Toward an Ambition Theory of Legislative Organization.

This paper proposes a more general theoretical foundation for the study of legislativeorganization than that provided by the reelection imperative. The basisfor this more general framework is Schlesinger's (1966) Ambition Theory. Thepaper presents some predictions about legislative committees that come out ofthis Ambition Theory of Legislative Organization, and tests them using the naturalexperiment provided by state legislative term limits. The empirical resultsprovide evidence in support of the predictions, suggesting that with some modifications,the theory may have applications across a broad set of legislatures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]