Democracy Among Strangers: Term Limits' Effects on Relationships Between State Legislators in Michigan

Abstract

AbstractBy truncating service, term limits create massive turnover in some state legislatures where they exist, bringing flocks of newcomers into office. With less time to get to know each other and to develop expertise and influence, how do legislators know who to consult and whose advice to rely on? We explore this and other questions about three relationships (influence, friendship, and policy consultation) with a longitudinal study of the Michigan House of Representatives, a highly professionalized body with stringent limits on legislative terms. We found that term limits lead to a more pronounced regional component of friendship, greater concentration of influence among caucus leaders, consulting networks with more prominent hubs that could control the flow of information, and a decline in relationships across party lines. We argue that these effects of term limits bode poorly for bipartisan negotiation and consensus-building among legislators representing diverse constituencies.