The Effect of Term Limits When Competition is Endogenized: A Preliminary Model

Abstract

In the ongoing debate about legislative term limits it is an almost unchallenged assumption that restricting the number of terms legislators can serve will decrease average legislative tenure and, in the process, increase legislative competitiveness. Certainly if, in the absence of term limits, the average tenure is greater than what the new restriction would permit, then a restriction on terms will necessarily reduce average years of service. However, if the average previous length of service without term limits is less than the maximum length of service under the new term limit restrictions, we can show that it is quite possible that changes in key parameters induced by rational actors responding to the institutional shift can create circumstances in which average tenure in office actually rises after term limits are introduced. Moreover, it does not follow that higher turnover implies greater average competitiveness for seats. As the political scientist Thomas Mann was perhaps the first to realize (Mann, 1992:25), we can easily imagine circumstances in which the ceiling imposed by term limits turns “into a floor, with would-be candidates deferring their challenge and awaiting the involuntary retirement of the incumbent. If a norm of deference to the term-limited incumbent takes root, elections would only be contested in open seats, and then only those not safe for one party or the other.”