Incumbents Out, Party In? Term Limits and Partisan Redistricting in State Legislatures

Abstract

AbstractHow do term limits affect the electoral changes caused by state legislative redistricting? To answer this question, we compare the success of majority parties in the redistricting process in legislatures with and without term limits. We hypothesize that majority parties use the districts of term-limited members to redistribute supporters from safe districts to more competitive ones. We find that, indeed, the majority party changes district lines more in districts with term-limited legislators. Furthermore, the majority party is more strategic in reallocating voters for partisan gain in term-limited districts. Thus, our findings suggest that term limits make the redistricting process more partisan and that a reform intended to remove incumbents from the legislature actually strengthens the majority party.It's ironic that one of the few things that the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently upheld as a factor you can use in redrawing districts is incumbency, and we're going to be redrawing state legislative districts right after term limits take effect in the Senate. We won't have any incumbents in those districts.—Arkansas Attorney General Mark Pryor