An Unexpected Benefit of Term Limits

by Karl Kurtz

States with term limits have higher proportions of former state legislators serving in Congress than states without term limits. The national average of former legislators in Congress is 50.5 percent, ranging from 100 percent (of three seats in the U.S. House and Senate) in Montana and Wyoming to zero percent (of five seats) in New Mexico. But among term-limited states the average is 60.7 percent compared to 46.1 percent in non-term-limited states.

I arrived at these numbers by a somewhat circuitous route. Several weeks ago, the Sacramento Bee had an interesting story, "Political merry-go-round diminishes Democrats' clout in Legislature." The premise of the story was that California Democrats are very close to having the two-thirds majorities necessary to approve budgets in both chambers of their Legislature, but they are continually stymied by having vacancies in the Legislature created by legislators moving to other offices. For example, two California members of Congress have been appointed to positions in the Obama Administration. It is likely that current state legislators will run for those seats, causing vacancies in the Legislature. A state senator moving on to another office often creates a vacancy in the Assembly because Assembly members move to the Senate.

What the story does not say is that, from a comparative perspective, California has a unique set of circumstances that exacerbate the problem of musical chairs in the Legislature. First, it is the only state that has more members of Congress (55 including U.S. senators) than it does state senators (40). This means that California state senators who want to move to Congress are especially well-positioned to do so, as they are likely to have already run and won in districts larger than the congressional ones. Second, along with Arkansas and Michigan, California has the most restrictive of all term limits: six years in the Assembly and eight in the Senate and a lifetime ban on any further legislative service. California legislators who want to continue a career in politics have especially strong incentives to run for other offices.

This got me to wondering about the career path from state legislatures to Congress, how the number of former state legislators serving in Congress varies from state to state and what might explain the variation. To get at this, I turned NCSL's list of former legislators serving in Congress into numbers by state.

My first thought was that the ratio of state legislators to members of Congress in a state would help to explain state to state variation. Where the ratio is low, as in California (2:1), Texas (5:1) or Florida (6:1), legislators would have a better chance of getting elected to Congress than where it is high, as in New Hampshire (106:1), Vermont (60:1) or Montana (50:1). However, that turned out not to be true. While California leads the nation with 26 former state legislators serving in Congress, it ranks only 27th in the proportion of their congressional delegation that comes from the state Legislature. Texas is tied for fourth with Ohio in the number of former legislators in Congress but ranks 36^th as a proportion of the total congressional membership.

The top states in the proportion of former legislators are all small ones: Montana and Wyoming at 100 percent, followed by Oklahoma, Nevada, Idaho, Rhode Island and Maine, all with 75 percent or more former legislators serving in Congress. The congressional delegations of these states are so small, ranging from three in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho to seven in Oklahoma, that random, idiosyncratic factors can easily explain the large proportions of former legislators serving in Congress.

But right after that list of small states in the ranking of proportions of former legislators in Congress comes the large states of Florida, Ohio, and Michigan, along with medium/small-size Colorado—all with two-thirds or more former legislators in Congress. I realized immediately that all of the states in this second group, are term-limited (along with Montana, Oklahoma, Nevada and Maine from the first group). That led me to run the numbers. Here are the percentages of former legislators in Congress in the term-limited states:

State	Former legs in Cong.	Rank
Montana	100.0%	1
Oklahoma	85.7%	3
Nevada	80.0%	4
Maine	75.0%	5
Florida	70.4%	8
Ohio	70.0%	9
Colorado	66.7%	10
Michigan	64.7%	12
ALL STATES	50.5%
Arkansas	50.0%	22
California	47.3%	27
NON-TERM-LIMITED	46.1%
Arizona	40.0%	33
South Dakota	33.3%	40
Nebraska	20.0%	47

 

The reason for this connection between term limits and legislators moving to Congress is not complicated. Legislators in term-limited states who want to continue a political career will constantly watch opportunities to run for other offices and will be more willing to take risks (giving up their term-limited legislative seat) than will legislators in non-term-limited states.

For those of us who think that service in state legislatures is valuable training for Congress, this is an unexpected benefit of state legislative service.

Obviously, this is a pretty superficial analysis. Some of you are already asking if I have run these numbers before term limits. (I have not—maybe that's tomorrow's blog post.) The political scientists among you are immediately going to want a multivariate analysis to see if term limits are the only factor or if they wash out when controlling for other factors. And you're also probably asking why South Dakota and Nebraska are outliers far down the list.  (I have no idea.)

Any graduate students out there looking for a paper? If so, you're welcome to download the spreadsheet below and play with the numbers.  All you have to do is credit The Thicket and report back any findings to us.

Download Opportunity structure 

Comments

[Dave Rausch]

Texas has more members of Congress (34 including U.S. Senators) than members of the Texas Senate (31).

[Karl Kurtz]

Thanks for that correction about Texas, Dave. But Texas, of course, does not have term limits. In fact, I think it is a case in point that the absence of term limits means less incentive for members of the Legislature to run for Congress. Texas ranks #36 among the states with 38 percent of its congressional delegation having previously served in the legislature.

[Karl Kurtz]

Yet another correction: A reader notes that Michigan also has six year limits in the House and eight in the Senate. The reader is correct, and I have changed the original posting to substitute "Michigan" for "Florida" (which has eight year limits in each chamber). The original text read “Second, along with Arkansas and Florida, California has the most restrictive of all term limits: six years in the Assembly and eight in the Senate and a lifetime ban on any further legislative service."

Someday I will learn to look up my facts rather than spouting them off the top of my head.