ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the impact of state legislative term limits on electoral competition in races for the US House of Representatives. It considers the effect of state legislative term limits within states that have implemented limits by comparing candidate quality levels over time. If the findings of the preliminary exploration hold up, the implication is that state legislative term limits are making—or at least are likely to make—U.S. House elections by producing high-quality challengers to run against incumbents. State legislative term limits are likely to increase the overall quality of candidates in open seats across the country. The data offer support for the contention that state legislative term limits increase electoral competition in open seat races by producing higher proportions of former state legislators as candidates in these races. The chapter also considers state legislative term limits as one variable in multivariate analyses to test for its effect on aggregate quality levels and well as in the individual-level analysis.
