Legislative Term Limits: Public Choice Perspectives

In developing Legislative Term Limits, the editor has included material that has explicit and testable models about the expected consequences of term limits that reflect Public Choice perspectives. This book contains the best efforts of economists and political scientists to predict the consequences of legislative term limits.

to the Term Limits Debate: Hypotheses in Search of Data.- I. Predicting the Impact of Term Limits on Legislator Behavior and Electoral Responsiveness.- 1. The Varying Impact of Legislative Term Limits.- 2. How Will Term Limits Affect Legislative Work?.- 3. Term Limits and Representation.- 4. The Impact of Term Limits on the California Legislature: An Interest Group Perspective.- 5. Term Limits, Responsiveness and the Failures of Increased Competition.- 6. Impact of Congressional Tenure Restriction on Spending.- II. Predicting the Impact of Term Limits on Legislative Turnover and Party Balance.- 7. For Whom the Bell Tolls: Term Limits and State Legislatures.- 8. An Analysis of the Impact of Congressional Term Limits on Turnover and Party Balance.- 9. Term Limitation in a Dynamic Model of Partisan Balance.- 10. The Effect of Term Limits when Competition is Endogenized: A Preliminary Model.- III. Voter Attitudes and the Contemporary Movement for Legislative Term Limits.- 11. An Analysis of Term Limitation Elections.- 12. Term Limits in Oklahoma, California and Colorado in 1990.- 13. Reconciling Voters’ Behavior with Legislative Term Limits.- 14. Term Limits as Political Redistribution.- 15. Term Limits and Political Conflict.- IV. Term Limits in Historical and Comparative Perspective.- 16. A History of Rotation in Office.- 17. Gubernatorial Term Limits and Term Lengths in Historical Perspective, 1790–1990: Geographic Diffusion, Non-Separability, and the Ratchet Effect.- 18. The Experience with Municipal Term Limits in Orange County, California.- 19. Term Limits and Local Governments in California.- 20. Parties, Incentives, and Term Limits in Costa Rica.- Postscript: Alternatives to Term Limits Carole Jean Uhlaner.- References.- Author Index.