Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism

Abstract

Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism. By Thad Kousser. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 288p. $ 70.00 cloth, $29.99 paper. Thad Kousser is interested in both term limits and legislative professionalism because they effect fundamental changes in the environment in which lawmakers work. Drawing upon Richard Fenno's paradigm, the author assumes that legislators will behave rationally, seeking to maximize their ability to win elections, affect policy, and gain influence in their chambers. How, he asks, do legislative professionalism and term limits alter the ways in which legislators do “transformative” work: 1) change budgets and 2) innovate in pursuance of their goals? And how do the alterations in the “internal power dynamics” of legislatures resulting from these reforms—3) the stability of leadership, 4) the independence of committees, and 5) the capacity for individual achievement—shape members' goal-seeking behavior?