TY - BOOK ID - 80819722 TI - Term limits and the dismantling of state legislative professionalism PY - 2005 SN - 9780511614088 9780521839853 9780521548731 0511080638 9780511080630 051161408X 9780511079870 0511079877 9786610422128 6610422125 0521839858 052154873X 1107139996 1280422122 0511170696 0511206666 051129784X PB - Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, DB - UniCat KW - Term limits (Public office) KW - Legislators KW - Legislation KW - Legislative bodies KW - Legislative process KW - Law KW - Lawmakers KW - Legislatures, Members of KW - Members of legislatures KW - Members of parliaments KW - Parliaments, Members of KW - Statesmen KW - Limitations, Term (Public office) KW - Term limitations (Public office) KW - Public officers KW - States. KW - Term of office KW - Social Sciences KW - Political Science UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:80819722 AB - The wisdom of term limits and professional politics has been debated since the time of Aristotle, spurring 'reforms' of legislatures in Athens, Rome, Venice, and in the US under the Articles of Confederation. This book examines recent trends in American states in order to investigate the age-old question of how the rules that govern a legislature affect the behavior of its members and the policies that it produces. The clear and consistent finding is that the two reforms have countervailing effects: whatever professionalization has brought more of, term limits have reduced. This lesson comes from quantitative analyses of data from all fifty states and detailed examinations of legislative records from six states, informed by interviews with over one hundred legislators, staff assistants, lobbyists, journalists, and executive officials. ER -