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The term limits movement is one of the mostsuccessful grassroots political efforts in U.S. his-tory. From 1990 to 1995 legislative term limitspassed in 18 states with an average of 68 percentvoter support. By the end of 2000 those term lim-its had affected more than 700 legislative seats.Term limits were intended to end careerismamong state legislators. Academic and otherresearch on the effects of term limits suggests thatthey have substantially attained that goal. Currentresearch supports the following conclusions:
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Term limits remain popular with stateelectorates long after their introduction.
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Term limits stimulate electoral competi-tion in state legislative elections.
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Term limits enable nontraditional candi-dates to run for seats in state legislatures.Female, Hispanic-American, and Asian-American candidates find it easier to enterterm-limited legislatures than non-term-limited bodies. The record is more mixedfor African Americans.
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Term limits weaken seniority systems instate legislatures.
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Term limits tend to weaken the leadershipof a state legislature.
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Term limits have not strengthened inter-est groups, state bureaucracies, or legisla-tive staffs as predicted by critics of termlimits.
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Some evidence suggests that term limitsfoster public policies compatible with lim-ited government.
Assessing the Term Limits Experiment 
California and Beyond 
by Patrick Basham
 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Patrick Basham issenior fellow in the Cato Institute’sCenter for Representative Government.
Executive Summary
No. 413August 31, 2001
 
Introduction
Term limits are perhaps the most far-reaching change in state legislaturesin recent decades. If we find that theyhurt the quality of representation,states may want to rethink them. Butif we find that term limits, on bal-ance, are beneficial, it might per-suade some additional states toenact them.
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Richard NiemiUniversity of RochesterThe term limits
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movement is one of themost successful grassroots political efforts inU.S. history. From 1990 to 1995 legislativeterm limits passed in 18 states with an aver-age of 68 percent voter support.
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InNovember 2000 Nebraska became the 19thstate to limit the terms of state legislators.
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By the end of 2000 term limits had affectedmore than 700 legislative seats. However,only 11 states (California, Maine, Colorado,Arkansas, Michigan, Oregon, Arizona,Montana, South Dakota, Ohio, and Florida)have actually put term limits into practiceduring the past five years. The last five ofthose states did not come on board until lastyear. A further seven states (Missouri, Idaho,Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming, Louisiana, andNevada) will put term limits into effect by2008. Term limits in the states have had abroad but unknown impact. For that reason,this paper seeks to assess the measurableeffects of state term limits in light of theintentions of their proponents.Term limits continue to be opposed by amajority of politicians
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and by a majority ofthe legislative staff, bureaucrats, journalists,and interest groups that depend on politi-cians for employment, patronage, sources,and votes. Interest groups (especially large,heavily regulated corporations as well asunions that rely on government interventionin the labor market) view term limits asanathema to their interests.
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A 1990 survey of302 state legislators found only 41 percent infavor of term limits.
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Inside the Beltway, the
Washington Post 
regularly editorializes to theeffect that “term limits are a terrible idea.”
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On the West Coast, the
San Francisco Chronicle 
concluded that “term limits at the legislativelevel have ill-served California.”
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Yet, despite asteady onslaught of negative commentaryemanating from the political and mediaestablishments, public opinion remainssolidly in favor of term limits.
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During lastyear’s elections, local term limits passed inCalifornia, Florida, Maryland, and NewMexico, adding to the total of nearly 3,000municipal offices and more than 17,000 localpoliticians already subject to term limits.On March 23, 1998, the U.S. SupremeCourt let stand term limits for California’sstate legislators, ensuring the survival ofcomparable term limit provisions in otherstates.
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That decision permitted ongoingtesting of the hypothesis that “there are sys-temic explanations . . . for our collectivewoes.”
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Almost 11 years after the passage ofthe first term limit provisions, researchers arenow able to move, albeit cautiously, fromspeculation to analysis. Caution is warrant-ed, given the well-documented difficulty intracking the effects of term limits. After all,“even in states like Maine and California thathave been under term limits for a few years,they’re in . . . a transition period right now.”
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Research and analysis are complicated by thedifferent influences of term limits on therespective state legislatures and by a variety ofcompounding factors, including the vagariesof term limit legislation and the differencesbetween so-called citizen and professionallegislatures. Therefore, it is apparent thatterm limits will produce different outputs indifferent states.
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Bruce E. Cain and Marc A.Levin note that “term limits vary in featuresthat may have causal significance.” Theysummarize:Most important, there are variationsin the length of the limits imposed,ranging from 6 to 12 years. Shorterterms . . . should have more pro-nounced effects than longer ones.
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Despite a steadyonslaught of neg-ative commentaryemanating fromthe political andmedia establish-ments, publicopinion remainssolidly in favor ofterm limits.
 
Twelve states limit by consecutiveyears of service, whereas the othersdo not. Some states, like California,include a lifetime ban, but othersmerely require that the office holderrotate out for a period of time. Inmost states, limits apply to service ina given chamber of the legislature,but in Oklahoma, limits apply to leg-islative service in either or bothchambers.
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“Citizen legislatures” (e.g., those of Maine,Montana, and South Dakota) feature politi-cians with relatively short tenure. They pos-sess small staffs, are paid relatively lowsalaries, largely act as part-time legislators,and attend short legislative sessions. In con-trast, “professional legislatures” (e.g., those ofCalifornia, Colorado, and Michigan) featurepoliticians who enjoy relatively lengthytenure, are usually full-time legislators, arepaid middle-class salaries, employ full-timestaff, and attend yearlong legislative sessions.The professionalization of state legislaturesbegan to gather momentum in the 1960s.
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That development has significant implica-tions for both the politics and the analysis ofterm limits. For example, as economistsStephanie Owings and Rainald Borck note,“It seems clear that the incentives for profes-sional legislatures to legislate to the benefitof special interest groups and to strikelogrolling deals differ from the incentivesfaced by citizen legislators.”
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Hence, the pre-diction of Rader, Elder, and Elling:The full impact of term limits willprobably not be realized until theyhave been in place for a number ofyears. The coercive or expulsioneffects of term limits come into playonly as the first cohort of legislatorsexhaust their allowable terms. Sucheffects are yet to be experienced insome states or have only recentlybeen experienced in others.
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This paper is both a review of existing andforthcoming studies of term limits in statelegislatures and an original analysis of exist-ing or obtainable data about both term-lim-ited and non-term-limited state legislatures. Iattempt to provide preliminary answers toseveral research questions directly related tothe influence of term limits on representativedemocracy and contemporary legislative pol-itics. Those questions include the following:
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Do term limits make campaigns morecompetitive?
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Are campaigns more costly under termlimits?
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Have term limits changed who runs forstate legislatures?
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Do term limits increase the occupa-tional and demographic diversity ofofficeholders and, if so, how?
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Have term limits changed the way statelegislatures work?
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Have term limits made legislators morewilling to act independently in defenseof either their states’ or constituents’interests?
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Have term limits weakened the politicalclass at the state level or have they sim-ply shifted power to bureaucrats, leg-islative staff, or interest groups?
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What quality of legislation is producedby term-limited legislatures?Throughout, I emphasize California’s termlimits experience. California is described byMichael Barone as “the great laboratory ofAmerica.”
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Moreover, the state is the largestterm-limited jurisdiction, has one of the old-est term-limited legislatures, epitomizes theprofessional legislature model, and thereforeprovides the most extensive source of rele-vant research material.
A Historical Overview ofTerm Limits
In free governments, the rulers arethe servants, and the people theirsuperiors. . . . For the former to
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The historicalroots of term lim-its are groundedin traditionalrepublican andclassical liberalmodels of limit-ed, democraticgovernment.
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