How Will Term Limits Affect Legislative Work?

Abstract

Though legislative term limits have been adopted in several states, in no state have they yet caused turnover. Data are therefore not available to evaluate the effects of term limits. What we can now do is to present informed speculation, supported where possible by data from other areas, about the effects of term limits. One purpose of such speculation is to give some guidance to voters. Another, scientific purpose, is to suggest hypotheses that can be tested in later years. Though for expository purposes we speak of the advantages of term limits, our primary purpose is the second—to provide testable propositions about the effects of term limits. Other papers in this volume also offer predictions about the effect of term limits; thus, for example, Cohen and Spitzer inquire into the intertemporal policy preferences of legislators subject to term limits, Gerber and Lupia examine the responsiveness of legislators to their constituents, and Reed and Schansberg explore the possible effects of term limits on partisan balance. Our focus in this paper is quite different—how will term limits affect the incentives of legislators to legislate.