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1 results

  • Legislative Term Limits and Ideological Representation

  • Michael P. Olson
  • Journal:
    Journal of Policy History / Volume 37 / Issue 1 / January 2025
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    27 January 2025, pp. 48-70
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  • How do term limits affect dyadic ideological representation? Despite reformers’ claims that term limits should improve legislators’ connections to their constituents, much empirical political science research suggests that term limits actually break that electoral connection. In this study, I use a regression discontinuity design to measure the ideological gap in how Democrats and Republicans represent evenly matched districts and then explore how this gap varies across settings with and without state legislative term limits in effect. Across a number of specifications, my results are consistent with term limits exacerbating rather than improving dyadic representation. This study contributes to a growing scholarly consensus that term limits do not improve, and may worsen, state legislative representation.