The Effect of Term Limits on Policy Responsiveness

• In Event: Causal Inference and State Politics

Abstract

How do legislative term limits affect policy responsiveness? The introduction of term limits in the United States and abroad has received significant attention from scholars of American and comparative politics. Recent research points to pervasive effects of bans on reelection prospects, such as an increase in party polarization and fiscal irresponsibility, and a decrease in legislative efforts. However, the degree to which term limits impact the relationship between mass preferences and policy output remains an open question. Reputation models of political economy claim that incentives for legislators to represent median voter preferences should decrease when legislators are constrained from seeking reelection. Contrary to the pessimistic view of these models, we argue that restricting the number of terms public officials can serve increases policy responsiveness, especially in more professional legislatures. Rotation is already high in “citizen legislatures” even without term limits, whereas turnover tends to be lower in professional legislatures that provide lawmakers with more incentives to extend their careers.

When legislators in professional chambers face a term limit, rather than return to a well-established career, the professional nature of their political career should make them more likely to seek higher office. This view towards a higher office should make professional legislators facing term limits begin to represent a broader constituency, incorporating the preferences of more than then just the median voter of their own district into their choices. Thus, by weakening professional legislators' dyadic connection to their constituents and broadening the scope of their representational efforts, term limits can help improve macro level policy representation, while at the same time harming dyadic representation.

Employing panel data on American state legislatures from the 1930s to the present, we assess how term limits moderate the effect of the mass public’s preferences on state governments’ social and economic policy output. We find that increasing office turnover provides new policymakers incentives to match their policies with mass preferences. Specifically, our results indicate that the level of legislative policy liberalism corresponds more closely with mass preferences after the introduction of term limits in the legislature. Our findings thus suggest that term limits strengthen the connections between legislators and their constituencies and may improve representation of citizen interests in government.

Authors

• Jacob Turner, University of Notre Dame

• Natan Skigin, University of Notre Dame

• Jeffrey J. Harden, University of Notre Dame

• Justin Kirkland, University of Virginia