Legislative Term Limits: Public Choice Perspectives

391 Pages·1996·9.729 MB·English

by  Bernard Grofman (auth.), Bernard Grofman (eds.)

LEGISLATIVE TERM LIMITS:
PUBLIC CHOICE PERSPECTIVES
STUDIES IN PUBLIC CHOICE
Series Editor:
Gordon Tullock
Department of Economics
The University of Arizona
Tuczon, AZ 85721
Other books in this series:
Bowman, Mary Jean
Collective Choice in Education
Buchanan, James M. and Wagner, Richard E.
Fiscal Responsibility in Constitutional Democracy
McKenzie, Richard B.
The Political Economy of the Educational Process
Auster, Richard D. and Silver, Morris
The State as a Firm
Kau, James D. and Rubin, Paul H.
Congressmen, Constituents, and Contributors:
The Determinants of Roll Call Voting in the
House of Representatives
Ordeshook, Peter and Shepsie, Kenneth
Political Equilibrium
Tullock, Gordon
The Economics of Special Privilege and Rent Seeking
Hillman, Arye
Markets and Politicians
Tullock, Gordon
Economic Hierarchies, Organization and the Structure
of Production
The intersection of economics and politics is one of the most important areas of
modem social science. "Studies in Public Choice" is devoted to a particularly
crucial aspect of this intersection -- the use of economic methods and analysis
on matters which are traditionally political in nature. Prominent scholars, such
as Duncan Black, Kenneth Arrow, Mancur Olson, Vincent Ostrom, William
Riker, and James Buchanan, have contributed to the development of the study
of public choice. The aim of this series is to promote the growth of knowledge
in this important and fascinating field.
LEGISLATIVE TERM LIMITS:
PUBLIC CHOICE PERSPECTIVES
edited by
Bernard Grofman
,.
~.
Kluwer Academic Publishers
BostoniDordrecht/London
Distributors for North America:
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Distributors for all other countries:
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Legislative term limits: public choice perspectives / edited by
Bernard Grofman.
p. cm. -- (Studies in public choice: 10)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-7307-3 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-1812-2
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-1812-2
1. United States. Congress--Term of office. 2. Social choice
-United States. I. Grofman, Bernard. II. Series.
JK1140.L44 1996
328,73 '073--dc20 95-52837
CIP
Copyright @ 1996 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1996
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical,
photo-copying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of
the publisher, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Drive, Assinippi Park,
Norwell, Massachusetts 02061.
Printed on acid-free paper.
CONTENTS
List of Figures ................................................................................................... ix
List of Tables .................................................................................................... xi
Contributing Authors ....................................................................................... xv
Preface ............................................................................................................ xxi
Acknowledgments ........................................................................................ xxiii
Introduction to the Term Limits Debate: Hypotheses in Search of Data
Bernard Grofman ..................................................................................... 1
I. Predicting the Impact of Term Limits on Legislator Behavior and
Electoral Responsiveness ...................................................................... 19
1. The Varying Impact of Legislative Term Limits
Bruce E. Cain ................................................................................. 21
2. How Will Term Limits Affect Legislative Work?
Amihai Glazer and Martin P. Wattenberg ...................................... 37
3. Term Limits and Representation
Linda R. Cohen and Matthew L. Spitzer ....................................... 47
4. The Impact of Term Limits on the California Legislature:
An Interest Group Perspective
Elizabeth A. Capell ........................................................................ 67
5. Term Limits, Responsiveness and the Failures of Increased
Competition
Elizabeth R. Gerber and Arthur Lupia ........................................... 87
6. Impact of Congressional Tenure Restriction on Spending
W. Robert Reed and D. Eric Schansberg ..................................... 101
vi Legislative Term Limits
II. Predicting the Impact of Term Limits on Legislative Turnover and
Party Balance. ..................................................................................... 117
7. For Whom the Bell Tolls: Term Limits and State Legislatures
Gary F. Moncrief, Joel A. Thompson, Michael Haddon, and
Robert Hoyer ...................................................................... .......... 119
8. An Analysis of the Impact of Congressional Term Limits on
Turnover and Party Balance
W. Robert Reed and D. Eric Schansberg ...................................... 129
9. Term Limitation in a Dynamic Model of Partisan Balance
John B. Gilmour and Paul Rothstein ............................................ 145
10. The Effect of Term Limits when Competition is Endogenized:
A Preliminary Model
Bernard Grofman and Neil Sutherland ......................................... 175
III. Voter Attitudes and the Contemporary Movement for Legislative
Term Limits ........................................................................................ 183
11. An Analysis of Term Limitation Elections
Keith Boeckelman and Gina Corell .............................................. 185
12. Term Limits in Oklahoma, California and Colorado in 1990
John David Rausch, Jr. and Gary W. Copeland ............................ 199
13. Reconciling Voters' Behavior with Legislative Term Limits
Andrew R. Dick and John R. Lott, Jr. .......................................... 215
14. Term Limits as Political Redistribution
Daniel Friedman and Donald Wittman ......................................... 229
15. Term Limits and Political Conflict
Alexander Tabarrok ...................................................................... 237
IV. Term Limits in Historical and Comparative Perspective .................... 245
16. A History of Rotation in Office
Mark P. Petracca ........................................................................... 247
Contents vii
17. Gubernatorial Term Limits and Term Lengths in Historical Perspective,
1790-1990: Geographic Diffusion, Non-Separability, and the
Ratchet Effect
Bernard Grofman and Neil Sutherland .......................................... 279
18. The Experience with Municipal Term Limits in Orange County,
California
Mark P. Petracca and Kareen Moore O'Brien ................................ 289
19. Term Limits and Local Governments in California
Bruce E. Cain ................................................................................. 309
20. Parties, Incentives, and Term Limits in Costa Rica
John Carey ...................................................................................... 321
Postscript: Alternatives to Term Limits
Carole Jean Uhlaner ...................................................................................... 347
References ..................................................................................................... 351
Author Index .................................................................................................. 379
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 3.1 The Basic Prisoners' Dilemma Game ........................................... 48
Figure 3.2 Legislator'S Finite Game Tree ...................................................... 50
Figure 3.3 Prisoners' Dilemma Game with Changed Payoffs ....................... 51
Figure 3.4 Aggregated Payoffs in Prisoners' Dilemma Game ....................... 55
Figure 3.5 Prisoners' Dilemma Game with an End Period
that Is Certain ................................................................................ 56
Figure 5.1 Tenure in California Assembly ..................................................... 70
Figure 5.2 Tenure in California Senate .......................................................... 71
Figure 8.1 Expected Length of Completed Tenure by
Congress of Entry ....................................................................... 132
Figure 8.2 Waiting Time before Appointment to House Leadership ............ 134
Figure 8.3 Freshman Representatives as a Percentage of Total ................... 136
Figure 8.4 Democratic Advantage in the Number of House Seats ............... 138
Figure 9.1 Seats and Loss Rates ................................................................... 148
Figure 9.2 Illustrations of Equilibria ............................................................ 154
Figure 9.3 Theoretical Steady State Partisan Balance .................................. 155
Figure 9.4 Loss Rates ................................................................................... 160
Figure 9.5 Retirement Rates ......................................................................... 161
Figure 9.6 Steady State Republican Tenure Profile ...................................... 162
x Legislative Term Limits
Figure 9.7 Steady State Democratic Tenure Profile ..................................... 163
Figure 9.8 Steady State Republican Seats with Different Term Limits ........ 165
Figure 9.9 Convergence to New Steady State with 6-Term Limit ............... 166
Figure 13.1 The Effect of Term Limits on Political Support .......................... 222
Figure 17.1 Years from Admission into the Union until
First Use of Gubernatorial Term Limits ...................................... 286
Figure 20.1 Political Experience of Costa Rican Deputies from
1974-1990 Cohorts Positions Held Prior to National
Assembly Term ........................................................................... 324
Figure 20.2 Rate of Appointments of Ex-Deputies to Executive
Positions during Term Immediately Following Assembly
Service, According to Party's Fortunes in Next
Presidential Election ................................................................... 327
LIST OF TABLES
Table 6.1 Predicted Variable Coefficients by Hypothesis ........................... 106
Table 6.2 Sample Characteristics ................................................................ 108
Table 6.3 The Relationship between Tenure and Spending
in the House ................................................................................ 110
Table 6.4 The Relationship between Tenure and Spending
in the Senate ................................................................................ 111
Table 7.1 Cohort Return Rates .................................................................... 122
Table 7.2 The Relationship between Cohort Retention and
Legislative Professionalism ........................................................ 125
Table 7.3 The Relationship between Cohort Retention and
Squire's Career Opportunity Type .............................................. 126
Table 10.1 Gubernatorial Tenure as a Function of Term Length
and Term Limitation, 1790-1990 ................................................ 180
Table 11.1 Statewide Offices Used to Measure Partisanship ....................... 188
Table 11.2 Coefficients Obtained from Regression of County
Level Vote Totals in California, Colorado, and Oklahoma
on Income (PCAP), Race (WHT), and Partisanship (PTY)
Variables ...................................................................................... 189
Table 11.3 Coefficients Obtained from Regression of County Level
Vote Totals on Income (PCAP), Race (WHT),
Partisanship (PTY), and Perot Vote (PEROT) Variables ............ 192
Table 11.4 Coefficients Obtained from Simple Regression of County
Level Vote Totals on Race (WHT) Variable ................................ 195