Bureaucrats and Legislators in Michigan: A Complex Relationship Complicated by Term Limits.

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]