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Carey, Moncrief, Niemi, and Powell. 2003. Term limits in the state legislatures: Results from a new survey of the 50 states. APSA paper.
RESEARCH QUESTION:
Many states adopted term limits in the early 1990s. Now that some time has passed, we can assess their affects. The authors want to assess three kinds of effect: Compositional, behavioral, and institutional.
Take-Away Point: Term limits have no significant effect on legislator demographics. They do have significant effects on behavior and institutional balance-of-power. (At least, if you believe in the data's validity).
FINDINGS
METHOD AND CONCERNS:
They gave surveys to all the state legislators in the nation with a 40% response rate. They compare responses in term-limit states to responses in non-term-limit states. Although they say things like "term limits increased...", however, all they can really demonstrate is that legislators give different answers in term limit states than in non-term limit states. This could have several different causes:
OTHER CONCERNS:
Research by the same authors
Research on similar subjects
Tags
Carey, John (author) • Moncrief, Gary (author) • Niemi, Richard (author) • Powell, Lynda (author) • American Politics • State Politics (U.S.) • Term Limits and Professionalism • Legislatures
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