Term Limits and the Representation of Women

Krista Jenkins, Rutgers University

Susan J. Carroll, Rutgers University

Our research addresses the question of whether and to what extent term limits increase the representation of women in state legislatures. It is motivated by the arguments of both scholars and practitioners that term limits will likely help women achieve more proportionate representation in legislative institutions. Specifically, Edward H. Crane, President of the Cato Institute, testified before a congressional subcommittee that women fare better in open seat races and that term limits would “enhance the competitiveness of elections and increase the number and diversity of Americans choosing to run” (1995). A similar theme is echoed in the research of women and politics scholars. Noting the disproportionate numbers of men elected to state legislatures, R. Darcy, Susan Welch, and Janet Clark (1994), for example, have argued that term limits have the potential to increase women’s representation by weakening the stranglehold of incumbency.¹

Increased numerical or descriptive representation of women in state legislatures is important because it is likely to lead to increased substantive representation of women. Several studies have demonstrated that women legislators at both state and national levels are more likely than their male colleagues to support feminist positions on so-called “women’s issues,” to actively promote legislation to improve women’s status in society, and to focus their legislative attention on health care, the welfare of family and children, and education (e.g., Dodson and Carroll 1991; Carroll 1994; Thomas 1994; Tamerius 1995; Flammang 1997). Consequently, if more women are elected to legislatures under term limits, women’s interests and concerns are likely to be better represented in the policy process.

How Women Are Faring Since the Implementation of Term Limits

While the hypothesized link between term limits and women’s increased representation is compelling, our research demonstrates that it has yet to fully materialize (Carroll and Jenkins 2001a; Carroll and Jenkins 2001b). We contend that the mere presence of open seat opportunities is insufficient for women to overcome their under-representation in state legislatures. Concerted recruitment efforts must go hand-in-hand with term limits in order to ensure enough women are poised to run for open seats when they become available.

Our findings are based on a data set we compiled for all 1998 and 2000 state legislative races in those states with forced retirements due to term limits.² The data set includes: all 1998 state house races in the six states which had by then implemented term limits for house seats (Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, and Oregon); all 2000 state house races in the above six states plus all house races in the five states that implemented term limits for house seats for the first time in 2000 (Arizona, Florida, Montana, Ohio, and South Dakota); all 1998 state senate races in the three states which had by then implemented term limits for state senate seats (California, Colorado, and Maine); and all 2000 state senate races in the above three states plus all senate races in the seven states that implemented term limits for senate seats for the first time in 2000 (Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota).

Each legislative seat was identified as either term-limited, other open (i.e., no incumbent running for reelection but not term-limited), or not open (i.e., incumbent seeking reelection).³ For each legislative race (seat), we also coded additional information about the number and sex of the candidates in the primary election in each party; the sex of the general election candidates and winner; and the sex and party of the incumbent. Most information on candidates was obtained from the Project Vote Smart⁴ web site and the office of the secretary of state in each state.

First, we found that in both 1998 and 2000, women’s numbers in term-limited seats in state houses and assemblies actually decreased. Across the six states that implemented term limits for state house races in 1998, 47 incumbent women were forced to leave office as a result of term limits while only 43 women won election to the house seats vacated by these women and other term-limited incumbents. Similarly, across the 11 states in which term limits were in effect for house seats in 2000, 70 women who served in term-limited seats were forced to resign while only 65 new women were elected to seats that opened up as a result of term limits. In both elections, then, the number of women who were forced to leave office because of term limits was greater than the number of women elected to seats vacated by term-limited incumbents.

The total number of women serving in the lower houses of the six states that implemented term limits for house seats in 1998 remained the same, 145, before and after the 1998 elections. For the 11 states in which term limits were in effect for house seats in 2000, the total number of women state representatives actually increased following the 2000 elections from 265 to 270. However, the stability or increase in women’s overall representation in term-limited states was due not to women’s victories in races for term-limited seats, but rather to women’s gains in races for non-term-limited seats (i.e., other open seats and seats where an incumbent sought reelection).

At the senate level, things were a bit different although the number of cases was much smaller. In 1998, the number of women serving in senate seats where an incumbent was term-limited increased following the elections, and in 2000 women’s numbers in term-limited seats stayed the same both before and after the elections.

In 1998, three women senators were forced from office due to term limits, and 10 women were elected to seats that were open because of term limits. Overall, women increased their numbers in state senates in term-limited states in 1998 (from 19 pre-election to 28 post-election), and across all three states this increase was due at least partially to gains women made as a result of term limits.

In 2000, the picture was decidedly more mixed. Overall, women picked up one additional senate seat in term-limited states, but in only two of the 10 states were women able to make gains partially attributable to successful candidacies for term-limited seats.

In order to account for the divergent experiences of women in term-limited houses and senates, we examined the prevalence of female candidates in races for term-limited seats. Women can only improve their numbers if they take advantage of the opportunities afforded by term limits and run for open seats. What we found is that women candidates were notably more absent from races for term-limited house seats than for term-limited senate seats.

In state houses, women failed to take advantage of a substantial proportion of the political opportunities provided by forced turnover in 1998 and 2000. For both elections across all term-limited states, in more than two-fifths of all races for house seats vacated because of term limits, no woman entered either the Republican or the Democratic primary. Moreover, in a majority of primary contests in both parties, no woman entered the primary of the party of the retiring incumbent. Thus, even in cases where a female candidacy would have benefited from the shared party affiliation of the outgoing incumbent, there were disappointingly few women candidates in both 1998 and 2000.⁵

Turning to the senate, women fared better in state senates than houses in term-limited seats in 1998 because of increased numbers of women candidates. Only 23.8 percent of contests for term-limited senate seats had no women candidates compared with 42.5 percent of house contests. Also, women were more likely to run for seats vacated by term-limited women incumbents in the senate than the house. At the house level, no women ran for one-third of those term-limited seats vacated by women incumbents. However, five women ran in primaries for the three seats vacated by term-limited women senators.

The picture changed in 2000 in ways that help to explain why women fared less well at the senate level in 2000 than they had in 1998 while still faring better at the senate level in 2000 than at the house level in either election. A larger proportion of term-limited senators, 20.2 percent, were women in 2000 than in 1998. Consequently, proportionately more women had to be elected to term-limited senate seats in 2000 than in 1998 simply to maintain pre-election numbers. While the proportion of term-limited women senators was larger in 2000 than in 1998, it was still smaller than the 25.5 percent of all term-limited state representatives who were women.

Conclusion

Overall, we believe our findings point to the critical importance of recruitment in determining whether term limits over the long-term will prove to be beneficial or disadvantageous in increasing women’s representation in state legislatures. In state senates, we found that most of those elected to term-limited senate seats were former or current state representatives who had either been forced out of office because of term-limits or who had chosen to take advantage of term-limited senate seats that opened up in their districts. For the short-term, at least, there may be a sufficient number of women state representatives, who face term limits themselves, to ensure a strong pool of potential women candidates for senate seats that become open as a result of term limits. However, at the state house level, such an obvious pool of potential candidates sufficient to maintain or increase women’s numbers in term-limited seats does not seem to exist. Without active recruitment efforts by party leaders, women’s organizations, or even women legislators themselves to ensure that viable women candidates step forward to take advantage of the opportunities presented by open house seats, our research suggests that term limits are not likely to have the positive effects on the numbers of women serving in legislatures anticipated by scholars and term-limit advocates.

Notes

1. While the numbers of women serving in state legislatures have grown over time, in 2001 women accounted for only 22.4 percent of state legislators nationwide (Center for American Women and Politics, 2001).

2. The first forced retirements of legislators occurred in California and Maine in 1996. Because several other states joined Maine and California in implementing term limits for one or both of the legislative chambers, the 1998 elections were the first opportunity to examine empirically the hypothesis that term limits increase women’s representation.

3. All term-limited seats in this analysis were in single-member districts except for term-limited house seats in Arizona and South Dakota in 2000, where two representatives were elected from each district. For districts in these two states, we coded two races per district but included all new candidates running in the district as possible candidates for each seat. Thus, if a district had one seat where an incumbent was seeking reelection and another which was open due to term limits, we coded the two races as separate cases, one as an incumbent-occupied seat and one as a term-limited seat with all candidates in the race counted as candidates for the incumbent-occupied seat and all candidates except for the incumbent counted as candidates for the term-limited seat.

4. Project Vote Smart is the major program of The Center for National Independence in Politics, a national non‑partisan 501(c)(3) organization focused on providing citizens/voters with information about the political system, issues, candidates, and elected officials. Vote Smart collects demographic data on candidates in statewide and state legislative races across the country. Additionally, Vote Smart administers a “National Political Awareness Test” which measures candidates’ stances on issues of importance in each state. Vote Smart has collected independent, factual information on over 13,000 candidates and elected officials. Data from Vote Smart were obtained from their web site (

5. Across the states where term limits were implemented, a woman entered the Democratic primary to try to win the seat of a term-limited Democratic incumbent in only 42.2 percent of the cases in 1998 (N=102) and 46.6 percent of the cases in 2000 (N=131). A woman entered the Republican primary to run for the seat previously held by a term-limited Republican incumbent in only 48.1 percent of the cases in 1998 (N=77) and 41.7 percent of the cases in 2000 (N=144).

References

Carroll, Susan J. 1994. Women as Candidates in American Politics. 2^nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana.

Carroll, Susan J. and Krista Jenkins. 2001a. “Do Term Limits Help Women Get Elected?” Social Science Quarterly 82(1): 197-201.

Carroll, Susan J. and Krista Jenkins. 2001b. “Unrealized Opportunity? Term Limits and the Representation of Women in State Legislatures.” Women and Politics 23(4): 1-30.

Center for American Women and Politics. 2001. “Women in State Legislatures 2001 Fact Sheet.” http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/pdf/stleghist/stleg01.pdf (November 18, 2002).

Crane, Edward H. “Testimony before the Subcommitte on the Constitution, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate.” January 25, 1995. http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-cr-1.html (March 7, 1999).

Dodson, Debra L., and Susan J. Carroll. 1991. Reshaping the Agenda: Women in State Legislatures. New Brunswick, N.J.: Center for the American Woman and Politics.

Flammang, Janet A. 1997. Women’s Political Voice: How Women Are Transforming the Practice and Study of Politics. Philadelphia: Temple.

R. Darcy, Susan Welch, and Janet Clark. 1994. Women, Elections, and Representation. 2^nd Ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Tamerius, Karin L. 1995. “Sex, Gender, and Leadership in the Representation of Women.” In Gender, Power, Leadership, and Governance, ed. Georgia Duerst-Lahti and Rita Mae Kelly. Ann Arbor: Michigan.

Thomas, Sue. 1994. How Women Legislate. New York: Oxford.