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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]

The relationsip between legislators and bureacrats is a complex one that includes collaboration, cooptation, delegation and monitoring. Legislative term limits have the potential to alter this relationship in a number of ways. This paper explores the impact of term limits on the relationship between state legislators and bureaucrats, using data from personal interviews with both pre and post-term limited members of Michigan’s House of Representatives. Three measures are used: The extent to which legislators rely on bureaucrats for information and guidance, the level of priority legislators assign to monitoring state agencies, and how well members evaluated themselves as a chamber in monitoring the implementation of programs. Overall, we find that term limits has some important, but limited effects on the relationships between legislators and bureaucrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interaction between legislators and interest groups is a complicated two-way relationship that is likely to become even more complex in states that have adopted term limits. Based on a longitudinal study of member of the Michigan House of Representatives, the authors explore several facets of legislators’ perceptions of their relationship with lobbyists before and after term limits. Despite the claims of some term limits advocates that this reform would purge the state of cozy relationships between elected officials and special interests, the authors find that there is no difference between the extent to which legislators rely on interest groups and lobbyists for information and guidance on issues. Further they find that legislators may be more instead of less accessible to lobbyists after term limits. [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.