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This paper seeks to explore the indirect effect of state legislative term limits on races for local office. Specifically, the research question of interest is: Are members of the State House of Representatives more likely to run for local office after the passage of term limits? Researchers have demonstrated that most term-limited legislators are still interested in remaining in public life. However, ambitious legislators in a state with limited opportunities for upward mobility such as Michigan may choose to return to local office rather than the traditional progression up the ?political ladder.? In order to address the question of interest, data were collected on the activities of legislators immediately after their last year in office in the Michigan House of Representatives between the years of 1982-2000. In all, 212 legislators were included in the analysis. The activities of a pre-term limit set of legislators (1982-1992) were compared to that of a post-term limit group of legislators (1993-2000). Overall, a multivariate probit model demonstrates that term limits do have a significant impact on a legislator’s decision to run for local office. Overall, legislators are 14.3% more likely to run for local government in the post term limit period. Other variables such as the presence of a senate election year, the Senate incumbent’s percent of the previous vote, and county population were also found to be significant at at least the .10 level with varying degrees of influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a five-year panel study of the Michigan House of Representatives, this investigation explores the impact of term limits on four relationships between legislators: influence, friendships, consulting about a politically salient issue and consulting about a technical issue. We found that overall the number of people described as influential declined, but those that were named were primarily those in positions of formal leadership. Surprisingly we found that friendships did not decline with an influx of newcomers, but cross-party friendships did decline. Finally, we found that hubs or key consultants emerged in both vote cuing networks, but especially around the technical issue. We argue that some impacts of term limits depend on the number of newcomers, but others reflect institutional changes in the term-limited legislature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the term limits of veterans on legislative positions in the U.S. It is stated that when term limits were disclosed, open seats in the upper chamber were often won by legislators who were expelled from lower chambers. Term-limited states in the U.S. include professional legislatures, such as California and Michigan, and part-time legislatures, such as Montana and Maine. Term limits were adopted by voters in Michigan in 1992, but their implementation was staggered.

The article reports on findings of a preliminary study aimed to examine patterns of bill introduction in the lower houses of the Michigan and Minnesota legislatures during the 2003-2004 session. In terms of legislators' personal attributes, gender and seniority have the strongest impact on the number of bills filed as well as the content of these proposals. The strongest support in terms of district characteristics is found for the hypothesis that links bill content to the existence of a large elderly population in a legislator's district.