Many Americans, frustrated or disillusioned with how the US Government functions, are asking for term limits for their elected representatives and judges, just like there are term limits for the President of the United States.
There are several organisations fighting for term limits. There are also many established institutions opposing term limits. I suppose most elected politicians are not keen on term limits and that aspiring politicians are.
The term limits movement in the US has failed at the Federal level, but it has had some success at the state level. Because of that, I was curious about the impact of term limits on some important indicators of government performance.
I am focusing on the US for several reasons; it is a country most of the world knows about, the term limits movement is quite active and, in many ways, what happens in the US, good or bad, and for good or bad, is a reference for many other societies.
Let us look at the information we have.
States with term limits for the legislators in the United States. I took this data were from Ballotpedia
As of 2018, 15 US states had term limits for their House (H) and the Senate (S), (the lower and upper chambers).
Alabama No term limits
Alaska No term limits
Arizona H: 4 terms (8 years) S: 4 terms (8 years)
Arkansas 16 year cumulative total, in either or both
California 12 year cumulative total, in either or both
Colorado H: 4 terms (8 years) S: 2 terms (8 years)
Connecticut No term limits
Delaware No term limits
Florida H: 4 terms (8 years) S: 2 terms (8 years)
Georgia No term limits
Hawaii No term limits
Idaho No term limits
Illinois No term limits
Indiana No term limits
Iowa No term limits
Kansas No term limits
Kentucky No term limits
Louisiana H: 3 terms (12 years) S: 3 terms (12 years)
Maine No term limits
Maryland No term limits
Massachusetts H: 4 terms (8 years) S: 4 terms (8 years)
Michigan H: 3 terms (6 years) S: 2 terms (8 years)
Minnesota No term limits
Mississippi No term limits
Missouri H: 4 terms (8 years) S: 2 terms (8 years)
Montana H: 4 terms (8 years) S: 2 terms (8 years)
Nevada H: 6 terms (12 years) S: 3 terms (12 years)
New Hampshire No term limits
New Jersey No term limits
New Mexico No term limits
New York No term limits
North Carolina No term limits
North Dakota No term limits
Ohio H: 4 terms (8 years) S: 2 terms (8 years)
Oklahoma 12 year cumulative total, in either or both
Oregon No term limits
Pennsylvania No term limits
Rhode Island No term limits
South Carolina No term limits
South Dakota H: 4 terms (8 years) S: 4 terms (8 years)
Tennessee No term limits
Texas No term limits
Utah No term limits
Vermont No term limits
Virginia No term limits
Washington No term limits
West Virginia No term limits
Wisconsin No term limits
Wyoming No term limits
Let us now look at the public debt per person of individual states, to see if it looks like term limits promote responsible public expenditures.
I took the data from worldpopulationreview.com
State Debt PP Does it have term limits for legislators?
- Massachusetts $11,043 Yes
- Connecticut $10,877 No
- Rhode Island $8,457 No
- Alaska $8,068 No
- New Jersey $7,371 No
- New York $7,162 No
- Hawaii $6,835 No
- New Hampshire $5,644 No
- Vermont $5,577 No
- Illinois $4,883 No
- Delaware $4,641 No
- Maryland $4,607 No
- Washington $4,287 No
- West Virginia $4,244 No
- Wisconsin $3,974 No
- South Dakota $3,907 Yes
- Louisiana $3,895 Yes
- California $3,825 Yes
- North Dakota $3,788 No
- Pennsylvania $3,706 No
- Maine $3,530 No
- New Mexico $3,366 No
- Michigan $3,331 Yes
- Indiana $3,238 No
- Virginia $3,226 No
- Kentucky $3,201 No
- South Carolina $3,022 No
- Missouri $2,986 Yes
- Oregon $2,943 No
- Colorado $2,905 Yes
- Minnesota $2,870 No
- Ohio $2,851 Yes
- Kansas $2,590 No
- Montana $2,572 Yes
- Mississippi $2,499 No
- Utah $2,271 No
- Oklahoma $2,138 Yes
- Arizona $1,937 Yes
- Iowa $1,934 No
- Idaho $1,845 No
- Alabama $1,787 No
- Texas $1,729 No
- Arkansas $1,580 Yes
- North Carolina $1,537 No
- Wyoming $1,357 No
- Florida $1,311 Yes
- Georgia $1,216 No
- Nevada $1,035 Yes
- Nebraska $1,032 Yes
- Tennessee $888 No
You can draw your own conclusions, but I am not sure that term limits make a significant difference, at least in the control of public debt.
Massachusetts has not benefited from term limits, but perhaps the next 15 states would have performed better if they had term limits. As I continue down the list, I see many states with no term limits outperforming many with term limits.
My impression is that term limits may help, but are not decisive to control public debt.
Let us look at public approval of the legislature to see if term limits make a difference.
There is an interesting Master thesis by John W Downs III Scholarworks at Indiana University.
The thesis investigated if there is a correlation between term limits for legislators of US states and the public approval ratings of legislators. The conclusion of the thesis is that there is a correlation.
But I am not sure public approval is a meaningful indicator of sound management. I say that because in representative democracies, where one important goal of politicians is to get re-elected, (even states with term limits allow between 1 and 5 re-elections), politicians have learned to please voters to get re-elected.
When the politician can not run again for the same position, he or she will run for another one; as far as I know, no state bans politicians to run again for another position. This means that always politicians have a powerful motivation to please voters for the short term.
If politicians leave politics after their last term in office, the political parties have the same incentive as before to please voters, so that the new candidate “re-elects” the party.
I was also curious about unemployment rates and term limits. I wanted to see if term limits promote better government, perhaps it would show lower unemployment figures for states with term limits.
Here are the unemployment rates of US states as of October 2020. I took the data from the US Government; https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm
State Rate Term Limits (Legislatures)
- Nebraska 3.0 Yes
- Vermont 3.2 No
- Iowa 3.6 No
- South Dakota 3.6 Yes
- Utah 4.1 No
- New Hampshire 4.2 No
- South Carolina 4.2 No
- Georgia 4.5 No
- Minnesota 4.6 No
- Missouri 4.6 Yes
- North Dakota 4.8 No
- Montana 4.9 Yes
- Indiana 5.0 No
- Kansas 5.3 No
- Virginia 5.3 No
- Maine 5.4 Yes
- Idaho 5.5 No
- Michigan 5.5 Yes
- Wyoming 5.5 No
- Delaware 5.6 No
- Ohio 5.6 Yes
- Wisconsin 5.7 No
- Alabama 5.8 No
- Alaska 5.9 No
- Washington 6.0 No
- Connecticut 6.1 No
- Oklahoma 6.1 Yes
- Arkansas 6.2 Yes
- North Carolina 6.3 No
- Colorado 6.4 Yes
- West Virginia 6.4 No
- Florida 6.5 Yes
- Illinois 6.8 No
- Oregon 6.9 No
- Texas 6.9 No
- Rhode Island 7.0 No
- Pennsylvania 7.3 No
- Kentucky 7.4 No
- Massachusetts 7.4 No
- Mississippi 7.4 No
- Tennessee 7.4 No
- Maryland 7.8 No
- Arizona 8.0 Yes
- New Mexico 8.1 No
- New Jersey 8.2 No
- California 9.3 Yes
- Louisiana 9.4 Yes
- New York 9.6 No
- Nevada 12.0 Yes
- Hawaii 14.3 No
I am not a statistician, an economist, a sociologist, a meteorologist, a soils expert, etc., all rolled into one, to know if unemployment figures have anything to do with term limits or with something else, but it seems term limits are not a decisive factor to determine unemployment levels.
My next blog I will look at term limits for governors.
I will also try to show that the root problem in the US, and other representative democracies, is not the lack of term limits, it is the limits by representative democracy on the power of voters.
