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Term Limits, Electoral Competition, and Representational Diversity: The Case of Florida

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Scot Schraufnagel  and
Karen Halperin
Scot Schraufnagel
Affiliation:
University of Central Florida
Karen Halperin
Affiliation:
Florida State University
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Abstract

The article assesses two predictions made by term limits advocates: that term limits would increase electoral competition and enhance demographic representation in state legislatures. Although term limits may indeed have these consequences in some places and some times, their early effects in Florida do not provide support for these predictions. Our analysis suggests that state legislative seats that have opened up as the result of term limits yielded races with no smaller margins of victory than in previous elections, nor were they more likely to be contested by the two major political parties. Likewise, we found no significant increase in the representation of minorities or women in the Florida State Legislature after term limits.

Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , Winter 2006 , pp. 448 - 462
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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