Research Articles

The term limits movement of the 1990s was largely driven by Republican-led groups as part of a larger strategy to unseat entrenched Democratic incumbents in Congress and state legislatures. Likewise, many political scientists predicted that, as the traditional minority party, Republicans would benefit from term limits by eliminating the Democrats' incumbency advantage. However, other studies provided reasons to be skeptical of these predicted gains. No empirical study has yet examined the accuracy of these predictions. This study seeks to fill this void by utilizing multivariate data analysis to study the impact of term limits on the partisan composition of state legislatures from 1990 to 2004. The findings suggest that, holding other factors constant, Republicans have not gained representation at the state legislative level under term limits as was predicted.