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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Are the movements transforming Europe about to cross the Atlantic and pass the baton of reform from the old world to the new? If so, then the transfer may be in the form of constitutional amending rather than revolutionary upheaval.
After the two U.S. House elections of 1986 and 1988, with their 98% reelection rates for incumbent members, resentment has intensified against the skillfully crafted techniques whereby incumbents secure homesteads for themselves in Congress. Indeed a Gallup poll conducted in January 1990 found 70% of Americans supportive of restricting congressional tenure. And in Oklahoma, Colorado and California—the three states where a systematic constitutional application of term limits appeared on the ballot—rotation in the legislative branch won handily.
Yet the election results in 1990 (96% reelection) showed the same electoral dominance by incumbent House representatives that has prevailed since World War II. For the last few elections at least, public support for rotation in office has run high, while hardly a blip has appeared in the trend toward incumbents at the ballot box.
1. The Wall Street Journal, 12 February 1990, Review and Outlook section. See also Roll Call, The Newspaper of Congress, 5 February 1990, pp. 1, 25.
2. Term limitation won by more than a two to one margin in Oklahoma and Colorado, where state legislators were limited respectively to 12 years and 8 years. In California, voters rejected an amendment similar to Oklahoma's in favor of a more rapid rotation: eight years in the senate (two terms) and six years in the assembly (three terms). The 52% margin of victory for proposition 140 in California is more impressive than appears at first glance. Since there were two rotation systems on the ballot, the pro-rotation vote was split, with some supporters of the more moderate proposition 131 voting against proposition 140.
3. Fenno, Richard F. Jr., “If, as Ralph Nader Says, Congress is The Broken Branch, How Come We Love Our Congressmen so Much?” in Ornstein, Norman J., ed., Congress in Change (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975), pp. 277–80.Google Scholar
4. A Gallup survey on confidence in American institutions conducted annually, 1973 through 1988, found an average of 36% of Americans expressing “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in Congress. The remaining 64% responded “some,” or “very little,” or no opinion. Congress finished seventh out of ten institutions surveyed, behind church/organized religion (64%), the military (57%), banks (51%), the U.S. Supreme Court (49%), public schools (49%), newspapers (37%). Only television, organized labor, and big business trailed Congress in public confidence (The Gallup Report, no. 279, December 1988, p. 30). Primary and general election results are calculated from CQ Weekly Report 38 (5 April 1980): 908, and subsequent post-election November issues.
5. Letter to Edmund Randolph from Lee dated 16 October 1787, in Lee, Richard Henry, The Letters of Richard Henry Lee, ed. Ballagh, James C., 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Co., 1911), 2:450, 455.Google Scholar See also 1:191, letter to Edmund Pendleton dated 12 May 1776, and Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican, ed. Bennett, Walter H. (University, Ala.: The University of Alabama Press, 1978), pp. 72–75, 86.Google Scholar
6. On the advantages of incumbency see, for example, Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 46 (19 November 1988): 3362–65; CQ Weekly 37 (7 July 1979): 1350–57; Ferejohn, John A., “On the Decline of Competition in Congressional Elections,” American Political Science Review 71 (March 1977): 166–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fiorina, Morris P., “The Case of the Vanishing Marginals: The Bureaucracy Did It,” American Political Science Review 71 (March 1977): 177–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mayhew, David R., “Congressional Elections: The Case of the Vanishing Marginals,” Polity 6 (Spring 1974): 295–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The franking privilege, long a formidable advantage for incumbents, has been greatly enhanced by means of a multi-million-dollar congressional computer system (The New York Times, national ed., 13 April 1984, pp. 1, 9). On the enormous recent expansion of franked mail see CQ Weekly 47 (18 February 1989): 301–02.
7. In ancient Athens and Sparta respectively, the council of 500 and the board of five ephors served in annual rotation. Until the first century B.C., the Roman republic rotated the tribunes and the various magistrates, including the consuls, by forbidding reelection to the one-year term. A second term as consul was permissible only after a ten-year interval. In the republic of Venice the inner circle rotated annually, while in Florence and other republics of Tuscany the top officials were limited to a single term of but two months. Until 1789 the American Articles of Confederation limited service in the Continental Congress to three years in six.
8. Supreme Court tenure based on average tenure of the incumbents as of January 1, each odd numbered year, 1947–1987. See Struble, Robert Jr., “House Turnover and the Principle of Rotation,” Political Science Quarterly 94 (Winter 1979–1980): 649–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, including fn. 4.
9. The exclusion of eleven southern states from general elections data is mainly for the decades of one-party rule after Reconstruction, when the Republican party of the South provided no real competition in general elections. The only contests were in primary races between Democrats. During the years 1830–60 and 1978–90, the performance of incumbents in the South is not radically different from incumbents elsewhere; we have therefore included southern data for these years in Figure 1. The sources for Figure 1 are updated from Robert Struble, Jr., ibid., p. 653, footnote 19.
10. Col. John Peale, Chief of the Personnel Branch, Joint Staff, in a telephone conversation 30 June 1989, with Robert Struble, Jr.
11. Farrand, Max, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 4 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911), 1:20.Google Scholar “Res[olved] that the members of the first branch of the National legislature ought to be elected by the people of the several States every —— for the term of ——; … to be incapable of reelection for the space of —— after the expiration of their term of service; and to be subject to recall.”
12. Retiring the 435 representatives every two years—1305 every six years—yields a mathematical possibility of 13 challengers for each of the 100 Senate seats. In practice, of course, not all ex-representatives will have enough recognition and backing to warrant statewide senatorial campaigns. Suppose that for each Senate seat only two ex-representatives run—one Democrat and one Republican. Even such a minimal level of competition would be six times the current level of senatorial candidates coming directly from the House, which has averaged less than one House candidate per three Senate races.
Calculated for the elections 1964 through 1988, from CQ Weekly Report 33 (6 December 1975): 2650, and the immediate post election issues for subsequent years. In these 13 elections there were some 434 Senate races; 131 representatives ran and 49 (37%) won.
13. Fiorina, , “The Case of the Vanishing Marginals: The Bureaucracy Did It,” 180.Google Scholar
14. Debate with Fund, John of the Wall Street Journal, at December 4, 1990 ALCT meeting, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
15. See, for example, the guest editorial by state senator Presley, Robert, “Taking California Back to Amateur Status,” Los Angeles Times, 8 November 1990.Google Scholar Presley's argument includes the following: “By approving the term limits mandated by proposition 140, the electorate has in effect cast a vote for inexperience and incompetence in the leadership of this great nation state of 30 million people [and] returned its Legislature to the status of rank amateurism….”
16. Michels, Robert, Political Parties; A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, trans. Eden, and Paul, Cedar (New York: Hearst's International Library Co., 1915), pp. 390–92, 400–02Google Scholar, contains a statement of the iron law of oligarchy. Michels finds the duration of tenure inversely related to democracy, and directly related to the rise of oligarchy (pp. 36, 40, 45, 84, 97–98, 127, 156, 400–01).
17. According to Polsby, a major development in the late 19th and the 20th century history of the House of Representatives has been what he calls the hardening of boundaries. As boundaries harden, three things are said to happen: turnover slows, entry into the office becomes more difficult, and internal leadership becomes professional and persists. Polsby, Nelson, “The Institutionalization of the U.S. House of Representatives,” American Political Science Review 62 (March 1968): 145–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18. Cooper, Joseph and West, William, “Voluntary Retirement, Incumbency and the Modern House,” Political Science Quarterly 96 (Summer 1981): 283, 288–90, 292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19. Our special gratitude to David Bangs of Microsoft Corporation whose technical expertise (not to mention his patience) was invaluable in the preparation of this manuscript.