Changing Patterns in State Legislative Careers

State legislatures have changed more than perhaps any other American political institution in the last two decades, argue Gary F. Moncrief and Joel A. Thompson. This volume examines those changes and explores their impact on the individual legislator.

The editors have assembled a group of leading state legislative scholars, who address changes in the composition of the legislature; entry and exit issues; campaign financing; elections; midsession vacancies; committee systems; and legislative leadership.

Changing Patterns in State Legislative Careers covers a timely topic, given the recent movement in a number of states to limit legislative terms. It will be of interest to those who study legislative behavior, American political institutions, organizational change, and elections.

Contributors: William Pound, Joel A. Thompson, Gary F. Moncrief, Charles S. Bullock III, Patricia Freeman, William Lyons, Harvey J. Tucker, Ronald E. Weber, David Breaux, Malcolm Jewell, Anthony Gierzynski, Keith Hamm, David M. Olson, Ronald Hedlund, Peverill Squire

Praise / Awards

• "This collection of work by 15 political scientists is a fine example of contemporary research on state legislatures. . . . These studies are solid and direct, a model of their kind. They serve to test our beliefs about legislative life, confirming some of these beliefs, qualifying others, and offering a few that we may not have considered very much at all."
  —American Political Science Review
  
• "A superb contribution to the literature on state government, well written and well argued."
  —Choice
  
• ". . . an excellent addition to growing literature on the 'supply side' of politics."
  —Journal of Politics