Conclusion and implications

Abstract

As we suggested in the introduction to this book, the imposition of term limits on fifteen state legislatures was the most significant-and some would say drastic-institutional change in state government in the last two decades. Between 1991 and 2000, twenty-one states adopted term limits. But this number was winnowed-and the extension of term limits to new legislatures abruptly halted-as states were blocked from applying term limits to Congress by the Supreme Court's interpretation of the qualifications clause, as state court decisions invalidated some state term limit provisions, and as the movement ran its course through the states with the initiative process. Contrasting the states that did not adopt and retain term limits with the fifteen states that did provides a natural experiment on the effect of finite terms of office on representation, legislative structure, the balance of power, and policy-making. The preceding chapters discussed the findings from the Joint Project on Term Limits-comprised of state studies and national surveys-on the effects of term limits on the composition, representation, leadership, committee systems, lobbyists and interest groups, culture, staffing, legislativeexecutive relations, and policy of state legislatures. In this chapter, we return to the arguments of the proponents and opponents of term limits in chapter 1 and discuss them in the context of the project's empirical results, as a way of summarizing the project's findings. An important preliminary point, discussed repeatedly in the preceding chapters, is that some effects vary with the nature of the term limit and the type of state legislature under consideration. It matters whether the term limit is shorter (e.g., six years in the House and eight years in the Senate in Arkansas, California, and Michigan) or longer (e.g., twelve years in each chamber in Louisiana and Nevada). In more subtle ways, it also matters whether there is a lifetime ban or a consecutive term limit. Moreover, these variations in term limit law interact with the institutional differences present in legislatures before term limits were applied. Generally, the more professionalized the legislature was, the greater the impact of term limits has been. Because the greater resources (time, staff, facilities, and compensation) of the more professionalized legislatures make them more attractive places to serve, fewer incumbents leave these legislatures voluntarily. Those greater resources (particularly staff) also make incumbents more difficult to defeat. As a result, the more professionalized legislatures had lower rates of turnover before term limits were imposed and were more likely to be affected in measurable ways by the imposition of finite legislative terms. In the less professionalized legislatures, the rates of turnover did not change nearly as much as a result of term limits, except among leaders and committee chairs, who tended to come from a relatively small number of long-serving members. Taking the restrictiveness of the limits together with the degree of professionalization, we can place the impact of term limits on states along a continuum. California, with its highly professionalized legislature and fourteen-year maximum lifetime limit, is at one end of the continuum. Louisiana, with its less professionalized legislature and twenty-four-year consecutive limit, is at the other. Some states are farther along in their term limit cycles than others. Even so, it is possible to make some clear assessments of the questions we posed at the beginning of the book. In their chapter on the evolution of term limits (chap. 1), Jennie Drage Bowser and Gary Moncrief set out the terms of the debate as articulated in the initiative campaigns and court cases about term limits. In the following section, we review the results in that framework. © 2007 by University of Michigan Press. All rights reserved.