Have Term Limits Reached Their Limit?

Despite a recent New York Times front-page story highlighting the alleged troubles plaguing term limits, the good news is the bad news is wrong. At the state level, term limits are proving a far more positive influence than critics are willing to let on.

Eighteen state legislatures currently experiment with term limits, but only 11 states have actually implemented term limits--that is, have seen legislators forced out of office--over the past five years. Of these 11, five states came on line in 2000. Last year, 380 state legislators left office due to term limits. Term limits will be effective in another seven states by 2008.

Commenting on their recent implementation in his state, pro-term limits Florida Governor Jeb Bush predicted, "It's going to bring about better government." This essay assesses the measurable effects of state term limits by focusing on two questions central to the viability of the term limit project: Do term limits stimulate political competition? And, from a limited government perspective, have term limits improved the policymaking process?

Producing definitive answers to these questions is somewhat constrained by the variety of term limit laws, full-time and part-time legislatures, and campaign finance regulations in effect across the term-limited states. Nevertheless, some tentative conclusions are possible.

Political Competition

Term limit legislation, by design, guarantees the frequent turnover of legislators. Preliminary indications confirm that the number of candidates for state office has increased, with the result that voters in term-limited states now select from a larger pool of candidates and the outcomes of both primary and general elections are closer.

Research conducted in California by political scientists Mark Petracca and Richard Clucas found that term limits promote a more competitive electoral environment. Meanwhile, economists John R. Lott and Kermit Daniel drew this encouraging conclusion from their research on the issue:

Term limits have coincided with large changes in the level of political competition. . . . The changes are so large that more incumbents are being defeated, races are closer, more candidates are running, and there are fewer single-candidate races than at any other time during our sample period from 1976 to 1994.

Specifically, before the implementation of California term limits in 1996 there was a reduction in the political class's concentration of power, as the number of legislators who chose to retire increased significantly­from a rate of only 21 percent in 1992 to 36 percent between 1992 and 1996.

According to political scientist John Armor, California's experience also demonstrates that term limits increase the political choices available to voters. For example, the term limits ballot victory in 1990 resulted in a 25 percent increase in state senate candidates and a 50 percent increase in state assembly candidates in 1992; in 1994, the number of state senate candidates increased further while the number of assembly candidates was 15 percent higher than in 1990.

In 1999, Jean-Philippe Faletta and his political science colleagues found that in both California and Michigan term limits led to increased voluntary turnover and more competitive primary elections. Regarding Michigan, political scientist Jovan Trpovski and his fellow researchers found that "during the first two elections after members were termed out of the House (in 1998 and 2000) there was a slight increase in electoral competition for open seats."

Increased political competition is evident in other term-limited Midwestern states. Crowded primary fields resulted in Ohio's March 2000 primaries fielding the highest number of candidates in two decades.

Prior to term limits, potential high-quality candidates were discouraged from running for office because it frequently took decades in political life before one achieved, largely through seniority rather than merit, any meaningful influence over legislative affairs and, ultimately, public policy. But term limits alter the institutional culture of a state legislature to the extent that freshmen legislators may possess immediate influence.

Policymaking

The indications are that, over the long term, term limits will act as a restraint on the size and scope of state government. Why? The initial evidence suggests the psychological and philosophical make-up of term-limited legislators, in tandem with a finite tenure, coalesce in favor of limited government.

Looking first at the politicians themselves, term-limited legislators appear more willing than their more senior colleagues to reassess the (statist) status quo--that is, they are more inclined to seek to change things, and to seek change in a more market-oriented direction. In part, this reflects the fact that, according to recent studies by Rich Jones and Nancy Rhyme of the National Conference of State Legislatures and political scientists Gary Moncrief and Joel Thompson, candidates in term-limited states are more ideological than their predecessors.

The influx of legislators who are relatively new to politics adds to the legislative mix a whole host of previously under-appreciated private-sector insights and experiences. The term-limited appear willing to exhibit an independence frequently absent from other state legislatures.

The relatively short shelf life of a term-limited legislator seems to reduce the incentives that lead careerist legislators to support electorally efficient, but economically inefficient, government spending.

For example, a national survey of 3,000 state legislators conducted by political scientists John Carey, Richard Niemi, and Lynda Powell, found that, "With respect to legislative behavior, term limits decrease the time legislators devote to securing pork, and heighten the priority they place on the needs of the state and on the demands of conscience relative to district interests."

Moreover, the scholarly evidence clearly indicates that the prolonged exposure to lobbyists and bureaucrats experienced by the long-term incumbent legislator leads to bigger, not smaller, government. In practice, there is a positive correlation between the length of a legislator's career and his votes in favor of more government spending.

Following James Payne's documentation of this relationship in the congressional context, more recently John Armor and the Cato Institute's Steven Moore found that term limits stimulate voting in a more frugal direction. This scenario is currently playing out, for example, in term-limited Arizona, where a number of big-spending career politicians were replaced by far more fiscally conservative citizen legislators.

A New Era

Increasing competition in the political marketplace, as in the economic marketplace, leads to greater consumer choice and satisfaction. Furthermore, term limits may be influencing the motivation of those attracted to public office. More candidates may view a brief career in the state legislature as a worthwhile, if temporary, vocation.

At the state level, the greater competition fostered by term limits may be ushering in a new era of grassroots representative democracy. Term limits also may be altering legislative outputs. Limiting terms may lead to limited government, or at least a smaller government than would have happened in their absence.

Those who remain skeptical of the term limits experiment may share political scientist Bruce Cain's sentiment, that "There's a deep suspicion . . . that the major effect of term limits is to deprive the Legislature of the kind of background on technical issues that it used to have." In response, it is noteworthy that a so-called "wise old guard" of career politicians formerly ruled the state of California. It was under such experienced, moderate leadership that the state's energy "deregulation" plan received unanimous legislative approval. Now, can somebody get the lights?

Patrick Basham is a senior fellow at the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute, in Washington DC.