Impact Of Term Limits Research Articles

The impact of term limits on municipal borrowing costs

Gubernatorial term limits constrain the number of terms that a governor can serve in office. In this regard, previous models (with imperfect information) indicate that governors tend to responsibly spend during the first term to build political capital, while the last term is associated with higher spending. In estimation with state fixed effects, we find that municipal bonds issued during a governor's last term are associated with higher yields. Such yields are related to spending in construction, highways, and pensions, with the effect mitigated when the governor runs for future political office. We also document that house term limits that constrain the terms of legislators are associated with higher bond yields.

The Veterans are All Gone: Evaluating Term Limits after Implementation

After nearly 13 years of research and more than 400 interviews with state legislators in Michigan’s State House and State Senate, the authors present an initial look at the impact of term limits on Michigan’s state legislature. In Michigan legislators expelled from lower chambers often ran for a seat in the upper chamber. So for many years after term limits were initially implemented, the upper chamber in Michigan continued to be dominated by veterans who, although new to that chamber, had served for decades in the lower chamber. Now veteran legislators have been purged from both chambers in Michigan. And only now, we argue, can one evaluate the full impact of legislative term limits on state government. We found that there were more changes in the pre- and post-term-limits State Senate than there were in the pre- and post-term-limits House, to our surprise. Additionally we found that term limits interact in some unexpected and puzzling ways with political party, opposition party status, legislative chamber and sharing the Governor’s party.

The Impact of State Legislative Term Limits on the Competitiveness of Congressional Elections

This study examines the impact of state legislative term limits on the candidacy decisions of challengers in U.S. House elections. Using data from 1996 to 2006, the authors show that the impact of term limits is mitigated by local political factors, such as an incumbent’s election margin. The larger the incumbent’s previous electoral margin, the lower the likelihood of facing a quality challenger. The authors also identify an unanticipated consequence of term limits: In incumbent races, term limits can generate a substitution effect; as termed out state legislators enter elections, other quality challengers from the same party stay out of the race, as they are unwilling to face a primary in addition to a general election fight. As a result, the increased number of termed out state legislators who seek Congressional office are offset by the reduced number of other quality challengers from nonlegislative offices, resulting in minimally more competitive Congressional elections.

Minority Party Gains Under State Legislative Term Limits

AbstractThe term limits movement of the 1990s was largely driven by Republican-led groups as part of a larger strategy to unseat entrenched Democratic incumbents in Congress and state legislatures. Likewise, many political scientists predicted that, as the traditional minority party, Republicans would benefit from term limits by eliminating the Democrats' incumbency advantage. However, other studies provided reasons to be skeptical of these predicted gains. No empirical study has yet examined the accuracy of these predictions. This study seeks to fill this void by utilizing multivariate data analysis to study the impact of term limits on the partisan composition of state legislatures from 1990 to 2004. The findings suggest that, holding other factors constant, Republicans have not gained representation at the state legislative level under term limits as was predicted.

Do Term Limits Affect Legislative Roll Call Voting? Representation, Polarization, and Participation

In a nationwide survey Carey, Niemi, Powell, and Moncrief (2006) found that term-limited state legislators feel less constrained by their constituencies. I use direct measures of legislative activity to examine how this “Burkean shift” in attitudes is manifested in roll-call behavior. With a new dataset consisting of all competitive state legislative roll calls for the 1999–2000 sessions and a new measure of district constituency preferences, I examine three hypotheses: that term-limited legislators are less representative of their constituents, are more polarized, and participate less in roll-call voting. I find no evidence that term-limited legislators are any less representative, and no differences in levels of party polarization appear associated with the term limits reform. I find that the impact of term limits on roll-call voting is manifested in decreased legislative effort, but this effect only appears in the more demanding legislatures. The results are consistent with the sorting model in which elections are reasonably efficient at selecting leaders whose preferences align with those of their districts, but the prospect of re-election has little role in achieving representation of constituents' ideological preferences.

Assessing the Impact of Term Limits in Missouri

Assessing the Impact of Term Limits in Missouri

The impact of term limits on legislative program evaluation

AbstractTerm limits are likely to shape legislative program evaluation for the next decade. As legislatures turn over more quickly, nonpartisan legislative evaluation offices may play a greater role in the public policy arena. They hold the promise of being a source of institutional memory and credible information for the legislature.

Equilibrium Projections of the Consequences of Term Limits Upon Expected Tenure, Institutional Turnover, and Membership Experience

In this treatment we introduce a method for understanding and projecting the effects of term limits upon tenure in office and institutional turnover. Expected tenure is estimated from a geometric series specification, and expected turnover rates are estimated from a dynamic equilibrium model. The normal membership attrition rates of legislatures, together with the impact of term limits, do lead to a stable membership equilibrium. These equilibrium values are higher than many would expect For example, the direct effects of eight-year term limits upon the lower chambers in the American states lead to an expected (mean) turnover rate of approximately 36%. When indirect effects are added, due to more valued opportunities to run for higher office, the turnover rate may exceed even 50%, depending upon particular conditions. High attrition rates result in very few members with the maximum allowable experience.

Term-Limit Logic: Paradigms and Paradoxes

The term-limit movement has drawn support from all quarters because members have been able to present term limitation as a "cure-all" reform. Yet term-limit proponents do not agree among themselves about the reasons for and likely impacts of term limits; rather, they can be divided into four competing groups of Term-Limit Progressives, Term-Limit Populists, Term-Limit Republicans, and Term-Limit Libertarians. This article identifies the distinct philosophical approach of each group and compares their expectations about the goals and effects of term limits and the likely impact of term limits on various political actors.