should ban eugenics.

To which I'd argue we should absolutely ban eugenics because of the history of eugenics. Just like we should ban arbitrary political entry testing because of the history of exactly that.

I'm not making an "apples Vs. oranges" comparison, I'm making an "apples vs. historical apples" one.

You're looking at it from a perspective of "must pass the test to qualify"?

I'm looking at it from "test results should be public, anyone qualifies to run."