The Impact of State Legislative Term Limits on the Supply of Congressional Candidates

Abstract

Do term limits affect the probability that an incumbent state legislator will run for the United States Congress? The theory of strategic politicians suggests that by reducing legislators' opportunity costs of running for higher office, term limits should push some legislators into congressional campaigns they would have foregone had a long-term legislative career been an option. To test this hypothesis, I analyze data from congressional elections held from 1992 through 2004 in the 15 states where term limits were operative in 2004. I find that sitting state legislators who have hit the limit of their state legislative service are more likely to run for Congress than those who are eligible to serve additional terms, whether those terms are limited or not. However, there is no statistically significant difference between the congressional-candidacy rates of legislators whose re-election eligibility is limited, but not exhausted, and legislators whose terms are not limited. By increasing the supply of experienced challengers, term limits may increase competition in elections for non-term-limited offices and, consequently, the quality of representation provided by those elected.

Constituency Congruency and Candidate Competition in U.S. House Elections

“…Additionally, we control for other factors that vary by state such as the presence of term limits and the level of professionalism of the legislature. All else equal, we might expect state legislators from states with term limits to be more likely to run for a seat in the U.S. House if they are progressively ambitious (see, e.g., Lazarus 2006; Powell 2000; Steen 2006). Since the degree of legislative professionalism can influence career choices, we include a measure derived by Squire (2007) as a control variable.…”

Electoral Career Movements and the Flow of Political Power in the American Federal System

“…One possible complication might involve the employment of rotation in some states and districts in the nineteenth century, an informal term limit mechanism that likely truncated an unknown number of congressional careers in ways that could be relevant to this analysis (e.g., Kernell 1977). Along somewhat similar lines, in more recent years, it is possible that the introduction of legislative term limits changed the career calculations of politicians in some states that might, at the margins, influence the relationships found here (e.g., Birkhead, Uriarte, and Bianco 2010;Lazarus 2006;Powell 2000;Steen 2006).…”

Constraining Bureaucrats Today Knowing You'll Be Gone Tomorrow: The Effect of Legislative Term Limits on Statutory Discretion

“…Once a state enacts legislative term limits, legislators continue to pursue their policy preferences to ultimately achieve reelection or election to another elected position (Carey et al, ; Lazarus, ; Powell, ; Steen, ). However, term limits impose finite time horizons upon legislators by limiting the amount of time legislators have to implement their policy preferences (Gurwitt, ; Kousser, ) .…”