We are now in our third decade since the first adoption of term limits for state legislatures in 1990. Although the number of states with term limits has dwindled to 15, they remain highly popular with the general public. However, nearly thirty years of research on term limits has generally not demonstrated the effects and outcomes that advocates of term limits sought. One shortcoming of this research, however, has been that much of it has been conducted in the two early phases of term limits implementation, anticipation and transition, which does not provide the full picture of their overall impact. Anticipation is the period just after their adoption, but before implementation, while transition focuses on the effects from the initial wave of legislators termed out. Much less recent research explores the equilibrium phase, which captures the long-term effects and impact of term limits after their full implementation.

Margaret Sarbaugh-Thompson and Lyke Thompson have dedicated much of their careers to investigating the impact of term limits in Michigan’s state legislature. Their earlier work covered the anticipation and transition phases of Michigan’s term limits, while their latest work, Implementing Term Limits: The Case of the Michigan Legislature, seeks to encompass all three phases of this far-reaching and consequential reform. The authors’ latest effort represents over 13 years of research into the inner workings of Michigan’s state legislature and how term limits have altered many aspects of legislative behavior and the institution itself. Sarbaugh-Thompson and Thompson rely mainly on data from 460 interviews with state legislators conducted both before and after term limits adoption and supplement it with roll-call votes, district characteristics, campaign finance activity, and election results. Collectively, the book represents the most comprehensive investigation of term limits at all phases of implementation in one state to date.

The book both confirms some of the previous things we know about term limits and plows a lot of new ground as well. One overarching theme is that the goals of term limits advocates have, for the most part, been unfulfilled. The original aims of these advocates, such as a more diverse legislative body and a reduction in lobbyist influence, among others, have launched many studies on the effects of term limits. For instance, one strand of research has examined the compositional effects of term limits, or whether they change the gender and racial/ethnic mix of legislators. Sarbaugh-Thompson and Thompson revisit this line of inquiry in Chapter 2, confirming previous findings that term limits have done little to alter the demographic makeup of the legislature, but they also extend the analysis to determine whether a “new breed” of legislators has emerged in the wake of this institutional shake-up. What they find is that post-term limits legislators are even more politically ambitious than their pre-term limits predecessors. “Term limits appear to transform legislative service in Michigan from a political career to a stepping-stone on a political career path” (p. 45). The citizen legislature envisioned by term limits advocates, whereby “ordinary” people would run for the state legislature, nobly serve the public for a short period, and then return to their private lives, has not come to fruition. This new breed of politically ambitious office-seekers provides the lens from which to view the ensuing analysis in Chapters 3–11.

Chapters 3–6 examine various aspects of the behavioral effects of term limits, including legislative representation, legislators’ time allocation in office, electoral competitiveness, campaign finance trends, and information sources for voting decisions. On the very important yet complicated question of representation, Sarbaugh-Thompson and Thompson do not add much to our understanding of the representational roles of legislators (trustee versus delegate) and part of this they attribute to the reluctance of legislators to reveal their voting calculus. This points to one shortcoming of the authors’ methodological approach: we only view the impact of term limits through the eyes of state legislators. Legislators should certainly be the primary interview targets, but interviews with legislative staff or even lobbyists may shed additional light on the representational role legislators assume in their decision-making. The authors’ findings are more conclusive on the subject of a “voting mismatch,” or the link between constituent preferences and representative voting behavior. “We conclude that term limits have unfastened the electoral connection in ways that leave voters with even less, rather than more, influence on legislators’ voting” (pp. 72–73). This finding speaks to the very question of whether the term limits’ reform is improving representative democracy.

One obvious shortcoming of the book is that it relies on a single state to investigate the long-term effects of term limits. The authors fully acknowledge this weakness and provide a more than adequate defense of their single case-study approach. Still, scholars of state politics may have lingering questions about the generalizability of the book’s findings given that Michigan’s version of term limits leaves it as an outlier among states with term limits. California and Arkansas, who had the same version, have both modified their limits. Michigan’s limits are the most stringent of any state: lower house members are allowed to serve three two-year terms and upper house members are allowed to serve two four-year terms. Of the 15 states with term limits, Michigan is one of only six that enforces a lifetime ban on legislators once they have served their allotted time in office. The other nine states impose consecutive bans, which allow representatives to return to the legislature after a brief hiatus or after serving in the other chamber.

While the case-study approach is its greatest weakness, it also functions as the book’s greatest strength and leads to its most significant contributions to our understanding of the impact of term limits. These contributions come from Chapters 7–11, which focus on the institutional effects of term limits, and most notably the exploration of friendship networks and chamber influence in Chapters 8 and 9. The authors employ network analysis to identify friendship clusters in each chamber and how those evolve over time with the full implementation of term limits. They document how these clusters dissolve as term limits churn members out of the chamber. Moreover, “top leaders are absent from clusters of friends, and they no longer hold these groups together” (p. 203). These findings suggest severe consequences for the coalition-building and compromise that is essential to the institution.

Chapter 9’s findings regarding legislative influence reinforce the notion that compromises are harder to come by in the post-term limits era. Informal influence, based on personal reputation and expertise, becomes a casualty of term limits as legislators no longer have the time necessary to build their reputation and develop an expertise. The authors conclude that “the best way to gain influence after term limits in both chambers is to hold a formal position” (p. 230).

The dissolution of relationships in the Michigan legislature raises a larger question about the role of term limits in the increasingly partisan American political system. The authors argue that term limits likely contribute to higher levels of partisanship, but do not examine this connection. Some recent research suggests a link between the two in state legislatures, but term limits in Michigan and elsewhere may be laying some of the groundwork for partisan warfare in Washington since state legislatures often serve as a training ground for Congressional members. Sarbaugh-Thompson and Thompson ultimately recommend that Michigan’s term limits ought to be modified and their latest contribution provides a convincing case for why.